It’s still a bad memory for him. One evening in 2001, at the end of the year, Bayern Munich traveled to Olympique Lyonnais in the Champions League. Three goals to zero, a double from Sidney Govou, and a German team completely dominated later, and Franz Beckenbauer, at the time president of Bayern, unleashes a tirade that has become legendary in the Bayern locker room.
Owen Hargreaves, former England international midfielder, remembers the Kaiser’s speech very well, who died on Monday at the age of 78: “I felt smaller and smaller in my chair in the corner trying not to shy away, that’s for surehe told Eurosport. There was a different energy in the room. But people like the Kaiser know when to light the fuse. This was the secret of his success.“
Owen Hargreaves at Bayern Munich
Credit: Eurosport
Result: the Bavarians finally won the Champions League at the end of the season: “And it paid off. Hoeness, Rumenigge, Beckenbauer: when there are such personalities in the club, the players will always play for them. Nobody wants to disappoint them. Not out of fear, but out of respect.” Aged just 20 in 2001, Owen Hargreaves ultimately spent the majority of his career in Munich, playing more than 200 matches for Bayern.
“For me, Beckenbauer was simply an extraordinary personality, he remembers. When I met him, I directly felt this aura around him.” President of Bayern Munich from 1994 to 2009, the Kaiser was sometimes nicknamed the “light” of German football. A nickname that Owen Hargreaves easily explains: “This radiance, this energy surely came from everything he had accomplished in his life. He has achieved almost everything in football.”