Franz Beckenbauer died on Sunday at the age of 78.
A legend of Bayern Munich and the West Germany national team, ‘Der Kaiser’ has a record that can stand against anybody’s. In a sport where attacking players generate most of the attention, he brought an elegance and style to the art of defending.
As a coach, he will of course forever be associated with West Germany’s World Cup win of 1990 – and he brought his influence to bear in terms of what the team should wear.
At Euro 88, West Germany had worn a new design, created by Ina Franzmann of adidas. Featuring the colours of the country’s flag in an angled ribbon across the chest, it was a complete break from tradition.
Speaking on the first episode of The Football Kit Podcast, adidas’s Senior Design Director Football Apparel, Jürgen Rank, said that he felt it changed football kits forever and outlined how company chief Horst Dassler had the view of, “Let’s do something different, let’s surprise the world out there.”
And yet, consciously or subconsciously, we tend to look at football kits with more than our eyes. Performances while wearing it can colour the judgment, positively or negatively. It’s hardly a dramatic claim to say that yellow shirts with green collars, paired with sky blue shorts and white socks, would not be a popular look if Brazil were Just Another Country.
For West Germany, Euro 88 on home soil ended with semi-final defeat to bitter neighbours the Netherlands. The Dutch went on to win the tournament, wearing a shirt whose lifespan was the five games of the competition, no more and no less. The players didn’t like it and they reverted to their old design for the subsequent World Cup qualifiers.
That Netherlands shirt is regarded as a classic, perhaps now more than ever. In 2015, the Football Attic’s 50 Greatest Football Shirt Ever poll ranked it as the third-best of all time. It was just behind the 2009 England shirt, with top spot taken by…the 1988 West Germany shirt.
But of course, that description is a bit jarring, or at least misleading. Rather than the debut year, it is the four-year lifespan which is important – and explains why it’s more often referred to as the 1990 West Germany shirt.
In an interview with Doug Bierton of Classsic Football Shirts, Franzmann explained that the usual two-year cycle was in train. “We did, after that, a lot of new designs, new ideas for ’90,” she said, “but none of the designs was as good as this was.“
Added to that was the opinion of Beckenbauer, which naturally carried weight. As Rank told us on TFKP: “He liked it so much at the Euro, he said, ‘Now let’s continue with it and keep it for the World Cup in Italy.’”
Of course, West Germany went on to win the World Cup and the shirt’s iconicity was set in stone. Had Beckenbauer not made the call that he did, would the kit still be held in high regard or would it be remembered as little more than Ronald Koeman’s toilet paper?
We can’t say for certain either way, but given what transpired, we can say that one legend helped to create another.
