Jurgen Klinsmann is talking about his last job in coaching and how top-level sport hinges on moments.
He is in California, lucky sod, and I am in Newcastle. We are talking over Zoom, and I can see the strewn-about of his career on the shelves behind his back. Travel guides to Brazil, Ireland, and Ecuador are displayed alongside footballs and trophy replicas, all of which are a testament to Jurgen’s talent and his restless, inquisitive nature.
I wanted to know Jurgen’s thoughts on England and Harry Kane, the United States and Germany, the two national teams he has managed, and what it is like to coach at the biggest tournaments, where success and failure can essentially come down to a coin toss. This month’s tournaments are the European Championship and Copa America. It could be one poor call during a game, a hacked shot, a mistake by the goalie, a whistle from the referee, or a penalty. It might be a wound. Frequently, it is something completely beyond of your control.
Jurgen picks up the theme.
He takes us back to February 5, the evening before his South Korean team’s match against Jordan in the Asian Cup semifinals held in Qatar. They had already gone through some difficult moments in their tournament, such as a 3–3 draw with Malaysia in the group stage, a narrow victory over Saudi Arabia on penalties in the round of 16, and an equalizer against Australia in the quarterfinals that lasted until extra time, but the important thing was that they had persevered.
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“We kind of fought our way through to the semi-finals of the Asian Cup and we were so pumped up,” Jurgen says. “We were saying, ‘This is our tournament, we’re going to win this thing’.” South Korea have won the competition twice, but not since 1960. There had been edginess and jabbing criticism of Jurgen’s role, but excitement was building — in the team hotel and back home.
“The night before Jordan, we were sitting down for dinner as normal and a few of the younger players got up a bit earlier, which younger players always do,” Jurgen says. “They moved next door to play ping-pong. And then they were a bit loud and so Sonny (Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min) walked over there and suddenly there’s a fallout happening between him and Lee Kang-in (of Paris Saint-Germain) and they went at each other physically.
A few hours before the equivalent of a Euros or Copa semi-final, Son, the captain of the Spurs and South Korea, that amazing football player who plays with a smile, is wrestling with a young team-mate that Jurgen refers to as “the talent in Asian football coming forward.” It is an incredible sight. Son has also asked for the supporters to pardon the PSG forward, while Lee has expressed his regret for the incident and apologized to his teammates.
In the months afterwards, I’d read there had been tensions in the squad about whether the junior players were taking the tournament seriously enough, but Jurgen insists it came from nowhere.
“It just happened completely out of the blue; like, you know, guys have an argument and then it gets out of control,” he says. “We never saw anything coming up. Actually, it was the opposite. We were so positive, because we fought our way through games, winning them in the last second and penalty shootouts. We didn’t expect it to go in the wrong direction.
“What made me really sad is that, in that moment, the team and individual players lost the biggest opportunity — probably in their careers — to win the Asian Cup. Because we were so close. If that fight didn’t happen, we would have beaten Jordan and then it would have been a final against Qatar and it’s all to play for. I just feel sorry for them that they took away their own opportunity to win a major trophy.
“Those moments simply don’t come back. That’s what I tried to explain to them on the night. I talked to all of them and I talked to Sonny and Lee Kang-in individually and I just said, ‘Don’t let this moment take the trophy away from you, because you’ve worked so hard for it. You’ve been waiting for years for South Korea to have this opportunity’.
“For Sonny, he’s had a similar path to Harry Kane; he’s been at Spurs for years and been doing well, an exceptional Premier League player, a fantastic lad, everybody likes him, he shows up every season and plays outstanding football, but hasn’t won anything. He’s a very special player and a special individual who is always there for you, and so for him, I wanted it more than anything.
“‘Sonny, this is your moment, this is your Asian Cup, you’re the captain of this South Korean team and I want you to lift this trophy’, I said, but with what happened, and with his dislocated finger, we knew it wasn’t going to happen. The team was just not functional any more. You cannot fix it in one night. It takes months or maybe one or two years to fix something like that.”
Later that month, Lee, 23, came over from Paris and visited Son in London and the pair reconciled and apologised, but in terms of the Asian Cup, the damage was immediate and fatal. South Korea lost 2-0 to Jordan in that semi-final and a few days afterwards, Jurgen was dismissed. “In the Korean culture, somebody has to take responsibility, take the blame,” he says. “They made us (coaches) responsible for the fight.”
