Klinsmann: England Can Win World Cup, Matthaus Feud & Maradona Memories | Stick to Football EP 131

0:00Gary Neville: Just before we get started, a quick thanks to our partners and clothing. We hope you enjoy the show. Right, we're recording.

0:07Jurgen Klinsmann: Jurgen, come and sit down. It looks smart. Okay. I saw you have an order here. Good to see you, Jurgen. Look at you. You look great.

0:19Roy Keane: Nice to meet you.

0:20Jurgen Klinsmann: You look great. Nice top, Jurgen. It's a nice little top. Just black. Just black coffee. Kieran, could I get flat white?

0:29Roy Keane: Thank you. Lovely to meet you. Legend in the house. One of the greats, man. Nice to have a great striker at the table. You're not wrong.

0:41Gary Neville: You're not wrong. I love Jürgen Klinsmann. Before I start asking you a question, do you think assists are important in modern football? For Bruno.

0:54Gary Neville: Do you think they're important, assists? They're crucial, absolutely. Of course they are. But not more important than the team.

1:02Jurgen Klinsmann: The team is more important. I mean, as long as you finish off the assist with a goal, you know, then you're the happiest striker in the world. Thank you very much. I had some players that I played with, when you gave them the ball, number eight, number tens, they were doing the first one circle or two circles and then they looked up forward. There's no space anymore, so I pass it square. And then you were up front there. Just say, give us the ball.

1:31Gary Neville: Why the ball?

1:32Roy Keane: That was like Cherky with the Haaland one, wasn't it? He kept doing it and he's like, just give us the ball. Just give me the ball.

1:38Ian Wright: So frustrating to watch.

1:40Gary Neville: But who did you play with that was like that, Jürgen, that would do that? Because I always think of German teams being quite direct and getting the ball.

1:46Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, the German teams, yeah, usually. We had a time at Bayern Munich with Giacomoedt for a space player. He loved to kind of circle the ball. I think David Gino Lai at Spurs my second time. He loved to oom, oom. And he was fantastic. I mean, he was fantastic. A fantastic player. But I was waving in the middle. Maybe just the first time, maybe. A fantastic lad.

2:12Ian Wright: Did you ever say anything, Jürgen? Can you put it in earlier?

2:14Jurgen Klinsmann: Maybe I won't say it. I did. But I try to keep it on the funny side of things. Because you will not change people on the field. They have their way of doing it. And if Bruno is made that way, he will not change him anymore. You've got to take him the way he is. At least if some goals come out of it, with all the assists that he's doing, fantastic. And I think Man U obviously has a fantastic season. Nobody expected that kind of turnaround with Michael Carrick. And nobody outside Manchester United wanted it either, to be honest.

2:45Ian Wright: Jürgen.

2:48Gary Neville: Stick to Football is brought to you by Arn Clothing.

2:54Jurgen Klinsmann: I confronted the gentleman and said, you were supposed to come two days ago. I said, I'm here now, right? You take us Italians the way we are, I'll get the heck out of here.

3:03Roy Keane: Do you think it takes that one big win?

3:05Jurgen Klinsmann: I think it takes that one big win. And I always said, no, Harry Kane needs to leave to get the feeling of winning something. Yes. He famously did the warm-up on the song Life is Life. Yes. And he started to jog the ball, and the game was already over. We already lost that game mentally. Spurs sold within the first two weeks jerseys with the 18 for more than$2 million. He said, you know, I just want to let you know I already cashed in that. If I come in, I might shock some people. So I need from you a piece of paper saying I have to cut Blanche. It's not about money, it's about how I want to do it.

3:40Jurgen Klinsmann: Two goalkeepers had field player jerseys made because we had no field players anymore. It gets worse, you beat us with half a score.

3:47Ian Wright: Half a score.

3:55Gary Neville: Jürgen, you were supposed to come on the show four or five weeks ago, and then obviously we got the call that you weren't coming on the show. Can you just explain, obviously, the last four or five weeks, your son got a really bad injury playing for Chisena?

4:08Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, my son is a goalkeeper, and he grew up obviously in America, in California, but then he came over to Europe, played at Hertha Berlin for two years, then he was in Switzerland, went back to the Los Angeles Galaxy, played MLS for three years, and then was taken by Chisena, a team that kind of was bankrupt six, seven years ago and was taken over by American investors. And they come from California, and they came up and said, we would love to have him in Italy. So he became the goalkeeper two years ago. And then last season was voted best goalkeeper in Serie B. So like the championship. And I was doing extremely well.

4:50Jurgen Klinsmann: I was called in by Maurizio Pochettino for two camps. And Maurizio looked at him and was very impressed and had a good chance to go to this summer's World Cup. But then it happened pretty much four weeks ago that in a game in Palermo, which is owned by Man City, a midfielder from Palermo crashed into him when he was on the ground. He caught a ball. And he lost his balance, that midfielder, and he smashed with his knee into the back of his head and he broke his neck. And it was a highly complicated situation where then they in Palermo, the hospital said, we cannot, it's too complicated for us, we cannot help, it's crazy.

5:29Jurgen Klinsmann: So we had to organize a medical chat, getting him up to Germany. He was then, he underwent surgery four days later in the university clinic in Heidelberg. It's a town close to Frankfurt, but very well known for medical kind of difficult situations. They saved him. They saved him. Was it that close, Jürgen? It was, yeah, it was in danger from the moment basically it happened until the moment they could now do surgery. And it all went fantastically well. They put four screws into his neck, into the upper spine, basically. They're connected to C1 and C2. They call it the vertebrae is there. And they will come out in six months and he will be like before.

6:18Ian Wright: Wow.

6:18Jurgen Klinsmann: It's fantastic. We are so thankful to the people there. We're thanking God every second. Wow. But I have to be honest. It completely took me off balance for several weeks. I flew over right away. my wife came as well and and uh it was like walking in fog you know because you know i'm not a medical person and and i don't know the severity of certain things and and uh just not knowing what will be for quite some time you know uh it just uh it took me a while so yesterday when i came up to manchester i felt like you know what i can see clearly again i think now i know next steps will be this, this, this.

7:04Jurgen Klinsmann: It will be a long road of recovery, but he will recover 100%, and he will set his new goals then. Obviously he wants to play a World Cup. He's 29 years old, and he had a chance now with Maurizio, but it didn't happen. But I told him, listen, you heal 100%, the screws will come out after six to nine months, and it will heal. And then it's more psychological, obviously, but he's a strong boy. He says, I'm going to do that. you know, I will come back.

