New York was and is the most open city in the world and can offer everyone new sources of inspiration. In America he went from being a global star to a man of the world. Granitza: I think it had a big impact on him as a person. You can’t forget all the good players from England, Holland, Germany and South America who played there.ī: How did Beckenbauer’s time in America affect him? In Germany the NASL was considered to be a little amateur league back then, but that wasn’t my experience of it. He indirectly led the league, partly due to his good contacts at Warner Brothers, who were the influential owners of the Cosmos. However, the biggest star at the Cosmos was Italian striker Giorgio Chinaglia, who remains the all-time top scorer in America to this day. At the time I think the Cosmos were better than my old club Hertha Berlin, with whom I finished third in the Bundesliga in 1978. Granitza: Franz had an inimitable style and was world-class in America too. I still get a tingle in my spine when I think back to that.ī: Did Beckenbauer leave his mark on the game in the USA? After the match there was a reception in a restaurant on the 110th floor of the Twin Towers. I played for the NASL XI and scored the winner in a 3-2 victory. I can still clearly remember his farewell game in 1980 in New York: Cosmos versus an NASL XI. Granitza: It must have been six or seven times. I was a ball-playing centre-forward who always had an eye out for my team-mates.ī: How often did you face Beckenbauer out on the pitch? I don’t think anyone’s achieved that again since, maybe Landon Donovan. Karl-Heinz Granitza: No, Franz was congratulating me! That was in 1983 and I was the first player so score 100 goals and provide 100 assists in America. Speaking exclusively to, Granitza looks back on the time he shared with Beckenbauer in the NASL and how it affected him in the long-term.ī: Karl-Heinz Granitza, in the picture above were you congratulating Franz Beckenbauer on his birthday back then? At the time the NASL was packed with household names, including Beckenbauer and Pele, and was one of the most glamorous leagues on the planet. Granitza became one of the North American Soccer League’s (NASL) biggest stars after joining Chicago Sting from Hertha Berlin in the 1970s.
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