Preview: It is the unofficial football focus series extra. If one is not aware by now, on Monday...Juergen Klinsmann has been released from his Bayern Munich coaching position. After 10 months or rather, 302 days into his Bayern job, Klinsmann is off. In the midst of reading news relating to it, I am struggling to gather my thoughts together in regards to the sacking. Because there are very few football coaches in the world at the moment which has got quite an impact over me as a football fan. And Klinsmann is one of those coaches.
Guess what I was listening in the midst of me reading about Juergen Klinsmann being shown the door at Bayern Munich yesterday? The song which for some reason will always be associated for me with after Germany was being eliminated from the World Cup three years ago by Italy in the semi-finals (given that was what was on the radio then when I tried to sink in that Germany was out) - Michael Learns To Rock's That Why (You Go Away). Back then, it became a turning point in me in becoming a supporter of the German national team. And Klinsmann was the coach of the national team then. Oh, how I was being fascinated with how they play at that time...
Well. The title of this entry can sum up in regards to my reaction over the sacking of Juergen Klinsmann as Bayern Munich coach on Monday. Angry was during the immediate moment when I first read about it, hurt and sadness came very much later. I was screaming 'No!' in my head when the news was confirmed. In fact, I was almost on the verge of tears in my head as well. The more I think about it, the more I am losing my respect over the powers that be at Bayern Munich. Do not get me wrong. I am not sounding as if the power-brokers at Germany's most successful football club is totally to blame for all the mess. It is very tempting for me to point the blame at them actually. The thought only came to mind when I read that Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness once said that sacking Jupp Heynckes on October 1991 was "the biggest mistake" of his career. Heynckes is back as the caretaker coach. During his first stint from 1987 to 1991, he led the club to back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 1989 and 1990.
But before I tried to make sense of it all, it is amazing when I was doing my usual Internet travels, I stumbled onto an interview with the now-former Bayern Munich coach from four years ago from The Times website which was done prior to Germany hosting the World Cup. Because the day after Klinsmann had been released from his duties as Bayern coach, The Times website speculated that Hamburg coach Martin Jol is in the frame to replace him. That was what I read. Then I saw the link to an interview with Klinsmann in the same report about the former Tottenham Hotspur manager (Jol) in the frame to replace Juergen Klinsmann. Klinsi's sacking was definitely big news in Germany, and even his sacking from Bayern was being noted in England too. If not, why of what I read from The Times website?
There is also an article from The Guardian website by the Guardian's Bundesliga correspondent Raphael Honigstein and what he make of it all. Probably the most sensible analysis in between what I read on Google Translate. Or maybe again, I just glanced through what those on Google Translate analysed.
It struck me what I read of the interview from The Times website. Given it echoed what I read from the BBC Sport website prior to Bayern Munich facing Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-final first-leg and what came out of the Reuters report of Juergen Klinsmann's sacking from Bayern Munich. Especially this from The Times website...
There is something Klinsmann would steal from England. “The team spirit,” he answers, “getting a team to really stick together. That was something I learnt by playing in England, especially in the environment of so much passion in the stadiums.”
His and his coaches’ own philosophy is to ask the maximum out of every player, to demand the high tempo of the English game, the concentration of the top players in Europe today. “Players must learn to get the stimulation out of themselves,” he presses on. “It shouldn’t come from the coach, it has to come from inside.”
In the early days of Juergen Klinsmann's coaching reign at Bayern Munich, he famously said (to quote what I found from Reuters) this - "I want to make every player a bit better after every game." Since then, that has always being quoted in the German press when things do not go really well at Bayern. But ironically, that is what is happening at the other Bundesliga clubs like Borussia Dortmund, VfB Stuttgart. Clubs on a winning run. But why is that not working at Bayern? It had been pointed out time and again in the German press that he did not have someone like who is his successor in the German national team. But even if he and Joachim Loew worked well together in the lead-up to the World Cup two years ago, what had happened to the two since Klinsmann stood down from the Germany job?
It had often being argued that Juergen Klinsmann did not get someone with Bundesliga coaching experience to be his assistant at Bayern Munich to get his ideas across and instead he got someone whom he knew during his time in the States in Martin Vasquez. On the German national team, team spirit or lack thereof had been prevalent. Especially in the wake of what happened after the World Cup qualifier away win at Wales. Everything had been done and dusted after the events of last year and everyone's smiling again? My foot.
One of the most specutacular rumour in regards to who is next in line to succeed Juergen Klinsmann (Jupp Heynckes is only in charge for the remaining matches Bayern Munich has and that is it) is...yes, Klinsmann successor in the German national team. I almost burst out laughing. The Bayern board had already specify very clearly the person to take on the job has to know German. Okay, one can argue that Chelsea's current interim manager Guus Hiddink (who had also being linked to the Bayern job, but he had ruled himself out of it) is also juggling with the Russia job at the same time. But when it comes to man-management in the German national team, I am not sure if I can give high marks for Joachim Loew though. Bayern, with the various internationals on the books as well...is he able to handle whatever potential egos may surface?
