Preview: The main reason why I am still watching the Bundesliga is down to one man – the former Germany and Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann. He has been in the news again earlier this week, when German tabloid Bild claimed that he would be working on an advisory role in the German national team. The German FA, or the DFB in short, squashed those claims soon after. But while German national team manager Oliver Bierhoff said that Klinsmann has been in contact with his current successor, the former national team coach is not making a return. In the unofficial football focus series’s latest instalment of series of footballing moments, yours truly looks back to the 27th of April this year when Klinsmann’s Bayern Munich ‘revolution’ drew to a close. The reputation of the nation’s darling from the summer of 2006 has been dented.
I have always thought it is kind of ironic. Prior to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, one of the publicity campaigns of the country is that Germany is a ‘land of ideas’. Its cultural heritage especially on the music side of things, its school of engineering is widely-regarded beyond its shores. But it seemed to me that it did not really extend to the football.
Or at least that was the feeling I get when Juergen Klinsmann was the Bayern Munich coach in the previous Bundesliga season. This was the same man who was the nation’s darling during the 2006 World Cup when he was the national team coach. The national team was going through a period of the so-called ‘dark ages’ which became really worse when Erich Ribbeck was in charge of the national team. Rudi Voeller did kind of changed things during the 2002 World Cup with the national team all the way to the final (they lost to Brazil then). But it was a different story altogether two years later in Portugal in the European Championships. At least England did better than Germany then.
Juergen Klinsmann became the coach of the German national team at a time when other high-profile names turned it down. Otto Rehhagel is one due to his Greece commitments, Ottmar Hitzfeld is another. It was Klinsmann’s former coach during the 1996 European Championships Berti Vogts who recommended the then-American based Klinsmann to take charge. Initially, there were the sceptics over Klinsmann’s working style. To put it simply, it was un-German. His playing days which included Italy, France and England apart from his own country had led to Klinsmann being exposed to the wider scheme of things in football. The son of a baker (the former striker was a trained baker himself) also absorbed new ideas in his then adoptive home of the United States. It almost failed big time though in the lead-up to the 2006 World Cup when the national team was in Florence to play a friendly against Italy. And lost heavily.
Whatever happened during the 2006 World Cup soon became well-known especially with how the host nation did. It was for me then, almost reminiscent of how South Korea did when they co-hosted the tournament in the 2002 edition with Japan. An entire nation behind the national team. Patriotism at its fever pitch. And they even have a term of it in the 2006 edition in the German media – Summer Fairytale. In one tournament, in that summer, Juergen Klinsmann became the nation’s darling. Even one of his fiercest critics Franz Beckbenbauer managed to be convinced of his work eventually. But due to the workload and the constant travelling and the stick he had been getting during his time as national team coach, Klinsmann had enough.
That was until he was appointed to be Ottmar Hitzfeld’s successor at Bayern Munich after Hitzfeld had led Bayern to a domestic double. It caught the entire country off-guard, even mass-selling tabloid Bild. The good times were here again, or is it?
Inconsistent performances on the pitch, questionable tactics, and even Juergen Klinsmann’s apparent famous man-management skills failed him eventually. The collapse at Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals first-leg might had signalled the beginning of the end of his Bayern reign but it was the match before which the sentiment was that he was walking on a thin thread – a 5-1 thrashing which eventual league champions Wolfsburg handed out on the domestic front. Bayern might have become a laughing stock in Europe by then but on the domestic front, Klinsmann’s reputation was almost in tatters. It also never helped that Bayern had also failed to defend their domestic cup title which they won under Ottmar Hitzfeld. Klinsmann went from the nation’s darling in 2006 to being unpopular in the Bayern fans’ eyes. But then, Klinsmann has already been unpopular in the Bayern fans’ eyes in the lead-up to the 2006 World Cup when he dropped the club’s goalkeeper Oliver Kahn for Jens Lehmann to be the new first-choice goalkeeper in the German national team. Lehmann’s performances with Arsenal then might had swung Klinsmann’s decision but the sentiment was that Kahn has always been the undisputed first-choice.
In fact in the aftermath of when Juergen Klinsmann was being shown the door after a 1-0 home loss to Schalke, Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge admitted in an interview that the Bayern board thought the 2006 World Cup might had changed how the club fans view Klinsmann with how the national team did under him. But they soon realised it was not.
In the previous Bundesliga season when I realised Klinsmann was walking on thin line, it was when the VfB Stuttgart supporter in me actually broke her silence on this blog. About that if not for Juergen Klinsmann during the 2006 World Cup, I will not be following German football and the Bundesliga since. That man helped to change the perception of German football in my eyes. Back then in the previous Bundesliga season which also came at a time when my faith with the German national team was almost hitting at low ebb, the Bundesliga became my solace when it comes to matters in German football. I wanted to find a reason to like German football again.
I thought I had found the answer way beforehand, considering it was the first time as far as I know that the Bundesliga was shown in my country. The first Bundesliga match I watched was Klinsmann’s Bayern Munich against Hamburg which technically took place on my birthday. Juergen Klinsmann’s return to the television screen since the 2006 World Cup was a nice birthday present for me. But on the 27th of April this year, he was Bayern coach no more.
Though I knew his sacking was inevitable in view of the club's league position at that time, I soon had questions running through my mind. Granted it was his first coaching job after his work with the German national team, was it too big of a job for him to carry out his revolutionary ideas in the first place? It has been pointed out throughout the course of the previous Bundesliga season in the German press that he never had someone who would really fulfil the role of a Joachim Loew-like position like how it was when he was the national team coach. Klinsmann might had Martin Vasquez as his assistant during his ill-fated Bayern tenure but the German press was quick to point out that his assistant has no Bundesliga experience like Loew did.
Since then, Bayern Munich had started a new chapter under veteran coach Louis van Gaal. In the week before the international break, Bayern had their worst start not since 1966. While the win over Wolfsburg before the international break had eased some pressure off the Dutchman, any more potential disaster and he will be viewed under the same microscope like his predecessor. That is how things work at Bayern where every loss is seen like a total failure. It is like as if someone has just died. Bayern are not ‘rekordmeister’ (record champion, in German) for nothing.
Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness might had famously said in the wake of the sacking of Juergen Klinsmann that the club wanted a ‘football teacher’ and they got it under Louis van Gaal, but if the Dutchman cannot live up to his billing, then that is it. While I want to believe Louis van Gaal is the man to bring Bayern forward after what happened in the previous season with his predecessor, it is still early days yet to judge his ability to survive in German football where being a Bayern coach is probably the most scrutinised after the German national team coach’s job.
I believe in second chances. I had never believed since the day Juergen Klinsmann got the sack from his Bayern coaching position that it would be the last the football world will see of him. I stand by what I said in the wake of his sacking that football need more people like him. Someone being a breath of fresh air. There are not many coaches who have a special place in me, and Klinsmann is actually among the rare few.
If there is anything the former Bayern Munich and Germany coach Juergen Klinsmann can take comfort in, it is regarding Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Ferguson almost lost his job at one time apparently, you know. That was until the 1990 FA Cup final came about. After four years since Ferguson’s appointment with nothing to show for after his achievements in his native Scotland, the silverwares started to arrive at Old Trafford and the club never looked back. For all I know in the near future, German football may live to regret to let Klinsmann go from his coaching post at Bayern Munich.