7:34Roy Keane: The fact he's thinking of that, isn't it? It's like mad, but the fact that he's okay. That's the main thing.

7:41Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, it kind of reminds a lot of people a bit of Bert Trotman, you know, the story that, yeah, with the broken neck. But the most important part was game over, lay him down on the ground and then get him straight to the hospital. Then they did x-rays and MRTs and all these things that they do nowadays. And then with every half an hour, it got just the messages got worse and worse and i knew i gotta get on the next flight uh to europe which i did and then uh the moment we got him then into that special clinic in heidelberg in germany that's when you kind of relax yeah relax a little bit and said you know what they know what they're doing that's what they're doing they get the the motorcyclists they get the e-bike children that the horrible accidents nowadays you know and they are specialized in in neck situation and neck surgeries and spine issues and it will be good it was good to hear thank you but I admire you from afar you know I live in Los Angeles now almost 28 years even if I did adventures back and forth in Europe with teams in Germany or or Bayern Munich and and others and and but I really like your show oh but to get it off the table so talk us about Los Angeles what's it like living over there?

8:59Jurgen Klinsmann: My wife, she's Californian. I bumped into her when I actually left Monaco in that time period for Spurs in 1994. We met and yeah, then in 97, Jonathan, who's the goalkeeper now, he was born in Munich when I played for Bayern Munich. And in 98, I finished my career after the World Cup in France. And there we had the decision to make, where should the boy grow up? You know, California, where her family is, or Stuttgart, where my family is. And with all respect to Stuttgart and my family. After living in Milano, London, Monte Carlo, we were in Wenger two years, in Monaco. It's going to be a bit difficult to go back to Stuttgart for me.

9:47Jurgen Klinsmann: And yeah, it was clear that we're going to go to Southern California. and we live about 45 minutes south of Los Angeles in an area called Orange County, Newport Beach and it was probably one of the best decisions we ever made.

10:01Gary Neville: Do you get more nervous watching or thinking about your son playing now than you did when you played yourself? Yeah, absolutely.

10:10Jurgen Klinsmann: Because you just wish your own kids, you wish just the best for them and you want them to do well and you want them to reach 100 % of their potential and hopefully get to the right people at the right time. And in his case, he never really had the right people at the right time. He bumped into people and it didn't match. And he unfortunately, he's now 29 and he started, so he did two years university first and then he was playing the under 20 World Cup 2017 in South Korea when England had a fantastic run with the under 20s. and he was one of the top three goalkeepers in that tournament. And that's when two Bundesliga teams wanted him, and he went then to Berlin.

10:55Jurgen Klinsmann: But he never really got a fair chance because of his last name. So there was always kind of a jealousy behind it, and he had to suffer that for many, many years. And when he now exploded then so late in Italy, becoming goalkeeper of the year in Italy in the Serie B, the championship basically, he kind of woke up a lot of people and said, you know what, this kid is really good. And so you kind of, yeah, you're a bit anxious, you're nervous when you watch it far more than you were about your own career.

11:29Ian Wright: So you see, when you're watching him, when he chose to be a goalkeeper, did you see the signs? He's a pretty good goalkeeper. Did you see that early?

11:39Roy Keane: Did you keep taking shots? So he first was a midfielder.

11:42Jurgen Klinsmann: He played outside and he loved it until the age of 11, 12. When I coached in Bayern Munich in, when was that, 2008, 2009? So we as a family obviously moved to Munich for the time being. And at the same time he played football, he played also basketball because the American system in the school, they always change the sports. And he was really good in basketball. And so he loved that. and at Bayern then he played in Bayern Munich's basketball team under 14 he was 11 years old and he was the best player there but at the same time he kind of tried out with the youth team as a midfielder and there he realized whoa are these kids good because at that time Bayern Munich they kind of recruited the best kids in the state of Bavaria it's like the whole Merseyside is only recruited by one top if it's Man United or Liverpool and he said that's going to be difficult to break into that group.

12:39Jurgen Klinsmann: I said, but I really love to catch the ball. He said, you know, I said, you do whatever you want. You know, and I said, oh, I want to be goalkeeper. And that's when he started at the age of 11 to be a goalkeeper. And then he did all the youth national teams for the United States, also the Olympic team. And, yeah, and it was in the mirror of the senior national team, but then they bounced back and forth with different coaches until Maurizio Pochettino then came and now guides them to the World Cup. But now he has to be patient. Yeah. Stick to Football is brought to you by Arn Clothing.

13:13Gary Neville: Jürgen, you grew up in Germany, obviously, born in Germany, and your parents were, your father was a baker. How was that growing up? So, were you in the shop? It was the best thing ever.

13:26Jurgen Klinsmann: No, we were a baker family. I have three brothers. We were all one year apart, and they always wanted a girl, but the girl never came after the fourth boy. They said, stop. and so growing up in a bakery was was wonderful because uh i mean you grow up also knowing then how it everything is made uh so i got an education as a baker too because i got a professional contract offer from a second division team in those days in the team is called stuttgart kickers they play now fourth division but those days they were second division um and they offered a contract when I was playing for the youth team and I was not allowed to sign that contract because you're a child still.

14:07Jurgen Klinsmann: So your parent has to sign it. So my dad had to sign the contract, but he says, what if somebody breaks your leg and you cannot play anymore and you leave now school for this? You can make money with football. He said, I said, supposedly. So when he said, okay, you know what, boy, I sign you this contract so you become professional at the age of 18 then officially but you need to have something in your pocket. So if you leave school, then you get an education as a baker, a baker diploma, which I have. So at the same time, I wasn't allowed to train with the first team as a 16-year-old, but I had to work every day in the bakery.

14:46Jurgen Klinsmann: So I got that diploma, and it worked out well. Were you happy to walk, or were you forced, or were you happy to walk? No, I loved it. The only critical thing was you've got to get up at 3 in the morning, start the first shift until 7, 8 o 'clock, Then I was allowed to go to the training. And then I had to do a second shift after lunch for the rest of the day, the goods that go into the shop then. But it was, for me, just normal.

15:12Ian Wright: And you loved it. You loved it. You loved baking. You loved football. So it was perfect. Yeah, it was perfect.

15:16Roy Keane: We need to get some of these Premier League players in, Greg. There is other brands available.

15:21Ian Wright: It's amazing.

15:22Roy Keane: It's discipline, though, isn't it? It's hard work. And it kind of instills that from a young age that you've got to be disciplined in everything you do.

15:29Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, and I think the lesson from my father was probably you've got to have a plan B. If plan A doesn't work out, so if really something happens with an injury or whatever, or you're not good enough, then at least you have something to fall back on. And that was very wise of him.

