Should Germany be anything like as bad in this World Cup as they were in Euro 2004, fans who currently protest about his base in California will rant that Jürgen Klinsmann should never be allowed to leave it again.
Though his citizenship is not yet being revoked, solidarity with him is tenuous. His invention of himself as a quasi-chief executive with a bunch of underlings to control specific areas of the national team could soon be exposed as the scam of a person without the talent or qualifications for the job.
Klinsmann’s taste for slogans smacks of gee-whizzery, but he has to try something different. The mere thought of this post is debilitating and Ottmar Hitzfeld, frazzled from his service to Bayern Munich, refused to accept it. No one speaks any more of Germany grinding out results since they have come to look fragile over the past few years. Starting with last year’s Confederations Cup, Klinsmann decided that the side might as well be enterprising and, peculiarly, he has not accommodated a holding player of Dietmar Hamann’s calibre in the squad.
When Germany open the competition against Costa Rica on Friday, Torsten Frings will be in that position, although he owes it to Klinsmann’s decision that pace is the essential attribute for his line-up. It may well be that football fans around the world will have to grapple with the idea of a flighty Germany who lack substance.
That reversal of all we have ever known does have its attractions. The best bits of his side are the attacking ones. Bastian Schweinsteiger has at least the intent to take on defenders and he will be joined at Bayern Munich by Lukas Podolski, the intriguing young forward who has opted to leave his hometown club Cologne.
Jens Lehmann fully merits his elevation over Oliver Kahn as goalkeeper, yet the quality that most appealed to Klinsmann and his backroom staff is ominous. They felt that his eagerness to rush out of the goalmouth and even the penalty area to deal with danger would be valuable. That betrays their fear that the back four cannot cope by themselves.
Klinsmann happens to be in power during a peculiar period. German football used to be about pragmatism, pride, endeavour and expertise at tournaments. At present, however, there is a Bundesliga that is wildly popular yet geared purely for domestic consumption.
The Bundesliga has a bracing contempt for the sums expended in England, Spain or Italy, yet that practicality, along with the limitations that cheap ticket prices impose on revenue, means that great names are not on show in Germany. — Â