The consequences had been quite severe. Although it seems absurd to say it out, Jurgen has been criticized for staying home too much on the West Coast of America and even for smiling excessively after games. He disputes the first accusation, but he now acknowledges the second.
“People said I never really adjusted to the South Korean lifestyle,” he says. “My response to this was to say, ‘I tried to adjust to a lot of things, but if you want me to 100 per cent adjust to 100 per cent of what you do, then why did you hire a foreigner in the first place? Why did you bring in someone from a different country with a different way of looking at things? If you wanted it to just be the Korean way, it would be much easier to just take a Korean coach, right?’.
“I flew a lot back and forth and a lot between South Korea and Europe because 70 per cent of the players were there. So I went to see Sonny at Spurs or when Kim Min-jae played for Napoli (in Italy). I was constantly on the road; the place I spent the least time was actually in California with my family.
“It was made out that I was never there, but I think I was the only foreign coach of South Korea who ever went to college games, second-division games, youth games. I know it as a place, really, really well now. It’s a fantastic country to visit; high-end, high-tech, great food, clean, nice people, fascinating.”
And on the subject of him smiling?
“This is also part of the experience,” he says. “When you lose a game with South Korea as the coach, you don’t congratulate your opponent and give them a smile. They don’t do that. They shake hands, but very, very seriously, and then move away. That’s what they told me afterwards; obviously, they didn’t tell me before. For them, it’s not something you do. As a coach, you are apologetic and take the blame. Even that little thing is huge, as education.
“The people in the streets were very different. When I went back to Korea and walked through Seoul, they were coming over. Koreans usually don’t hug you. They shake your hand, they have a certain distance, but very polite and kind. But because of that tournament and reaching the semis, they came over and hugged me and said, ‘Coach, thank you. This was the most exciting tournament for decades’. These life experiences are what football is all about.”
A week after the Euros, the United States is hosting the Copa America, which doubles as a practice match for the 2026 World Cup that it will co-host with Canada and Mexico.
Over the past few years, I have gone to a few Premier League games in America, and each time, I have been astounded by the fervor and attention of the fans. American soccer is obviously riding high right now, what with Lionel Messi playing for Inter Miami in the Major League Soccer and English clubs eager to get traction with American supporters.
“It’s mainstream (now),” Jurgen says. “The game itself broke through two or three decades ago. The national team has the quality to get into the knockout phases of big tournaments, MLS is getting bigger every year and if it will never challenge the NBA or the NFL, that’s not the goal, because it’s a nation of 340 million people and there is so much space for success, so much space for football.
“One of the major moves for MLS was David Beckham signing for LA Galaxy in 2007, because that changed the landscape of soccer a lot. And then bringing over Messi to Miami has been a master move, a brilliant move. Wherever Messi goes, stadiums are sold out. He’s just a rock star. For the league, it’s genius and it’s all building towards 2026.
“That (the World Cup) will give football in this region another huge, huge boost. The infrastructure here is ready, the most modern stadiums you can imagine — because when the Americans host something, they go above and beyond. It will be a super tournament, very challenging in terms of travel because the distances will be far, especially when you get to the knockout phase, but it will be fantastic. This is (now) a soccer nation.”
What about that notion of Premier League clubs fulfilling official fixtures in the States, something which is regularly mooted?
“Obviously for us traditional fans, it’s really difficult to take,” Jurgen says. “It would feel like you robbed the game from the English fans, and I totally understand that. On the other hand, the business world is moving on, whether we want it to or not. It’s not our decision, it’s the owners’ decision about how they compete with the other big leagues.
A zest for travel, and an eagerness to engage and be part of things accompanied Jurgen throughout his playing career.
Notably, he ridiculed his reputation for diving and himself when he joined the Spurs in 1994. He also played for clubs in France, Germany, and Italy. What a striker he was, scoring 47 goals in 108 games for the German team and winning trophies at Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. The World Cup in 1990 and the six-year-old European Championship in England (pardon my language).
Then, as a young coach, he guided his nation to third place in the World Cup that they hosted in 2006 with a young, restructured team that played attacking football and set the stage for their comeback and victory in Brazil 2014 under Joachim Low, his assistant. In addition to his brief tenure as manager of Bayern, he coached the United States for five years, leading them to the World Cup quarterfinals in 2014 and the Copa America semifinals two years later. After a quick trip to Hertha Berlin, there was a trip to South Korea.