15:47Gary Neville: Was your father your biggest influence when you were growing up?

15:50Jurgen Klinsmann: I think so, yeah, because I just saw him. I mean, that generation, you know, the post-World War II generation in every country, what they had to work was just insane. And I saw him work 14, 16-hour shifts every day, and my mom too. The only time they really went outside the bakery was when one of us kids had any sporting events. My older brother was a track and fielder. He was a deck athlete. He was fairly good. and the other one was also playing football. One was a judo car. So when any kind of stuff in the sports world was happening, they try to support, they try to come. So he was definitely a huge influence.

16:33Jurgen Klinsmann: But my dad was funny. He originally was from East Germany. And before the wall came up, basically, he left his place with a friend of him, also a baker friend from his little town. And then they went to the western side. They moved around and he ended up in Stuttgart in the southwest area of Germany, which was occupied by the Americans. And he got the official papers that he's allowed to stay there. They met my mom and they settled there. But because of the fact that he left home, he was never really accepted to where he went because in a dialect, they understood he was from the eastern side. Every time we went back as kids to visit his family, because we were only allowed from the west German side to go to the east German side to visit family.

17:18Jurgen Klinsmann: they from East Germany were not allowed to come to West Germany. So it only was a one way for the rest. So every time we went back home to his place, you know, they made him feel like crap basically because you left us. You ran away. So I saw that over years. We children saw this until obviously we were all thrilled when the wall came down in 89, late 89. But he, because of his experience leaving home, trying to find his way of life somewhere else, At one point, I maybe was 12 or 13 years old. I was constantly outside, like we all were playing football. You know, the afternoons were playing football for us.

17:58Jurgen Klinsmann: So one day he came and said, I need to talk to you. I said, yeah, what is that? And I said, well, I will observe you. I'm observing you every day. And one day, you got to go. He said to me, when I was a child, and I said, well, what do you mean, dad? One day I have to go. So I see that in you. I see that in you. You need to see the world. There's more and more to it. You have this drive. And I remember that until today. And the same happened years later when I played for Stuttgart. The final two years of my time in Stuttgart, Bundesliga, we were a fairly good team. We went to the UEFA Cup final against Napoli in 1989 against Maradona.

18:43Jurgen Klinsmann: Karik Adamau.

18:44Ian Wright: Yes, there.

18:45Jurgen Klinsmann: But in that year already, I became already an 87 national team player under Beckenbauer. And yeah, so people could see, okay, this kid maybe could go a different route. My coach was Ari Hahn.

18:59Ian Wright: He was a fantastic Dutch player

19:02Jurgen Klinsmann: in a 74, 78 World Cup. And he one day came to me in the last year. I was playing and said, you know, Jürgen, I need to talk to you. I said, what's up coach? And I adored him because he was always in a good mood. He was so not German. He was always funny, cracking jokes. And I said, yeah, what's up, coach? He said, yeah, I think it's time for you to go. And we were in that run towards the UEFA Cup final at the end. I said, what do you mean? I said, yeah, the best are in Italy. What are you doing here? How old were you then? I was 23. Oh, that means I got to go to Italy. And he said, yeah. I mean, I'd love to keep you here and maybe win a title or two, whatever.

19:49Jurgen Klinsmann: But, you know, I think, you know, I need to be honest to you. You know, everybody is now watching the Serie A in Italy, the late 80s. You know, all the best players, you know, if it's Zico, if it's, I mean, Mateus and Bremer were there, Rudy Fuller were there from the national team. and then obviously Gulli van Basten-Reichardt and all these players. I was like, okay, coach. You didn't doubt him, you believed what he was telling you. Yeah, I really thought he means it in a good way. It means it for me. I got to move on and do things that make me better then, hopefully.

20:29Gary Neville: Would your father have told you you need to go when you're 12, 13 because of his experience and the fact that he...

20:35Jurgen Klinsmann: Maybe he saw, yeah, he just saw there's more to life than just the bakery probably. And he saw I have a lot of talent and what I'm doing there. And I went through all the youth national teams then with Germany. And so he understood that this kid is hungry, is driven. He's trying to make the right decisions, which we not always do, but we try to. Was he always a striker? you're just about to say from a little kid on yeah i just wanted to score goals i was i was just driven by goals i was not driven by jogging the ball around or you know just doing technical crazy things i just thought you know i know where the goal is just give him the ball and i will take care of it somehow um and i think in the under 10 uh ever so he gave me when i started to play at eight year old he said okay if you do this now and i think you have really quite some talent but I started a book for you.

21:36Jurgen Klinsmann: It's called Your Little Record Book. You put a sentence in that book, and they said, I want you to write down every game you play, the result of the game, and because you want to be a striker, how many goals you score. From the age of eight on, I wrote, I have it at home, that book. The German football museum wants it so badly, I said, I'm not going to do it. And I wrote down every single game I played until you became professional then. then it's okay. Then other people have the books. And that second season, I played as a nine-year-old. I had two games. In one game, I scored 16 goals. In the other, I scored 15 goals.

22:13Jurgen Klinsmann: The game was two times 20 minutes. So we had a very strong center back. He kicked the ball upwards. He was fast. I scored. I picked the ball out of the net and ran back and put it down because I wanted to score again. 31 goals in two games. So in that season, I scored 106 goals and, I don't know, 20 games or whatever. But I wrote it down. And then, yeah, later on, they made a book with it, you know, well, 30 years old. That's amazing. My book would have been empty. I don't think that Ian's book would have been. It would be cool to have your book.

22:53Ian Wright: You know what I mean? Just to write it down is something I would have loved to do. Because you played football for hours outside. You just play for hours. Did you do that, Roy? Yeah, of course, yeah. You played for hours. It felt like you never got tired. And when you said about when you were young, just outside playing football, were you guys just outside playing football? Same as you did.

23:12Jurgen Klinsmann: Same as all, I think, the football-driven nations do. That was the way we grew up.

23:20Roy Keane: You just get a shelf for your tea when you're at, like, five o 'clock or something. But now you walk around the streets. I was doing it the other day. And there's, like, hardly any kids about. I know there's a safety element, but there's not as many kids out playing as there in general.

23:34Gary Neville: It's a great time. Stick to Football is brought to you by Arn Clothing. When I think about you, you're the one German player that seemed to have that something different. That sort of bit of flair. I always think of German teams as obviously winning, reliable, consistent. But you had that little bit of flair. Were you deemed back then in the day when you were growing up as being a flair player? someone who was highly skillful, the most talented?

