Why i love klinsmann

There, you were not driven by your environment, and you had to develop an inner drive. In England, you run 20mph automatically because of the crowd. You have a lot more drive from them to give it all you have got.

So on the evidence of these tournament performances, Spurs fans were drooling at the prospect of him leading the line in N Hillsborough would provide the first taste of Premier League action for Klinsmann as Spurs kicked off the season against Sheffield Wednesday. It was here that he would discover the full extent of the fury his apparent habit of simulation had provoked.

He had already attempted to make light of the situation at his first press conference, enquiring as to whether there were any diving schools in London. It just worked.

Klinsmann arrived at Hillsborough to a cacophony of boos from fans who held aloft diving scorecards. Klinsmann, for his part, took it all in good spirits and was determined to depart the Pennines having had the last laugh. A cocktail of attacking thrills mixed with defensive ineptitude made for a barnstorming spectacle in Sheffield. Klinsmann had been a lively presence on his debut and his big moment arrived with Spurs leading A floating cross from Darren Anderton found the unruly blonde mane of the striker who perfectly executed an unstoppable bullet header that flew past a stranded Kevin Pressman.

Read The subtle class and incredible longevity of Teddy Sheringham. White Hart Lane now had a new hero in Klinsmann, an instinctive penalty box assassin who tirelessly ran the channels while being capable of producing spectacular moments. Following the escapades at Hillsborough, Klinsmann served up an early goal of the season contender in his home debut for the club, pouncing on a Sheringham knock down to dispatch a thunderous scissor kick against Everton which was followed once again by the dive routine.

Ardiles had created an exciting Spurs side with a line-up that was almost guaranteed to concede goals at a similar rate at which they were scored. Klinsmann was one component of a group that was dubbed the Famous Five , the quintet also consisting of Sheringham, Anderton, Nick Barmby and the Romanian winger Ilie Dumitrescu. As a team, the only thing we were missing was a consistency in our defensive approach. Klinsmann was not the first foreign arrival in England or the Premier League, nor was he even the first star of World Cup '94 to score that day, Wednesday's new Romanian defender, Dan Petrescu, took that honour.

But, it truly hit home the fact that the Premier League now had a true superstar of the global game in its midst. Klinsmann was the pick of the bunch, as he won the football writer's player of the year award in a memorable campaign.

Sadly, for Spurs fans, he would join Bayern Munich the next summer, before he returned in to help stave off relegation. Post-Klinsmann, more Premier League clubs would look to the stars of the World Cup and European Championships for new signings, and for the players themselves, they saw a country willing to pay good money for their services and fans who would forever adore them should they deliver.

With such a list of names already, you should get the impression of the calibre of players that will be featured on this list. Narrowing it down to just 20 is far from simple, and some worthy and successful players will have missed out. But the top 20 foreigners to star in the Premier League, as written about here, all made a considerable impact on the English game. To start with, an already mentioned great Dane NOTE: Those players that come from other parts of Britain and Ireland have for so long been part of the English game that there hasn't been a point in this writer's lifetime, at least, when they've been regarded as foreign in the way others have.

For the purpose of this article 'foreign' will mean those players from outside of those nations. Peter Schmeichel wasn't the only key piece in the puzzle that established Manchester United as the most successful side of the Premier League's early years.

But, more than most, it is intriguing to ponder how the Red Devils would have fared without such a strong proposition between the sticks. You only have to look at the problems following the goalkeeper's departure in It was a defensive unit that would prove so important over the course of the ensuing two title-winning campaigns.

As good a defence as it was, Schmeichel was a big-difference maker. So dominant in the face of attackers, and clearly in-control of the organisation of those in front of him. Schmeichel's list of honours from his time at Old Trafford is, like so many of his team-mates of the era, extensive to say the least. In the five Premier League titles won in his time, this great Dane was definitely a significant factor behind each.

Thierry Henry was already regarded as one of the brightest young talents in Europe when he joined Arsenal in He had caught the eye at Monaco and had a decent showing at the World Cup in But, after stuttering during his brief spell with Juventus, it would take his move to Arsenal to really get his career in full-flow.

And, once he got going, Henry could not be stopped. In all competitions, Henry would score a staggering goals in competitions, as he became the Gunners' top scorer. But, really, with Henry it was about the spectacle he consistently provided so thrillingly on the pitch.

The Frenchman was so often nothing less than scintillating, in the goals he scored and the overall contribution he made to Arsenal's renowned and unmatched in Britain at least style of play. There were to be more successful foreign imports in the Premier League, but not many captured the imagination in the way Juninho did upon landing in England in The Brazilian, especially in those first two seasons in England, was a delightful concoction of great dribbling, trickery and general watchability.

