Bayern sacked their coach after ten months in charge.
Jurgen Klinsman is the legendary former National Manschaft (German National Team) striker, and Germany's coach in the last WC in their home soil. He took them to the semi finals with an attractive and attacking style of play which Germany had failed to show since the early 1990s when they were the World Champions (and Klinsman was one of their main players).
Klinsman had never coached a club prior to his posting at Bayern. The ins and outs of handling a big Football Club, its internal politics and fans' expectations are not an easy task and require amongst other factors past experience in dealing with egotistic stars and impatient fans, full management support and patience and vision by the coach.
Klinsman lacked the first three, and his vision is still subject to question. At the end he lost the support and the patience of both fans and management, and according to press reports, the respect of his stars in the dressing room.
Football Clubs like Bayern are big business. Bayern turns over in excess of $800m Australian dollars a year. (Not sure if the ENTIRE sporting market of all sports in Australia would reach that figure). This makes instant gratification more than just the pleasure of playing the simple game of football. The Club's management (and Bayern is in fact privately owned) become very nervous when results are less than 100% satisfactory! Simply because 10s of millions of dollars of potential revenue are at stake.
But can Klinsman be considered more of a victim of the commercialisation of football than anything else? Given a few more years, could he have been as successful and his reign as long as the likes of Wenger and Ferguson in Arsenal and Man Utd?
Whilst the answer is probably yes, the fact remains that ultimately his inability to get results out of crucial matches in Bundesliga (and the humiliation against Barcelona in the CL) was the main reason he lost his job. Amazingly, he became a national hero at the WC in 2006 because he managed to guide Germany to produce good results in the WC matches where it counted!
During his tenure at Bayern however, the team had many opportunities to go to the top of the table, and each time failed to produce the desired result (except in case of a lucky last minute 2-1 win over Hoffenheim before the winter break and of course some good results in the Champions League (CL). In many instances Bayern naively lost their lead or lost crucial points due to tactical inability to take control of these crucial matches.
Producing results in matches that count is a very crucial component of successful coaching at this level. e.g. it's Chelsea's 0-0 at Nu Camp, or Man Utd wining 1-0 at Porto and going through.
Klinsman in recent weeks had a few of these crucial matches and lost all of them! 4-0 to Barcelona, 5-1 to Wolfsburg, and 1-0 to Schalke in his last match in charge. His record of 8 wins 2 draws and 7 losses in all competitions since the winter break was simply not good enough for a team of Bayern's status. In fact, these heavy and embarrassing losses may have irreversibly damaged the psychological advantage Bayern had established against their rivals in Bundesliga by wining the double three times in the last four years.
It would be very ironic if job of coaching Bayern next goes to the Dutchman Frank Rijkaard, as speculated by the press. Rijkaard spat at Rudy Voller in an elimination match between Germany and Holland in the WC in 1990. The referee showed both players a red card. Klinsman, without his partner Voller, Klinsman scored and single handedly won the match 2-1 for Germans. They went on to win the WC and Klinsman became a superstar!
Rijkaard won the CL and Spanish Premiera League with Barcelona a couple of years ago before falling out with star players and losing his job. He would be a great choice to replace Bayern, but only if the Management shows more support and patience. Otherwise Klinsman's faith will await him too.
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