24:02Jurgen Klinsmann: I think my life changed dramatically. I don't know if I was a bit different when I still was playing for Stuttgart in the UEFA Cup final with Napoli and all that. But my life definitely changed to a different way of thinking and looking at things the moment I stepped into Italy. I had a couple of lessons in Italy the first few months. at Inter Milan, also with teammates. The way I thought, you know, typical German in those days is we expect certain things to be a certain way. It's just how our brain was programmed. And there was a day that the washing machine was broken. I called a mechanic. The mechanic didn't show up in Italy, you know, and came then two or three days later and I confronted the gentleman and said, you were supposed to come two days ago.

24:56Jurgen Klinsmann: I said, yeah, I know, but I had no time, but I'm here now, right? And I said, but you were supposed to come two days ago. So it stressed me out. And he was looking at me like, what's wrong with this guy? And he said, so do you want me to fix the washing machine? And I took that, okay, he's right, you know. So I thought, you know, I tell that story to my teammates next day in training ground. And the Italians, you know. And in those days, only three foreign players were allowed to play in a foreign country. And so in my broken Italian, very broken Italian, I explained it to my teammates. I thought, you know, they need to understand me that it's not okay coming to this league.

25:40Jurgen Klinsmann: And so I told the story and one Italian, I don't know who it was then. I mean, there were personalities in that locker room at Inter Milan like Zenga, Bergomi Ferry, Aldo Serena was my striking partner. We had about five, six Italian national team players that played the 90 World Cup. It was a really good team. And so one lad stood up, came and kind of right in front of my face and said, Jürgen, it's very simple. In Italian. And I understood okay. I said, it's very simple. All you take as Italians the way we are, I'll get the heck out of here.

26:17Ian Wright: He said, was he serious?

26:19Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah.

26:19Roy Keane: Oh, wow.

26:20Jurgen Klinsmann: And I didn't know what to say. I was probably red in my face, you know, and I was shaking a little bit and said, oh, my God, what did I do? What did I do wrong? You know, so I said, okay, you know, and I sat back on my spot. And for two or three minutes, I was thinking and thinking, what do I do? It was all quiet in the locker room. And everybody was thinking, the Italians were thinking, so how does he take that now? How does he take that lesson? And then after two or three minutes, I realized he's so right. I'm a guest here. I'm coming from a different place I have to learn to take them the way they are not they have to take me the way I am I have to change

26:59Gary Neville: I have to change

27:01Jurgen Klinsmann: so I stood up and I said I'm so sorry guys I think I got the lesson and then they were all laughing

27:10Roy Keane: did that mean you just had to relax a little bit more

27:13Jurgen Klinsmann: no it meant I had to take no matter where I go and for the rest of my life that is the key lesson was me as it doesn't matter where I came from then I have to take the people the way they are and I don't have to go anywhere in the world and expect the people the way I want them to be and it was a bit our German approach you know we go on vacation and we put down the towels in the pool all these old stories but there's a truth behind it you know it's it's busy we are programmed a bit that way we want a wiener schnitzel we want the food away and um but that moment i i i really started then to always think okay how do they think how do they i mean what is their philosophy of life and then i moved on to arson wenger in monaco the french people are different then i i came came to england obviously got my lessons in england too from the people in a good way but But I was prepared then.

28:09Jurgen Klinsmann: I was prepared, okay, if they are different and if they are with their special type of humor, and I just need to ask questions then. I need to ask, okay, what would you do now? Like the diver story. How do I react to it? What is now, what did I do wrong in the first place? And I think when people then saw that, okay, I can make fun of myself too. I can also say that I had a bad day or I had a bad game, missed some chances or whatever. and I think that helped me forever.

28:41Gary Neville: When you first went to Intermola, it was Trappatoni that took you there. What did you learn from him? You just mentioned how challenging it was for you to adapt to the culture, but in terms of the football, Italian defenders back then, you mentioned Bergami, they were tough. That league was a tough defensive league.

28:58Jurgen Klinsmann: In the late 80s then, when the Serie A became the place to be for several years until the Premier League took over. obviously. The Italian football has the culture of not to lose. First and foremost, you cannot lose. If you end up 0-0-1-1, you save your face. So for the Italians, not losing means I still have my face all right. Still today. So defending is the number one piece in mind. For me, it was very difficult to comprehend because I want to score goals. I was lucky that Trapattoni at least played with two strikers. Today, nobody plays with two strikers in a partnership anymore. I had Aldo Serena, also the center forward from the national team, the Italian team, as my partner, and we had a blast.

29:49Jurgen Klinsmann: We had a good time. But their culture is all the coaches, and Trapattoni included, get taught by their educational system. You play football, first and foremost, not to lose. Then if in the last 10 minutes we figure out how to score a goal, We are heroes. Fantastic. We win 1-0 and everybody is happy. And the fans are happy as well? And the fans are... So the fans get educated that way as well. The media get educated that way as well. So if you win four games, 4-3, 3-2, 5-4, they will criticize all the goals that you conceded. They will not give you compliments, but, well, you won. And so coming to today is even because my son is now down there and plays in that culture, they are still caught in this mentality.

30:39Jurgen Klinsmann: They are caught of not taking any risks. It's in their DNA. That's normal for them. It's normal for them. So don't take risks. And if you take risks only maybe the last 10, 15 minutes, where we would say, you know, this game is going the wrong way. We are down 1-0 at halftime. We have to make some changes here. We got to go forward and bring in some attacking options. they might have the same thought but not the same timing as we in Germany or in England have so they wait until 10 minutes before the end where I say then why are you waiting so long you're down 1-0 you have only 45 minutes now to turn it around was that good pressure for you then to be alive for the last 10 minutes where you think this is where I might get the opportunity so I realized then okay you got to be spot on the last 15-20 minutes so but I had no problems with it because I was a runner I love to run and still today I love to run and so I was waiting for the last 20 minutes to get people tired

31:39Gary Neville: It's interesting you mentioned the Italian mentality but the thing that we probably in England Roy is obviously from Ireland but the thing in England we've been obsessed with the German mentality you could argue for 30, 40 years because we've always felt that we've lost out to Germany how would you describe the German mentality of football if you describe the Italian as not to lose How would you describe the German mentality when you were growing up and the successes that you've had with national teams and the way in which you think?