That this talented young player turned up on Middlesbrough rather than one of the division's more glamorous destinations made him all the more enjoyable to watch. The Boro fans quickly fell for their new attacker, and he lit up the then newly opened Riverside stadium with many delightful displays. After the club's relegation in , Juninho joined Atletico Madrid. He returned twice more to Teesside, where he would further endear himself to Middlesbrough's supporters.

Although his legendary status with them had already been cemented in his first spell, the Brazil international's role in the Carling Cup win the club's first major honour did not hurt. That honour went to David Ginola, then of Tottenham Hotspur. It took someone of Ginola's brilliance and daring to beat the likes of Dwight Yorke, Andy Cole and Roy Keane, because, make no mistake, Ginola was in inspired form that season.

The Frenchman had even played a part in possibly denying United a quadruple, scoring in Spurs' quarter-final victory over them on their way to winning the Worthington Cup final.

The previous season Ginola's role at Spurs was of even greater importance, in a difficult year at White Hart Lane, the French winger helped keep Tottenham alive as relegation threatened for much of the year. Then there was of course the Newcastle United years. That their title challenge fell away so late on made sure it became one of the big 'what might have been' moments in English football history. Still, Newcastle and Spurs fans alike won't soon forget the magic Ginola created in his time at both clubs.

In this writer's opinion, Gianfranco Zola remains the greatest Premier League foreign import to this day. Others may have been more successful overall, but the little Italian that all of Chelsea fell in love with was both a supreme talent and an all-round class act. Zola's reputation would of course grow to a high level in his time at Stamford Bridge, but outside of Napoli and Parma, where he most famously played in his native Italy prior to the post-Chelsea spell at Cagliari , he was not as highly regarded.

The failure of the country's big clubs to secure a move for the attacker allowed Chelsea to purchase his services and reap the rewards. It seems like such a long time ago now, but before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and the financial problems that proceeded it, it was the arrival of foreign stars like Ruud Gullit, Roberto Di Matteo and, of course, Zola that helped transform the Blues into one of the Premier League best and most consistent outfits. The latter success saw the Italian come off the bench to score the winner.

The most prestigious acknowledgement of his contribution to the club came in , when supporters voted him their greatest ever player. Despite Chelsea's success since, you would have to assume that the likes of Frank Lampard and John Terry might still have trouble usurping Zola of that title.

Eric Cantona had already made an impact on English football prior to his debut Premier League season, when he helped Leeds United win the last of the old First Division titles. Like the signing of Schmeichel, Cantona was one of those key signings that, in hindsight, made a difference in making United so strong in those early Premier League years.

Without him, there was already a very good strong team, and, of course, the depth of young talent that would be assembled as Alex Ferguson's second great United side in Cantona's last two seasons.

Few players in the last decades have been as captivating as Cantona for so many reasons. But to focus on the positive, he was an exceptional talent on the pitch, a creative force that augmented the team but was not averse to embracing his own individuality. Nicolas Anelka was one the first young talents of European football to make his way his way over to the Premier League when he joined Arsenal, aged 17, in There are no Decos or Ronaldinhos wearing the German strip.

But Klinsmann is a firm believer in hard work and determination. As a player, he was viewed as someone who was not gifted, someone who would hare around the pitch at breakneck speed. Yet he won the World Cup with his country in , the European championship with his club in , and was named Footballer of the Year in both Germany and England.

He never stopped working on his game and was fanatically determined. One basic rule of reform is that you can't change a system unless you change people. Klinsmann understands this. He wants to open the minds of his underskilled players; he wants to foster a self-belief in the squad that will turn them into winners. He and Bierhoff have compiled a list of recommended reading: self-help books on being strong and successful. He invites players to discuss them in e-mails.

But the response is negligible - the boys prefer their Playstations. Human evolution is a slow process, change a long path. That, too, is a rule of reform.

Another tenet is equally applicable to football and politics: The losers set the tone. He was the story. He set the mood, and it was a bad one. Even a reject can trigger a crisis. And the next one was already waiting in the wings. Klinsmann knew he would have to select his starting goalkeeper; and when he opted for Jens Lehmann over Bayern's Oliver Kahn, he divided the country.

Wherever there is a winner, there is also a loser. Movers and shakers who make unpopular decisions and challenge others are always prime targets: the ones people love to hate.

That makes it hard for other people to lend their full support to innovators: doubts creep up because the mood is poisoned. The more change people bring about, the more they are ostracized. This is a role that Klinsmann knows only too well. And he is only able to challenge the German football world because he parted ways with it early on. The seeds of what Germany is now undergoing with its coach were planted long ago in a Stuttgart bakery on Eltinger Strasse that bears the Klinsmann name.

A golden pretzel hangs over the door. The shop has wood paneling and is sparsely furnished. The ambiance is utilitarian, streamlined, severe. Because Mardi Gras is drawing near, a few streamers dangle limply from the lights; the effect is less than cheerful.

