German football media reacts unkindly to Klinsmann's resignation

German football columnists were highly critical Tuesday of Juergen Klinsmann's decision to step down as coach of Hertha Berlin after just 11 weeks in charge of the Bundesliga club. Photo: Reuters

German football columnists were highly critical Tuesday of Juergen Klinsmann's decision to step down as coach of Hertha Berlin after just 11 weeks in charge of the Bundesliga club. Photo: Reuters

Published Feb 11, 2020

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BERLIN – German football columnists were highly critical

Tuesday of Juergen Klinsmann's decision to step down as coach of

Hertha Berlin after just 11 weeks in charge of the Bundesliga club.

Kicker sport magazine described Klinsmann decision, which he

announced via Facebook without informing the club management first,

as "illoyal and egoistic" and his time in charge "an almost 11-week

misunderstanding."

Referring to a first failed spell in charge of Bayern Munich during

the 2008/09 season, Kicker wrote: Klinsmann tried for the second time

as a club coach. As before at Bayern, the experiment went terribly

wrong.

"Hertha BSC, whose upcoming opponents are direct (relegation) rivals

Paderborn, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Bremen, now have to sort

themselves out and reposition themselves.

"This does not have to be bad news for (Hertha's) footballing

progress and the atmosphere in the dressing room and at the club."

A Sueddeutsche Zeitung football columnist wrote that the announcement

came "so surprisingly via Klinsmann's Facebook page on Tuesday

morning that it had to be checked whether someone had hacked the

account...."

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: "Hertha have made no progress

under coach Klinsmann. But the former national coach harms himself

even more than the Bundesliga club with his silent departure: In

Germany he is unlikely to have a future."

The local Berliner Morgenpost said Klinsmann's surprise resignation

was "brazen and irresponsible to Hertha."

Several commentators speculated on the fact that Klinsmann had wanted

a contract beyond his present arrangement until the end of the

season, but the club did not want to commit at this stage.

The Sportbuzzer portal described developments in Berlin as a "big

city joke" in reference to Hertha's ambitions of becoming a big city

club.

Klinsmann's resignation is "the embarrassing final line under a

chapter of exaggerated expectations," it said in a commentary.

There was in addition "new potential for conflict" in view of the

fact that Klinsmann wants to remain on the supervisory board,

effectively in control of the management he claims lacks confidence

in him.

Bild.de took up the same theme in saying: "Exciting: Klinsi goes back

to the supervisory board. So in the control body for the people whom

he accuses of lack of trust."

Among other reaction, Lothar Matthaues, Germany's most capped player

and a former international team-mate of Klinsmann, said that

Klinsmann would now found it difficult finding work in Germany as a

coach.

Klinsmann's name "has probably slipped down a drawer," he told Sky

television.

dpa

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