32:07Jurgen Klinsmann: I think the DNA of German football is always a cultural discussion. It's actually very similar, I think, to the English DNA. We like to take risks in a certain way and we like to go forward. That means we don't like to wait what the other people are doing. We rather do it. and that's how I experienced in my first time it was very similar to Stuttgart or Bayern Munich when I played there so we don't have we're impatient both nations English and Germans are impatient we want to get things moving forward somehow let's move let's do something meanwhile the Italian culture is we wait it's like a chess game we wait until you make the first move and if that's the wrong move I'm going to kill you and it's you can see that in the business world, you can see it in cultural, in other sports or in other elements of the culture that Germany and England are both nations they're duos, you know we're not waiting for the French, we're not waiting for the Spanish, Italian, you know the Latin nations, they are more relaxed, they lean back and they they wait off what's happening what happens first and then they find their way of disturbing you or beating you.

33:33Gary Neville: I'm interested that you actually compare the German culture mentality to the English. Do you see it? Do you see us as being as organized or as disciplined or as successful as you've been? Because I always think that we think of the German mentality as being one of efficiency, success, winning. English, I mean, football terms I'm talking probably here as well, mainly. We've not been able to get over the line. We've fallen short. We say we're going to win and we don't win. You're a bit more reserved, but you go and win.

34:03Jurgen Klinsmann: I think that's a discussion of confidence. And confidence comes with the success. And I think Germany had then, you know, we were fortunate that we could build on the success of the 1954 World Cup team because that team gave the country the permission again to stand tall after World War II. Then we had the golden generation of 74, 72 with Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Overath and Uli Hoeneß. And these unbelievable generation of players like your 66 team and then obviously the teams that came after. So they pulled up some things that gave German football a lot of confidence. because those and then came we were kind of called the 1990 team was called the the team of the reunification bring both sides back together east germany and west germany and we felt that support in in the world cup 1990 which we we luckily won but we also knew that you know playing the semi-final of england was like this you know could have gone both ways like 96 same thing could have gone both ways But what the 54 and the 74 team did to the nation was giving the entire nation confidence again.

35:24And I think building on those two World Cup wins, we built a level of confidence for the 90 team.

35:32Jurgen Klinsmann: That even if we knew that England can beat us, Holland can beat us, we kind of had this level of confidence inside of us to say, no matter what will happen, we're going to win it. If they call it luck or not luck, it's okay. And I think that the little piece that is missing in England still over the last decades, decades, is this last piece of confidence. Like, I mean, obviously I was with you guys in 21 at the final with Italy and I was also at the last final in Berlin and that was always the last piece

36:16Roy Keane: Do you get that confidence or do you think once England get one win then it should kind of power them on because they should have that belief Do you think it takes that one big win?

36:26Jurgen Klinsmann: I think it takes that one big win and I always said no Harry Kane needs to leave Harry needs to leave to get the feeling of winning something Yes And then, horribly enough, the first season didn't win because Leverkusen had this kind of… But it is once you get that taste… And you want more of it, don't you? Then you start to want more. And then you also bring out your chest and say, you know what, we'll get the next title. You get greedy, you get greedy, don't you? Success is good, yeah. I mean, based on the one year with Arsene Wenger, you know, where he didn't lose at all, that changes everything it changes your perspective because it gives you the feeling you can do it if you work obviously hard and you know I mean a lot of elements have to fall into place but but it is a it is a mental situation

37:16Gary Neville: Stick to Football is brought to you by Arn Clothing this episode is sponsored by Huel Gary it's my favourite time of the year it's the World Cup yeah I can't wait for it to be fair What was it like actually playing in the World Cup? Because that's obviously everyone's dream. Do you know something? It was a massive build-up. Oh, talking of everyone's dreams. I love the Blue Raspberry One of these. But do you know something? The World Cup, it's probably, other than the fact my debut is for United and sort of playing in the first big FA Cup game or things like that, I remember my first World Cup match was against Romania in France 98.

37:56Gary Neville: And I reckon it's the most nervous I've been as a senior football player. A World Cup is like, a World Cup, 82, Spain, 90. Maradona, 86. You know, 90, obviously, Gaza. And just, they're like, that's your childhood, that's your growing up. That's, you know what I mean, seven years of age through to sort of what would be 15, 16 years of age. That was my, I always remember Socrates, 1982 World Cup, Junior, Zico. They're names that are magical. They're things that just sit up in heaven from the point of view of me growing up. My hero was Brian Robson, Norman Whiteside, Mark Hughes, but these players were something that you just like, untouchable.

38:41Gary Neville: Did you think you would make it to a World Cup? I never thought about playing in a World Cup when I was growing up. I thought about playing for United all the time. And then playing for United, to be fair, a result of that usually means you play for your country. I love playing for my country. I love playing for England. so disappointed not to win a tournament with England. And World Cups were a big disappointment. 2006, I think I've said this before, when I realised it was probably going to be my last World Cup because I was 31, I remember we lost on penalties to Portugal. I remember, that's the closest I've ever, I think a tear appeared in my eyes, the closest I've ever been to crying in a football match because I thought, I'm never going to win a major tournament for England, I'm never going to win a World Cup with England.

39:21Gary Neville: And that was, maybe we were never good enough, we were never good enough, obviously. Teams were better than us, but you just have that dream, don't you, once you start playing for your country. Yeah. Do you know what isn't a disappointment, Gary? The Hula daily A to Z vitamin drink. Do you know something? I'm travelling at the moment. Like, I'm having three weeks. America. You'll be travelling all over there. America, two, three times. I'm all over the place and I have one of these in my bag. Give me my vitamins. You've got to have your vitamins when you're travelling. Did you have vitamins when you were playing and stuff like that?

39:50Gary Neville: You have supplements when you're playing where your deficiencies are. Vitamin D. quite often a deficiency for people who live in the north of England. But this is packed with vitamin D, so we're good.

40:03Jurgen Klinsmann: Good. Cheers.

40:04Gary Neville: Get our special offer on all the Huel range, including this. Huel Daily A to Z has your vitamins, energy and hydration all in one can. Find it in Tesco where it's even in the meal deal, so go and grab one. New customers get our exclusive discount plus a free gift at huel.com forward slash the overlap. You played under incredible managers, Beckenbauer, Trapattoni, Wenger, just three of them and there are more. Who is the manager that you learnt most from?

40:33Jurgen Klinsmann: I learnt from all of them. I had an OCR dealer at Spurs when we came with the flying five forwards. And I had Cesar Luiz Minotti at Sampdoria Genoa for a couple of months. And until he decided, you know, basically overnight he left back to Buenos Aires. he wanted two more players and the president said I have no money the next day he was gone his coaching stuff was gone but I try to learn from everyone like Ariane I mentioned once you know in Stuttgart and obviously Franz Beckenbauer for our generation of the 90 World Cup generation and he was he was like a father figure and whenever I got nervous on the field whenever I had a bad day on the field, I said, what are you doing?

