The German soccer great and head of the local organising committee said referees had been too quick to issue yellow cards, but players diving and faking injuries hoping to get rivals cautioned were making it "extremely difficult for referees to do their job."

"The players aren't making it easy when they fall over," he said. "It's so exaggerated now -- players simulating -- we must protect the referees."

Some matches here have turned on contentious refereeing decisions when players have exaggerated falls after challenges or faked injuries in collisions. Beckenbauer said FIFA, the sport's governing body, should review the problem after the World Cup and try to stamp it out.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been critical of referees for being inconsistent, reflecting a typical complaint from players, coaches and fans at the World Cup.

Beckenbauer said Valentin Ivanov, who handed out a World Cup-record 16 cautions and four ejections in Portugal's 1-0 second-round win over Netherlands, was "too generous with the cards and ... lost control of the match."

But if complaints about refereeing decisions are the extent of trouble at the World Cup, Beckenbauer said, his work over the last nine years would have a positive legacy.

"Der Kaiser," a World Cup winner in 1974 and coach of the champion team in 1990, was widely credited with securing the hosting rights for the tournament. And he's the public face of it.

Since the World Cup kicked off with Germany's 4-2 win over Costa Rica at Munich on June 9, Beckenbauer has attended 38 of the 56 games, crisscrossing the country in a helicopter, sometimes to three venues a day.

In between, he managed to sneak off to the Austrian Alps to get married in a quiet family ceremony and return to work the next day.

"It would be impossible for things to have been much better," Beckenbauer said of the first two rounds. "We've triggered so much euphoria inside and outside the stadium."

Some saw a successful World Cup as a good launching pad for Beckenbauer to become a future FIFA president. That came into focus Thursday, when a local newspaper quoted Blatter saying that Beckenbauer could not do the job.

Blatter qualified that, via a spokesman, by stipulating he said Beckenbauer would not have time to fit the work into his already heavy schedule.

"He's right in principle," Beckenbauer said. "I speak some Bavarian, German and my English could use some improving. In that job, it's important to speak several languages."

Not having Spanish or Portuguese languages could be a barrier, he added, given the strength of the sport in South America.

He could pick up some lessons in the Fan Zones, the free public viewing areas around Germany that have been the unexpected success of the tournament.

Beckenbauer said up to 700,000 people flooded into a fan zone near Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate to watch some matches on giant TV screens.

"Going to these Fan Fests, people of all different color, creed, religion -- they meet, they get along and have a great time ... in peaceful coexistence," he said. "That is what the world should be like. It will have a lasting impression.

"Up to this date we've been successful, we've been good hosts. Now we're looking forward to the last eight matches."

Beckenbauer said he'd love to see a Brazil- Germany final, a rematch of the 2002 final won by Brazil to extend its record to five World Cup titles. And he thought the German team had a good chance of beating Argentina in Friday's quarterfinals.

Local organizers say all 64 matches have been sold out and have revised their revenue targets from 538 million dollars to more than 563 million dollars for the tournament.

"The sporting highlight is yet to come," said Horst Schmidt, a Germany 2006 vice president. "We can't rest on our laurels. Everything has gone well so far, but we have to stay very attentive."