I see the allure of improving players and the pull of management, but for the majority of people, the international version feels so unappreciated. When playing club sports, there is always next week to look forward to, but when it comes to tournaments, which happen so seldom, every performance is scrutinized, managers suffer greatly, and, of course, their livelihoods are at stake for all those players.
I was thinking about that when I stumbled on a clip of Landon Donovan, one of America’s greatest players, talking last year about being left out of Jurgen’s squad for 2014 and how hurt he still felt. “They’re extremely difficult decisions for every manager of a national team,” Jurgen says, “because you know you’re taking something away from that player, something that player has dreamt of for his entire life.
“I said to Jürgen there are guys who you’re going to take to the World Cup, who’ll never play for the U.S. again, will rarely step in the United States again and don’t give a f*ck what happens to U.S. Soccer after this tournament.” pic.twitter.com/GNmoa6pWNL
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) November 6, 2023
“In Landon’s case, it would have been his fourth World Cup; it’s not as if he hadn’t played them before. But I had that experience with the German team in 2006, when I needed to leave three players out when we named the roster, players that totally deserved to be there. In the afternoon it was the press conference and I called them in the morning and I was on the phone, crying with them, just crying. Those moments are really awful.”
That all begs the question, though: why subject yourself to this? But at fifty-nine, Jurgen is hungry for more. He works for ESPN as a broadcaster, is on the football board of UEFA, and does work for FIFA, but his heart is at the front line. He states, “I would love to continue coaching since working with them brings me happiness.” “I hope to return and assemble a side that might contend for the World Cup in 2026.”
“My experiences with national teams have been very, very positive, and a World Cup is the tournament that you want to be involved in if you get the chance. I’m not saying that I don’t want to do club football. If an interesting club comes and it’s a fascinating project to take on, then why not?”
Does that include teams in England? I’ve often wondered whether Jurgen might end up back at Spurs, given his history there, although maybe that prospect has now passed him by. “Absolutely, coaching in England is still on my mind, but you need to get the opportunity,” he says. “At least to have a discussion and an open talk about whatever team it would be. It never really came along. I’m not chasing it!
“If an English team comes tomorrow and asks for a conversation and to hear your approach and philosophy, then I would definitely have that conversation. English football is still maybe the purest of the systems, where the manager has a lot of power. At least that’s how it looks to me from the outside looking in. That makes it very attractive for coaches.”
Kane has embarked on Jurgen’s journey as a player in reverse, leaving Tottenham for Germany and excelling in his first season at Bayern, scoring 44 goals in 45 games. “I’m thrilled, because he’s such a good lad,” Jurgen says. “Eventually, he will win something, because Bayern are just too good. The people love him because he’s down to earth, he’s settled. He’s gliding into the lifestyle of Bavaria. The amount of goals he’s scored is insane.”
It would be nice to think Harry could continue that good form in Germany for England this summer. What does Jurgen make of their chances at these Euros? “It’s been an organic progression for them,” he says. “This is the time to have all the confidence in the world and go to Germany and say, ‘We want this trophy, we are ready for it’. They have very good individuals: Jude Bellingham has had a fantastic season, Harry is the difference-maker. They have all the pieces to win.”
And Germany, the hosts? “It’s kind of all over the place,” he says. “The feelings that Germans right now have for their team, they don’t know really how to take it. It’s a very talented team, there’s no doubt about it, but they haven’t proven it yet and the last couple of tournaments really were poor, to say the least.
“Very deep inside, we have the hope that they maybe can pull it off and create a second summer fairytale after 2006. We hope it’s going to be a fantastic tournament and sunshine and a big party, but they don’t know how to take their own team. Julian Nagelsmann is a young coach with one objective, and that’s to do it his way. This gives us hope, because he’s not political, he’s not there to please the media. He’s there to get the job done.
“They have a tricky opening game against Scotland (next Friday) and we don’t really know how good they are, so there’s this unknown, but what makes me feel positive is how well the German clubs did in the Champions League and the Europa League. They surprised us all. We should be proud of it, because we can somehow pull ourselves together in difficult situations, in moments where you have to become more physical, more nasty. But anything could happen with this German team.”
The precarious nature of international management leaves room for both success and failure. or even on a game of ping-pong, as was the case with Jurgen.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamon Dalton)