41:22Jurgen Klinsmann: You know, you're missing these chains. I just looked outside and then he stood there and sometimes he was a bit bored or, you know, but he's just his charisma and his positivity got you back in line. I said, you know, what am I nervous about? What is my problem? His friend's back and forth standing out there, the Kaiser, and he got me back in balance. and I started without saying anything to you his presence his presence his presence made you believe his presence made you calm you know we in 1990 we had no media pressure because that was all on Franz Beckenbauer and he was just smiling

42:01Ian Wright: yeah

42:01Jurgen Klinsmann: and so yeah he was very influential and then I had the 96 coach Berti Vogts

42:08Ian Wright: yeah

42:08Jurgen Klinsmann: he had me as under 16 coach for the German Federation and under 21 coach and and so he was like a person that I always calls and looked up on whenever something was happening. And I took him into my staff actually in the United States then for five years as a technical advisor, I call him, because he wanted to be assistant coach. I said, Betty, no. You cannot be my assistant coach because you were my coach. So I got to figure out a name. We give you some title, but then you are with us. And so for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, he was on my side. And not being in the bench, he was in the stand, but he was always there as an advisor.

42:50Ian Wright: You had too much respect for him to be your assistant.

42:52Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, too much respect.

42:54Gary Neville: What was Franz Beckham-Bowler? Was he tactical or was it just mainly motivation, management?

42:59Jurgen Klinsmann: I think the first couple of years he was mainly motivational, personality, giving you confidence. But then he became, after he lost 86th in the World Cup final against Argentina, he went back to the board, as we say. and said, you know, now I want to know everything in the detail. And he became fanatical going into details. And Lota Mateos, he told me those stories. He said he always had to get up into his room and he explained to him, listen, this is what we're going to do. So the majority of the players didn't know that. The captain knew it. His right hand was Lota Mateos. And so he became very driven in details.

43:39Jurgen Klinsmann: So he knew everything about every opponent that we faced in the World Cup because he says, I'm not going to finish second again. And that was his drive. What was it like playing against Maradona? I mean, I know that English people have a very specific kind of memories with Maradona. And I totally get that. I mean, there's no doubt about it. But I had the first experience with him in the 1989 UEFA Cup final with Stuttgart. and that was when you know he famously did the warm up on the song Life is Life in the stadium and we had 70 ,000 people in Stuttgart and he started to joggle the ball you know and we all were just watching on the other side and the game was already over you know we already lost that game mentally for me and I met him then obviously with Inter Milan Napoli we played many times in Argentina Germany became a bit of a rivalry and for me he was always an artist that couldn't control his brain so he was always chasing his own brain you know because his thoughts were always ahead of time on the field that means he saw things ahead of time before he got the ball he knew already where this ball needs to go who he needs to feed what he needs to do he knew exactly he had a 360 degree vision he knew where the goalkeeper was, you know, so when he knew he was 10 yards out of the line, then he chipped the ball, yeah, and I saw these, it witnessed it, you know, in all these games, you know, but I think then off the field, obviously his brain becomes his biggest struggle because then drugs came into his life and when he came to Napoli, you know, nobody couldn't believe it, that he actually comes to one of the places in Italy where it's not Juventus, it's not Inter, it's not AC Milan, it's not Ace Roma, which was kind of still a big number.

45:44Jurgen Klinsmann: It's southern Italy. It's Napoli. Napoli is a completely different world, even for the Italians. You can talk to the northern Italian, southern Italy, but Napoli is its own place.

45:57Ian Wright: Like Liverpool for us. Yeah,

46:01Jurgen Klinsmann: but fast, absolutely fascinating. And he became a child of Napoli. But he said, this is my place. This is where I come from. And I went right before COVID. I went on a boys trip with two friends of mine to Buenos Aires. And they said, I want to witness one time Boca Juniors River Plate at La Bombonera. That was on my bucket list. And so I went down there. And then we walked through the neighborhood Boca. and every second house is blue and yellow. Every third house is Maradona. And it's a rough neighborhood. And so I understood, okay, you know, this is Napoli in a different way. And then, yeah, he became a child of the Napolitanians and their culture.

46:49Jurgen Klinsmann: And then when he brought the first title to them, he will be a forever God. He's God. But he could not go out of the house. If he goes just out to the corridor, there are 100 people waiting for him. He could not go to a restaurant. He could not have an espresso in a bar. Like all the northern Italians in Torino and Milano, we could go and have a nice coffee. Players, they had never a problem. They maybe wanted to have an autograph here and there, but they leave you alone. Not in Napoli. You belong to them. And that ate him up. And then he got into drugs.

47:24Roy Keane: That must have been so tough for him, wasn't it? You can see kind of how them things happen. If you can't leave your house, then...

47:31Gary Neville: Yeah, challenging. I mean, look, you worked with Arsene Wenger before he came to England. Were you aware of how great a coach he was at that point when you worked with him at Monaco?

47:43Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, I think it was highly impressive what he did in Monaco already. And obviously, Monaco is not the big house number like Liverpool and Man United and Arsenal. It's a very well-driven club. They're trying to kind of bother Paris Saint-Germain, Olympique Marseille in those days, but it's little Monaco. You know, you play in front of 5 ,000 people, the league games, and we played in Champions League, and those games are sold out, you know. But what Arsene did already when I went there was, you know, he tried to recruit all kind of related, French-related African nations. He had a scouting network all over Africa.

48:26Jurgen Klinsmann: And so players came in from young players with dual citizenship, French, and then the relevant African country. So he was fantastic and he recruited. And then the philosophy he had of playing was attacking-minded football. It was a fast-paced combination related. And that impressed me the most with Arsene is he was an educator. He was like a teacher. And sometimes, you know, for me as a goal-driven machine and I wanted to just win something, you know, I didn't really get it, you know, some stuff that he did. So in that team, when I played there in 90, when was that? I think 92 to 94, there was a young kid coming up from the youth, it was Lilian Thuram.

49:20Ian Wright: Yes.

49:20Jurgen Klinsmann: There was another one called Emmanuel Petit. They were not national team players. They were just young players. Yuri Jokaev.

49:26Ian Wright: Yes.

49:27Jurgen Klinsmann: And then we had foreign players. It was me, Rui Baros. He came from Portuguese. Little player. Came from Juventus Turin.

49:35Ian Wright: Rui Baros.

