Franz BeckenbauerGerman footballer (1945–2024)"Beckenbauer" redirects here. For the surname, see Beckenbauer (surname).Franz Anton Beckenbauer (German pronunciation: [fʁants ˈʔantoːn ˈbɛkn̩ˌbaʊɐ] ⓘ; 11 September 1945 – 7 January 2024) was a German professional football player, manager, and official. Nicknamed "der Kaiser" ('the Emperor'), he was a versatile player who started out as a midfielder, but made his name as a central defender. He is often credited as having invented the role of the modern sweeper (libero). He is one of nine players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Champions Cup, and the Ballon d'Or.Quick Facts Personal information, Full name ...Twice named European Footballer of the Year, Beckenbauer appeared 103 times for West Germany, playing in three FIFA World Cups and two European Championships. He is one of three men, along with Brazil's Mário Zagallo and France's Didier Deschamps, to have won the World Cup as a player and as a manager; he lifted the World Cup trophy as captain in 1974, and repeated the feat as a manager in 1990. He was the first captain to lift the World Cup and European Championship at the international level and the European Cup at the club level. He was named in the World Team of the 20th Century in 1998, the FIFA World Cup Dream Team in 2002, the Ballon d'Or Dream Team in 2020, and in 2004, was listed in the FIFA 100 of the world's greatest living players.At club level with Bayern Munich, Beckenbauer won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1967 and three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976. The latter feat made him the first player to win three European Cups as captain of his club. He became team manager and later president of Bayern Munich. After two spells with the New York Cosmos he was inducted into the US National Soccer Hall of Fame.Beckenbauer led Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup and chaired the organizing committee. He worked as a pundit for Sky Germany, and for 34 years as a columnist for the tabloid Bild, both until 2016. Beginning August 2016, he was investigated for fraud and money laundering in connection with the 2006 World Cup. The investigation was closed without a verdict in 2020 as the statute of limitations expired.Early yearsBeckenbauer was born in the post-World War II ruins of Munich, the second son of postal-worker Franz Beckenbauer, Sr. and his wife Antonie (née Hupfauf). He grew up in the working-class district of Giesing and, despite his father's cynicism about the game, started playing football at the age of nine with the youth team of SC Munich '06 in 1954.Originally a centre forward, he idolised 1954 FIFA World Cup winner Fritz Walter and supported local side 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. That he joined the 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.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 DFB and only readmitted after the intervention of the side's coach Dettmar Cramer.Club careerBeckenbauer (left) after Bayern Munich's Cup Winners' Cup triumph in 1967Beckenbauer made his debut with Bayern in a Bundesliga promotion play-off match on the left wing against FC St. Pauli on 6 June 1964. In his first season in the Regionalliga Süd ("Regional League South", then the second level in Germany), 1964–65, the team won the league and was eventually promoted to the Bundesliga.[citation needed]Bayern soon became a force in the new German league, winning the German Cup in 1966–67 and achieving European success in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1967. Beckenbauer became team captain for the 1968–69 season and led his club to their first league title. He began experimenting with the sweeper (libero) role around this time, refining the role into a new form and becoming perhaps the greatest exponent of the attacking sweeper game.During Beckenbauer's tenure at Bayern Munich, the club won three league championships in a row from 1972 to 197

The Firebird1910 ballet by Igor StravinskyThe Firebird (French: L'Oiseau de feu; Russian: Жар-птица, romanized: Zhar-ptitsa) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who collaborated with Alexandre Benois and others on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. The Firebird was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame and leading to future Diaghilev-Stravinsky collaborations like Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).This article is about the ballet to Stravinsky's 1910 music. For other uses of the word, see Firebird.Quick Facts L'Oiseau de feu The Firebird, Native title ...The Firebird's mortal and supernatural elements are distinguished with a system of leitmotifs placed in the harmony dubbed "leit-harmony". Stravinsky made a point to use many unique effects in the orchestra, including with ponticello, col legno, flautando, glissando, and fluttertongue. Set in the evil immortal Koschei's castle, the ballet follows Prince Ivan, who battles Koschei with the help of the magical Firebird.Stravinsky later created three concert suites: in 1911, ending with the "Infernal Dance"; in 1919, which remains the most popular today; and in 1945, featuring significant reorchestration and structural changes. Other choreographers have staged the work with Fokine's original choreography or created entirely new productions using the music, some with different settings or themes from the original. Many recordings of the suites have been made, the first being released in 1928 using the 1911 suite. A film version of the popular Sadler's Wells Ballet production, which revived Fokine's original choreography, was created in 1959.HistoryBackgroundIgor Stravinsky, c. 1920sIgor Stravinsky began studying composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1902. He completed several works during his time as a student, including his first performed work, Pastorale (1907), and his first published work, the Symphony in E-flat (1907), which the composer categorized Opus 1. In February 1909, a performance of his Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice in Saint Petersburg was attended by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was intrigued by the vividness of Stravinsky's works.Diaghilev founded the art magazine Mir iskusstva in 1898, but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia. In 1907, Diaghilev presented a five-concert series of Russian music at the Paris Opera; the next year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of Boris Godunov. By 1909, Diaghilev had connected with Michel Fokine, Léon Bakst, and Alexandre Benois, and gained enough money to start his independent ballet company, the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate music by Chopin for the ballet Les Sylphides, and the composer was finished by March 1909.Fokine was a renowned dancer, receiving first prize in his class upon graduation from the Imperial Theatre School in 1898; he subsequently entered the Mariinsky Ballet as a soloist and was promoted to lead dancer of the company in 1904. Fokine was dissatisfied with the ballet tradition of glamorous appeals to the audience and interruptions from viewers; he felt that dramatic dance should be strictly displayed with no interruption of illusion, and that the music should be closely connected to the theme. His 1907 ballets The Dying Swan and Les Sylphides were very successful and established Fokine as a competitor to other prominent choreographers. In 1908, Benois, a member of Diaghilev's Mir iskusstva circle and friend of Fokine's, arranged for the dancer to prepare a repertoire for the Ballets Russes' 1909 season as the company's first lead choreographer; the season was very successful, and Diaghilev began organizing plans for the 1910 season soon after.ConceptionAs the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something that had recently become popular with French and other Western audiences. Fokine unofficially led a committee of artists to devise the scenario of this new ballet, including himself, Benois, the composer Nikolai Tcherepnin, and the painter Aleksandr Golovin. Benois recalled that Pyotr Petrovich Potyomkin, a poet and ballet enthusiast in Diaghilev's circle, proposed the subject of the Firebird to the artists, citing the 1844 poem "A Winter's Journey" by Yakov Polonsky that includes the lines:And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's backRiding along a forest pathTo do battle with a sorcerer-tsarIn that land where a princess sits under lock and key,Pining behind massi