THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN — Juergen Klinsmann made his coaching reputation as a ruthless reformer of Germany’s national team, so now speculation won’t stop over what he plans to do with Bayern Munich.
Klinsmann has been the country’s top news story since he agreed last week to take over the four-time European champions July 1. Many expect radical changes at Germany’s biggest club.
For Klinsmann, the national team and Bayern are different projects.
"I certainly don’t see Bayern as a reform job," Klinsmann said of his first coaching post since helping Germany become a World Cup semifinalist last year.
But Bayern’s top officials will expect major changes — with an eye on success in the Champions League — and several newspapers believe Klinsmann, a California resident, will once again bring in American ideas to shake up the team.
"Juergen stands for the courage to make a break with the past," Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer said.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper devoted a full page Sunday to "Klinsmann’s Next Revolution," a reference to his national team reforms.
The influential daily superimposed Klinsmann’s picture over a battle scene painting of the French Revolution and wrote, "There can be only one goal for this risky experiment — an assault on Europe."
The biggest risk, some say, centres around how Klinsmann will work with Uli Hoeness, the powerful Bayern Munich general manager who was also Klinsmann’s biggest critic as national coach.
Hoeness downplayed their differences Sunday, saying Klinsmann was hired because Bayern will take any risk necessary to be Europe’s best team.
"No one has to fear that there will be horrible fights between us," Hoeness said. "In my heart I needed to hire an unconventional coach, an unorthodox thinker, following the motto: do the unexpected."
Klinsmann, 43, used a new generation of players to replace Germany’s defensive tradition with a fast-paced attacking style. The young team’s popularity soared as it finished third at the 2006 World Cup while scoring the most goals.
Since then, young stars like Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger have struggled at Bayern. Now some expect Klinsmann to give them a career boost, and perhaps bring in more of Germany’s World Cup players.
A chance to work with players he knew was one reason Klinsmann joined the 20-time German champions.
"The generation of players we developed for the World Cup are for the most part playing here," Klinsmann said. "As a club coach, I think I have more possibilities now to influence the players’ development."
Hoeness clashed with Klinsmann’s decision to promote Jens Lehmann over Bayern’s Oliver Kahn to starting goalkeeper at the World Cup. He also criticized Klinsmann’s refusal to reside full-time in Germany as national team coach and his reliance on e-mails and teleconferencing.
This time, the Bayern coach has agreed to move to Munich to handle the daily training.
Klinsmann played for Bayern in 1997 after salary negotiations which Hoeness called the most infuriating of his career. Klinsmann was near his career peak, having won England Player of the Year honours at Tottenham.
This time the unexpected deal was closed in just a few days. According to widespread reports, Klinsmann will earn eight million euros (C$12.05 million) a year.
"He had other offers," Hoeness said. "But we’ve always said what Bayern wants, Bayern gets."
Klinsmann will repeat his methods from Germany and assemble a staff of specialists.
"I will build a team out of international people, some of them Americans, but also from other countries," Klinsmann said. "It will be an energy field designed to promote fun, with the players knowing everything is adjusted to their needs."
Some German greats like Guido Buchwald already want the key job of assistant coach and field tactician for Klinsmann. Joachim Loew, now Germany’s head coach, filled that role at the World Cup.
One person likely to be uneasy with Klinsmann is Sepp Maier, Bayern’s goalkeeper coach and a member of the German team that won the 1974 World Cup.
After Maier publicly backed Kahn over Lehmann, Klinsmann fired him as Germany’s national goalkeeping coach.
"I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it," Maier reportedly said on hearing Klinsmann was his boss again.