Libero, legend and football's Kaiser

Franz Beckenbauer, a footballer so elegant that he was nicknamed 'Der Kaiser' and who won the World Cup as player and coach, has died. He was 78.

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"It is with deep sadness that we announce that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday, Sunday, surrounded by his family," the family said in a statement to DPA, the German news agency. "We ask that we be allowed grieve in peace and spared any questions." Beckenbauer dabbled with every aspect of football and generally emerged with flying colours.

Without any coaching experience, he took West Germany to two World Cup finals. He was a Bayern Munich legend and West Germany captain who led the country in 50 of his 103 internationals. He won the Ballon d'Or twice. He was also Pele's teammate at New York Cosmos and the man who got the World Cup to Germany in 2006. His role as an administrator at FIFA though was marred by allegations of foul play.

To Beckenbauer goes the credit of inventing the position of a sweeper, a defender who would join in the attack. "My style was very unusual at that time because a defender was a defender, a midfielder was a midfielder and a striker, striker," he told HT in an interview in Munich in 2011.