Editing Franz Beckenbauer (section)

==Early life==
Franz Anton Beckenbauer<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.br.de/nachrichten/sport/franz-beckenbauer-der-libero-als-der-kaiser-das-spiel-neu-erfand,ToadWmY |title=Franz, der Libero: Als Beckenbauer das Spiel neu erfand |trans-title=Franz, the Libero: When Beckenbauer reinvented the game |website=BR24 |date=8 January 2024 |access-date=4 January 2025 |language=de}}</ref> was born on 11 September 1945 at a clinic in the [[Maxvorstadt]] borough of [[Munich]], the second son of postal-worker Franz Beckenbauer Sr. and his wife Antonie (née Hupfauf).<ref>{{cite book |first=Uli |last=Hesse |title=The Three Lives of the Kaiser: A Biography of Franz Beckenbauer |date=2024 |orig-date=First published 2023 |publisher=Simon & Schuster UK |location=London |isbn=978-1-4711-8912-8 |pages=14, 18–19}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.merkur.de/boulevard/frau-seines-lebens-165274.html |title=Die Frau seines Lebens |trans-title=The woman of his life |newspaper=Münchner Merkur |date=11 January 2006 |access-date=4 January 2025 |language=de}}</ref> He was the youngest of two children, his older brother Walter having been born in 1941, and grew up in the working-class district of [[Giesing]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Hesse |title=The Three Lives of the Kaiser: A Biography of Franz Beckenbauer |page=14, 19}}</ref> Beckenbauer was raised as a Catholic, and was an [[Altar server|altar boy]] in the Munich-Obergiesing [[parish]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gänswein |first=Georg |title=Benedikt XVI. Prominente über den Papst. |publisher=Media Maria |year=2012 |isbn=978-3981444469 |pages=12 |language=de}}</ref> Despite his father's cynicism about the game, Beckenbauer started playing football at the age of nine with the youth team of SC Munich '06 in 1954.<ref name="giesing">Hesse-Lichtenberger, p. 205</ref>

Originally a [[centre-forward]], Beckenbauer idolised [[1954 FIFA World Cup]] winner [[Fritz Walter]] and supported local side [[TSV 1860 Munich|1860 Munich]], then the pre-eminent team in the city, despite their relegation from the top league, the ''Oberliga Süd,'' in the 1950s. ''"It was always my dream to play for them"'' he would later confirm.<ref name="giesing"/> That he joined the [[FC Bayern Munich|Bayern Munich]] youth team in 1959, rather than that of his favourites' 1860 Munich, was the result of a contentious Under-14 youth tournament in nearby [[Neubiberg]]. Beckenbauer and his teammates were aware that their SC Munich '06 club lacked the finance to continue running its youth sides, and had determined to join 1860 Munich as a group upon the tournament's conclusion. Fortune decreed that SC Munich and 1860 would meet in the final and a series of niggles during the match eventually resulted in a physical confrontation between Beckenbauer and the opposing [[centre-half]]. The ill-feeling this engendered had a strong effect upon Beckenbauer and his teammates, who decided to join Bayern's youth side rather than the team they had recently come to blows with.<ref name="switch">Hesse-Lichtenberger, pp. 204–6</ref>

In 1963, at the age of 18, Beckenbauer was engulfed by controversy when it was revealed that his then girlfriend was pregnant and that he had no intention of marrying her; he was banned from the West Germany national youth team by the [[German Football Association|DFB]] and only readmitted after the intervention of the side's coach [[Dettmar Cramer]].<ref name="controversy">Hesse-Lichtenberger, p. 216</ref>