A pretzel costs 52 cents. His father had the greatest influence of anyone on his life. Master baker Siegfried Klinsmann passed away a year ago. He had always drawn a strict line between the interior and the exterior, says Roland Eitel, a friend and adviser to the national coach.

The interior was the family. The exterior was the rest of the world. Inside was a place of intimacy and trust; outside, reserve, even mistrust ruled. His interior consists of his wife and children in California. He has to keep going back there because he can't stand being on the outside for long stretches.

When you watch him over a prolonged period, you notice that he goes through phases in which he seems to be somewhere else, but not necessarily across the Atlantic. It's more as though he's retreated into his own inner bakery. His heart was never in one place.

In his final years as a player, he was considered almost uncoachable. Tottenham's former owner Alan Sugar once said that he wouldn't even wash a car with a Klinsmann shirt. Odd contradictions threaded through his career. Not just because he had so little natural talent and so much success. He had the reputation of being a freak, a man so independent that he could tool along in a VW Beetle while his teammates cruised around in Porsches.

On the other hand, he was a shrewd businessman who signed fat contracts that he had often negotiated himself. People saw him as distant, cold, inaccessible. Yet on the pitch, few players were more passionate. He could celebrate with wild abandon; he could shed real tears. Once, when he got mad, he even kicked a hole in an advertising hoarding.

Because he spoke the grammatically dubious Swabian dialect of his birthplace, people tended to write him off as simpleminded. Then he went off to the European championship in England and suddenly started giving news conferences in English. Once his accent was stripped away, his intelligence emerged.

In the public eye he became a cosmopolitan, a man smart enough to think beyond the next match. He learned Spanish and took computer courses. He hooked up with the company SoccerSolutions launched by Mick Hoban and Warren Mersereau, and joined them in developing concepts for soccer teams and outfitters.

Klinsmann had found another route to stay in football. In he became the coach of Germany. Another Klinsmann quirk: He might like to get away, but somehow he stays in touch with home. His radio in California is always tuned to a Swabian station, so he always knows where the traffic is gridlocked in Stuttgart. Klinsmann is a species in and of itself: the provincial cosmopolitan who's an outsider everywhere he goes. Just before he became national team coach, Germany had been ousted from the European championships in the first round.

A crisis always represents an opportunity for an outsider. Only an outsider can change a system from the ground up, because outsiders come with no strings attached, and adhere to no faction. They can maneuver at will. That advantage becomes a disadvantage when successes fail to materialize.

The criticism raining down on Klinsmann has become a deluge because few people feel connected to him. Most others were on the outside, and they still are. Including most journalists. In the spheres of politics and soccer, stories are narrated backwards, and begin with the ending. But in politics, nothing ever really ends. For sports reporters, on the other hand, every game day has a small conclusion, and every final a major one.

A defeat is such a disaster that it's no consolation to think about how much good Klinsmann's reforms will do German football in the long run. A defeat practically demands damning press coverage. Because of its multiple endings, the business of football is by nature more fleeting and hysterical than politics. Change is even harder to bring about, because real reform is an even longer-term process. A defeat demands questions as well.

After the Italy game, the press box in Florence's Artemio Franchi stadium is steaming. It's steaming because far too many bodies have been packed into it, and because a long-suppressed urge is threatening to erupt, an urge to spew out ugly sentences about a bad game.

In the press box, the bets begin as to when Klinsmann's head will roll. He'll "never make it through March," they say. Red wine is served, a good meal. Then the national coach arrives, his hands balled in his pockets. He seems on edge. But he cuts a very good figure: He answers the questions calmly, discusses the mistakes his team made and, at the same time, expresses his confidence in the players. He seems like a man you can trust with a young team.

None of this shows up in the papers over the next few days; indeed, that would have been extraordinary on the heels of that pounding. But its absence demonstrates how strongly reality as depicted by the media is shaped by endings, and tailored in retrospect to fit the outcome.

Take last fall's national elections. After Angela Merkel nearly lost, people stopped writing about her strengths. It would have seemed strange, notwithstanding the fact that she still had them. Reality is always more complicated than an isolated newspaper article. Even after a defeat, Klinsmann can still be a blessing for German soccer. We still don't know how this story will play out; it's not over yet. But if Alfred Draxler had his way, the chapter called Klinsmann would already be closed.

Two days after the game against Italy, the deputy editor of Bild wrote: "If Klinsmann really does board that plane now, he'd better just stay in the United States. Draxler's office is on the 10th floor of the Axel Springer Building in Hamburg. His shelves hold a small humidor and big Brockhaus encyclopedias; volumes 13 through 22 are missing.

He's wearing a white shirt, black pants and light-brown shoes.