49:36Jurgen Klinsmann: And so we had these young French players. And yeah, they were highly talented. But sometimes he opted against them, you know, for the first 11. So after a while, you know, I saw Yuri Jacques F. And Yuri was a little bit, he loved life. You know, he loved to go. Let's talk about where we go for lunch during training. You know, you oversee the ocean there from the training ground. So really difficult to focus. And I said, where are we going now for lunch? We go to Nice, to Cap Ferrat, and all these beautiful places there. And then he left him off the starting lineup a couple of times. And we were running for the title with Olympique Marseille.

50:18Jurgen Klinsmann: We were head on head. and he left him out a couple of times and I said at a certain point I said to him and I was the only player allowed to talk to him also in German because he speaks flu in German I said coach what are you doing you know I was straightforward I said you know you can't put Juri on the bench he's one of our best players you know yeah I know but he's young I said yeah I know he's young but he's one of our best players I said yeah but he doesn't understand yet what it means to be a professional I said what do you mean I said yeah he's out you know he's drinking here and he's smoking there.

50:52Jurgen Klinsmann: And I said, yeah, I know, but he's one of our best players. We want to win the title. No, no, no, he needs to learn his lessons. And he gave him his lessons. So he left him out on the bench and he went through that. He was steady on him. And month by month you saw the change in Juri becoming more and more professional and I would be interested to have him now on the table and talk about that process that he went through. because everybody knew he's so talented. And that's how he educated the players. For him, the education of the players was more important than actually winning the title at the end of the day.

51:29Jurgen Klinsmann: And that was the first season. We ended up that season as a runner-up. But unfortunately, Olympic Marseille bought the championship. They corrupted the other teams and the referees on the Bernard Tapie. And so they didn't give us the title for that, but they gave us the slot going into the Champions League for the next season where we ended up actually in the semi-final losing to AC Milan in 94. And that's when these talents, Lilliam Thuram, Emmanuel Patti and Yuri Djokov got on the international stage and then four years later, obviously in 98, they won the World Cup. But he was for me more an educator than anything else.

52:08Jurgen Klinsmann: Fantastic, fantastic. And that's brave out of manager to sacrifice, potentially sacrifice. Christ football in scores and games where you think you're under pressure, we can make it look at that bigger picture. Yeah.

52:20Roy Keane: And your first coach doing that, you know what I mean? Because it would have been beneficial for him to keep you, but he said you need to go and, like, them managers that care about you as a person, I think that's really special.

52:33Gary Neville: Stick to Football is brought to you by Arne Clothing.

52:37Jurgen Klinsmann: England. Did you always want to come to England?

52:40Roy Keane: No.

52:40Jurgen Klinsmann: We grew up, the only league we were able to watch in England in the 70s, 80s was English, the English league.

52:49Ian Wright: Did you watch the FA Cup as well?

52:51Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah. So there was a kind of main broadcast is ARD. It's called ZDF. Those are the two BBCs of the world. And every Sunday later afternoon, they showed the highlights of the key game in England. And we were glued to the TV. so I was a fanatical Kevin Keegan fan and then he came even to Hamburg and then he became European Football of the Year during his days in Hamburg winning the Champions League in those days What was your first impressions of England and the Premier League when you came? Well what for me was incredible to experience was the dynamic of the game in England but we saw that as kids you know it was I mean it was meant sometimes negatively in other countries as a kick and rush, right?

53:43Jurgen Klinsmann: But I always looked at it positively because it means to me I want to score as fast as I can, right? Kick the ball up front and figure out a way to get it in a box and then figure out a way to put it in the net. And for me, that was pure joy as a forward, as a striker. And so I was always amazed by the energy that came across on television with the fans, you see the kids in the first row there screaming and just the dynamic of the game was so highly dynamic. And then obviously the great Liverpool side in the 70s then became famous, absolutely famous. So many German kids were Liverpool fans. It was incredible.

54:27Jurgen Klinsmann: It was incredible. And for me, English football was always about energy. There's so much energy there.

54:35Roy Keane: when I came then

54:37Jurgen Klinsmann: and experienced it myself I mean for me that first Spurs season before I left then for Bayern Munich a bit a similar move to Harry Kane I needed to leave because I ran out of time to win some stuff and but for me that energy was I sucked it all out Would that have been part of your plan when you were younger to play in different leagues or was it just planned out that way Italy and obviously Germany and France I had no plan but when Ari Han, a Dutch coach, said, you got to go to Italy, actually I realized that this can become like a second school to me. I was always jealous of my schoolmates. They went on university.

55:21Jurgen Klinsmann: They had their careers. One becomes a doctor, a lawyer, whatever they became then later on. And I never had that experience going to school at the age of 18, 19, 20. So then I realized in Italy, Oh, this is like... In a certain way like a school. It's like an educational process. You have to figure out how they think, what they do. You have to learn their language. And then I actually after my third year in Italy I kind of got bored because I thought I know it now. I know Italian. I know how they live. I know the difference between the different places and how they think. I think I've got to move on.

56:00Jurgen Klinsmann: What's next? and then so next came France and then after two years with Arsene I played the 94 World Cup in the US and yeah it just in Monaco for two years is fantastic but two years playing league games in front of 5 ,000 people you know it's kind of okay even if it was a very good team obviously then we had Lillian, Thuram, and Nime they really became national team players but I said no I need to do something else and then came the option with Spurs

56:30Roy Keane: Was it true that that came about because Alan Sugar was on a yacht in Monaco and then there was a conversation between agents? Is that true? is it?

56:41Jurgen Klinsmann: so I played the 94 World Cup in the United States and I had an agreement with Arsene that if a team comes and pays 2 million dollars I'm allowed, I was almost 30 years old I'm allowed to go Arsene said I get you I kept you now for 2 years here and if you don't want to do something new again before you run out of time and so I came back from the World Cup in America and And I sat in my place in Monte Carlo, an apartment, and then suddenly Alan Sugar calls and says, hey, you know, I'm the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, and we would like to talk to you if you're interested. And I said, yeah, absolutely, I'm interested.

57:22Jurgen Klinsmann: I would, where are you? Oh, I'm sitting here on my yacht in a harbor. And I said, oh, that's 300 yards away from me. Because it's so small, you know, so small. It was in my apartment. So I walked down to him. I remember we had a cappuccino. He had that on his boat. I was really impressed that he had a cappuccino. And so he explained to me the situation that we're in, minus 12 points deduction because of financial mismanagement in the past and out of the FA Cup. And we have those problems, but I'm fighting them. I'm fighting them. I get them reduced and so no worries. And the coaches, Ossia Adiles, said, who's the coach?

