“Grinsi Klinsi” And His American Ways…
Published March 20th, 2006 in , , .
Well, the FIFA World Cup is now less than 100 days away. Here in Australia, it was such a relief to finally qualify again. The last time Australia was in the World Cup was 1974, ironically also in Germany, the hosts of this years tournament. With coach Guus Huddink, their is a belief that the Aussies can make a decent run. However in Germany, things are quite different. Following a friendly defeat to Italy in past weeks (as well as humilition to Bayern and Werder in the UEFA Champions League), German coach Jurgen Klinsmann has been blamed for everything “from poisoning German soccer to grinning too much to undermining the brittle economy”. Klinsmann, based in California, was a member of Germany’s winning World Cup team in 1990, as well as captain of the team that won Euro ‘96. However, his methods have come under constant criticism since he became coach in 2004. Jere Longman writes a very interesting article for the NY Times about the subject. German tabloid Der Spiegel also has a couple of interesting articles, although written by those living in Germany, unlike the outside perspective of the NY Times article. They are German Soccer Sickness: Open Season On Coach Klinsmann and Letter from Berlin: Glory Days Over, Germany Hoping for Soccer Miracle. (Pretty much says it all). Both articles are in English!
Personally, I can’t see the big deal with regards to Klinsi. The situation wouldn’t be any better with Vogts, Daum, Voller, Ribeck or anybody else. Think back of the success the Germans had at the World Cups in ‘94 and ‘98. Hello to all Bulgarian and Croatian readers! What about Euro 2000 and ‘04. Domestically, Bayern aside, club teams have fared no better. The problems facing German football are much deeper and more structural. Firing Klinsmann won’t help. Some support from the German public might help. Perhaps not. But as Klinsmann notes, “if we win our first two games, everyone will try to jump on our train.” Then again, the DFB could just give away a few more T-Shirts!
Heading to the World Cup?… then you should check out the Germany Survival Guide (written by non-Germans… the sense of humour is the give away!)
It’s true that in germany there is a lot negative pressure against Klinsmann in the press, and the german people as a whole are also quite negative when looking at the upcoming world cup and how the home team will do. However, what many in Germany have not released and your comment does touch on this, is that germany has been in a downward trend ever since winning the world cup in 1990. Klinsmann is the one german who is actually trying to do something about getting german football back to the top, where it belongs. And like all great managers he is looking for new methods and ways from other disciplines to find that winning ingredience.
In my opnion he’s done a great job of opening the eyes of many german football players, couches, media representatives as well as fans - germany is not a top footballing nation at the moment.
The World Cup is however an extremely important event for the country. The comeptitiveness of the german economy is going in a similar direction as german football. It is having similar problems, which boil down to the fact that “change” is quite difficult. When you are successfull, as german football and the german economy were for so long, it’s hard to change, because of the simple question, “why should we change?”
However, Germans have realised that life isn’t as easy as it once was - the country needs to change and move forward! This World Cup is therefore so very important for the country and exactly that’s why Germany will once again succeed at this World Cup (maybe not winning it, but semi finals for sure).
In 1990 Germany they only just qualified for the World Cup with a late goal from Pierre Littbarski - they went on to win!
That’s German! When it matters, they’ll be there!!