On what eventually became Juergen Klinsmann's final match in charge, Schalke's Jermaine Jones said this after the match at the Allianz Arena, "Everybody knows their game breaks down when you take him out." The Germany international was referring to Franck Ribery, and Bayern Munich's dependence on the French international. Not only that, like what I typed earlier this month in regards to Klinsmann...
The changes he tried to implement since he took charge from his popular predecessor Ottmar Hitzfeld (now coaching Switzerland), the decisions he made when it comes to selecting players for matches. He had already been criticised for dropping the club captain Mark van Bommel on the bench before earlier in the season which was being seen as a sign that there was no mutual trust between the coach and the captain and, eyebrows were being raised when he favoured veteran goalkeeper Hans-Joerg Butt over Michael Rensing in the match at Barcelona even if he said that Butt's experience on such occasions swung into his favour (from Butt's time with Bayer Leverkusen in their Champions League campaign in the 2001/02 season). The German press still reacted the decision in regards for Butt in goal as undermining Rensing's position as Bayern's current first-choice goalkeeper after Oliver Kahn retired (Rensing was Kahn's deputy when Kahn was still in between the posts for the club) from football at the end of the previous Bundesliga season.
That is only half the story. In regards to Mark van Bommel and changing Michael Rensing to Hans-Joerg Butt in goal, like what the Guardian said, they were 'either not followed through with conviction or resisted at board level.'. But then, for all the mistakes Juergen Klinsmann had made at Bayern, club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had said that the training centre is a positive legacy left behind by Klinsmann. Still, one has to wonder what general manager Uli Hoeness said of caretaker coach Jupp Heynckes, is it an attack on the former Germany coach - "He is a football teacher." Maybe, maybe...the Bayern job is a little too much for Juergen Klinsmann to handle. Maybe after the Germany job, he should have done his job first at a club which the stature is not as big as Bayern. More time for him to put his revolutionary ideas across. But it is strange as to why there were not much complaints when Hamburg coach Martin Jol brought in his army of staff when that was exactly the subject of ridicule in the German press in regards to the on-goings at Bayern Munich when Klinsmann was still there. Or maybe Hamburg had been on a good run themselves, even if it mean Hamburg are out of the DFB-Pokal (given they are still in the UEFA Cup, and still in the running for the title in the Bundesliga).
In the modern world of football management, the pressure is with the coach all the time. At such a club like Bayern Munich, the pressure is even greater. While it may be seen that Juergen Klinsmann's first club coaching job after the Germany one is seen as a failure, I do not believe that is the end of him. Football coaches at some point in their careers, do have black marks on their CVs. Current England coach Fabio Capello have quite an impressive CV but, during his time at Juventus, the titles he had won at the club were eventually being taken away given of the club's involvement in the match-fixing scandal which hit Italian football even before Italy's World Cup triumph three years ago. It eventually found out that Capello was innocent with nothing to suggest that he had a hand in it. And did it occur to one's mind that the man who is the manager at Manchester United since 1986 in Sir Alex Ferguson...he had no trophy to show for until the 1990 FA Cup came along? Three years later after that, the club ended 26 years of wait and won the league title. And Manchester United never looked back since.
I know we live in the modern times, but if there are two things Bayern Munich can learn from Manchester United as they go about in their search for a permanent coach, in the footballing season (the 1989/1990 season, that is) which the now-Sir Alex Ferguson ended his trophy drought at United since his arrival on November 1986 from Aberdeen...on the day Manchester United won the FA Cup after they won a replay against Crystal Palace, according to Wikipedia: There had been much speculation that Ferguson was to be sacked, but the club's directors insisted that they had never considered removing Ferguson from his position. It took Ferguson some time before his transfers and the players he brought in from the club's academy bore rewards on the pitch. The most highest point was when Manchester United won the treble in the 1998/99 season (Premier League title, FA Cup, the Champions League win over coincidentally enough, Bayern Munich)...and part of the success has to go to the group of players whom were being nicknamed 'Fergie's Fledgings'. Especially those who came through the club academy in the 90s, that is.
It seemed like only yesterday the most biggest football news in the world of German football is that Juergen Klinsmann will become the new coach at Bayern Munich. A marriage being made in heaven? It ended in a nasty divorce on Monday. The fear of no Champions League football next season at Bayern (read what I typed on Monday in the second link in this paragraph) for me, seemed to be the main reason why Klinsmann was being shown the door earlier than thought. Bad enough Bayern are already out of the DFB-Pokal and the Champions League. Not only that, people may see on the surface given of Klinsmann's credentials as a player, he will never be a successful coach. The age-old cliche in football where great players do not make great coaches.
To the man who had made me become a fan of German football: Don't give up! I am sure there will be other clubs interested in what Juergen Klinsmann want to do and giving him more time to implement what he want to put across. For all I know, German football may leave to regret the day they see Klinsmann being shown the door at Bayern Munich. We need more people like him in football these days.
