by Sheffield gunner Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:12 pm
Bayern Munich call time on Jürgen Klinsmann's failed revolution
With his reformist agenda dead, an embarrassing over-dependence on Frank Ribéry and a public falling-out with key players, Klinsmann leaves with his credibility irreparably damaged
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There was just enough time for a final corner, deep into extra-time. As Bayern were pushing all men forward in a desperate attempt to force an equaliser, the crowd refused to respond with one last roar. The faithful supporters behind the goals were not even paying attention to the match by this stage: they were far too busy shouting "Klinsmann raus!" – Klinsmann out – instead.
Less than 48 hours after the 1–0 home defeat against a fairly ordinary Schalke 04, on the very same day that Bayern had fired Otto Rehhagel after a 1–0 home defeat against Hansa Rostock 13 years ago, the fans were granted their wish. Jürgen Klinsmann, whose unshakeable, California-sized optimism had been parodied by left-leaning broadsheet Taz only 10 days ago – a montage had him nailed against the cross, under the line "always look on the bright side of life" – had hoped that league leaders Wolfsburg's shock defeat away by Cottbus on Sunday evening could stave off the inevitable. But according to general manager Uli Hoeness, the board felt only strengthened in their resolve by that result: "We said now is the time. Maybe we can still turn it around."
"We didn't come to this decision easily", said the vice-president, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, at the packed press conference. "But the results of the past weeks, the way they came about and especially the situation with five games to go forced us to act out of responsibility to the club." "Klinsmann lost all the important games since the winter break," added Hoeness. Klinsmann, for his part, declared his "great disappointment", thanked fans and club "from the heart for an eventful time" and claimed that Bayern were still in a position to win the championship. "We've laid the foundations for the future," he said, before taking the first flight to Los Angeles (allegedly).
The former Bayern manager Jupp Heynckes will be left to pick up the pieces and ensure at least automatic Champions League qualification, in other words second spot. Bayern are only three points behind Wolfsburg but they are also only third in the table and ahead of Stuttgart and Hamburg merely on goal difference. The fear of finishing in the Uefa Cup/Europa League for a second time in three years and of a possible loss of approximately €50m (£44.5m), proved simply too strong. "They are forced to act now, unless they want the most outrageous accusation possible levelled at them – endangering the financial well-being of the company," wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung on Monday morning.
Ironically Bayern's defeat was actually one of the better ones under Klinsmann. They had started well enough in the Allianz Arena but conceded after a combination of defensive blunders by Martín Demichelis and Andreas Ottl, then never recovered. Franck Ribéry's dismissal after a petulant second yellow was symbolic of a team that had lost both its way and nerve. Ze Roberto's admission that the coach had said nothing more than "you have to score a goal" at half-time may well have been the final straw: Klinsmann, who had come well short in man-management and tactics before, was now even failing his specialist subject, motivation.
To be fair, there are plenty of mitigating circumstances. He worked at a club that explicitly wanted change, but change on its own terms and without a pesky let-up in wins. Short-termism trumped the strategic repositioning of the team; Klinsmann was never allowed a free rein. Without power to add his preferred players to the squad, he was somehow supposed to paint an avant-garde masterpiece with the old brushes and fairly limited colour palette of his predecessors.
Bayern, in addition, did not heed the lessons of 2007. Massimo Oddo and Tim Borowski, the summer reinforcements, were anything but and the quality of the overall squad was yet again severely over-estimated. The dependence on Ribéry, in particular, is still embarrassingly obvious. "Everybody knows their game breaks down when you take him out," said Schalke's Jermaine Jones.
Some of Klinsmann's initial, radical ideas – getting rid of the pantomime enforcer Mark van Bommel and the hopelessly average Michael Rensing in goal – were right but then either not followed through with conviction or resisted at board level.
Plenty of others, though, were plain daft. Dabbling with a 3-5-2 system, picking an assistant manager without Bundesliga experience, yoga classes for the players, Landon Donovan … "His concept convinced us – on paper," said Hoeness pointedly. Minutes before kick-off players still did not know whether they were supposed to play a pressing game. After very vocal off- and on-the-record criticism of tactics that were seen as too attacking by key squad members, Klinsmann relented in February. The numbers improved slightly but his credibility was damaged irreparably.
His list of mistakes and bad results on their own might not have been enough to warrant the sack but they were in painfully sharp contrast to his promises of a brave new Bavarian world (scientific methods, top-level tactics, personal and collective improvement).
Klinsmann seduced the board and many neutrals – including this column – with his reformist agenda. Sadly he did not have the means or a Jogi Löw by his side to put any of it into practice. "We need a sense of new beginning," said Hoeness today. "There have been too many things holding us back recently." Heynckes was exactly the right man now, he added. "He is a football teacher," Hoeness said – as opposed to Klinsmann, he implied, who was sadly exposed as a pupil at this level.
Maybe he simply shared the fate of so many self-styled revolutionaries: once in power, their idealism soon descends into dictatorship, the dictatorship of the mediocre in Comrade Klinsi's case.
Results: Hoffenheim 0-1 Hertha, Bayern 0-1 Schalke, Bremen 3-2 Bochum, Stuttgart 2-0 Frankfurt, Dortmund 2-0 Hamburg, Hannover 2-1 Köln, Leverkusen 0-1 Karlsruhe, Cottbus 2-0 Wolfsburg, Gladbach 1-1 Bielefeld.
Raphael Honigstein
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/apr/27/jurgen-klinsmann-sacked-bayern-munich-bundesliga
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