58:03Jurgen Klinsmann: Ossia Adiles, I said. And I adored Argentinian football.

58:10Jurgen Klinsmann: And then I think it was done in 10 minutes. He threw out the numbers directly, face-to-face. I said, this is what I earned here in Monaco. This is what I got here into Milan. And I want to have it kind of somewhere that is matching your best players at Spurs. I don't want to be off too much. But I want to be recognized there financially too. And he says, yeah, we can do that. We can do that. And so who do I talk to? I said, you have to talk to Arsene Wenger. So I called Arsene and he was 500 yards away in the office. And literally, 50 minutes later, we were in his office. I said, Arsene, you told me$2 million transfer fee.

58:49Jurgen Klinsmann: Here's Mr. Sugar, chairman, and he would like to cut a deal with you. And if you're okay, all I need from you is the release paper. And then you can talk to him privately. I don't need to be part of that. And then Alan, he called, I think, a photographer. for a while later. Who happens to be on the yacht. And then it came basically up to the paper, so they had the photo, you know, and it was the deal. What I didn't know in that moment was that England was the first, the Premier League was then the first league that introduced higher numbers for the players for the entire season. So that was the first year where they allowed numbers outside of 1 to 11 for the entire season, with your name on your back.

59:31Jurgen Klinsmann: You know, so that was, they tried it out, you know. So when I came to Spurs then, And they said, you know, what number do you want? I said, well, I mean, whatever. You know, whatever. If Teddy has nine, I take 11 or seven. Oh, I don't know. Give me any striker number. I said, no, no, no. You can have a higher number outside of the one to 11 because we keep the same number the entire season, no matter if you play or not play. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, I take the 18 because I had that with Germany. I didn't get the 18 with Germany because it was given away when I was a young lad breaking the German team.

1:00:04Jurgen Klinsmann: It was given to Rudi Völler, the 9, and Frank Mill, who was a striker from Dortmund, the 11. So I said, okay, then I take the double 9.

1:00:13Ian Wright: Yes.

1:00:13Jurgen Klinsmann: So 18. So now it became official that I moved from Monaco to Spurs. And I didn't know much about the Premier League at that time. I didn't know much about London and the dynamics. And I just said, I go there and experience this. so what happened and people in England didn't believe that you know this guy is coming with all that diver kind of discussion and story yes and I didn't know anything about that either but but I got there and uh and Spurs sold within the first two weeks jerseys with the 18 for more than two million dollars wow and then I woke up and I said holy moly is this true you know and Alan in his personality, he's an entertainer.

1:01:01Jurgen Klinsmann: He said, you know, I just want to let you know I can already cashed in that. The business. I got these two millions within two weeks.

1:01:11Ian Wright: Whose idea was the diving? Because you said you didn't really know about it. People were talking about you in this diving. Whose idea was to dive after?

1:01:20Jurgen Klinsmann: A friend of mine that lived close to Monaco, outside of Monaco, a German journalist, a writer, but he lived down there and he says, you know what? They're testing you out. They're testing you out. There's one thing you cannot do going to England is being offended or being upset. Then you lost with the English. He said to me, what am I doing? Well, take some goggles with you to the press conference or so. Make a joke at the press conference right away. And I did that. So I asked at the press conference during the introduction. I said, well, I want to ask if you know a diving school in London. I need to take some lessons.

1:02:02Jurgen Klinsmann: But it came across, obviously, a little bit. I was not relaxed enough. But they were laughing. Okay, so I broke some ice. And then the first game was a Champions Wednesday. And we drove up with the bus. And thousands of Wednesday fans had numbers out there, 5.8, 5.8. And the bus drove up. And it was a sellout crowd. and the whole bus was laughing. And I said, what are you laughing about? And he said, it's all for you. And Teddy had then the brilliant idea. Teddy, I mean, I didn't know how to take it. Teddy said, I got it. You score your first goal today and we're all going to do a dive. Teddy's idea.

1:02:44Jurgen Klinsmann: So in that game, I scored in the first goal and the whole team.

1:02:48Ian Wright: I remember laughing when I saw it. Did you see it right? I remember laughing. It was a perfect way. Thanks to Teddy.

1:02:55Jurgen Klinsmann: I thank him still today. Did you dive? No. No, I did not. But I understood then why, because when I saw then some of the images from the 90 World Cup, where people then said, this was not a foul and it was actually a foul, I then totally get it. You can see it both perspective. And I think the one foul from the Argentinian, a player in the final, you know um he cut me open yeah six inches along my machine but but you know i was lying on the ground and and the reaction of me however i did that you know rolling over and rolling even higher over i said what did you do there but it was my body reacting like that it was not really me it was not thinking of anything you know but he cut me open but looking at the images afterwards i I then totally understood why they're saying, oh, you were diving there.

1:03:50Jurgen Klinsmann: And then I also kind of said, okay, if you think that way, it's all right, no problem. But I did not purposely dive.

1:03:57Gary Neville: I think the English mentality was back then, because I do remember it. We were out of Europe, weren't we, for about five, six, seven years. And then when we came back in, it was almost like, I'm not going to call it diving, not you, just necessarily, but international teams, German teams, Italian teams, they won free kicks. They knew how to win free kicks. and the English players just didn't know how to win. We were quite naive, weren't we? It was almost like if you went down, it was ridiculous. But you watch the players now, if you get touched, you go down.

1:04:27Jurgen Klinsmann: And that's what I'm saying. Was it just winning? No, I understood it then. I talked, obviously, with my Spurs teammates about that stuff. And they explained me the English perspective on these fouls and all these circumstances. And I totally get it now. Now I'm the most angry one when I see a dive. And when I see, okay, this is not a penalty. This is not. And then I coached for six years. I coached the United States and we played Mexico. Three times, four times a year we played Mexico because that's the only big rival you have, really. And there was a situation where I said, this is not possible.

1:05:02Jurgen Klinsmann: I mean, they would kill him in England. So I understood the English way of looking at that.

1:05:10Gary Neville: What was your partnership with Teddy Sheringham like? Because everyone that played with Teddy said he was fantastic to play with.

1:05:15Jurgen Klinsmann: And it was that way because he's a type of a player that you can adjust so easily as a teammate because he's always thinking of you. He's thinking of his partner more than he's thinking about himself. So I always knew that when the ball goes close to him, he already knows where I am. And so his first thought was always about who's better positioned than me. If he knew then at the end, I'm perfectly positioned to do it myself. He finishes off himself, which is the right way to do it for us strikers. But it was for me like being in heaven, playing with him. And I said, this guy is incredible. And he's very appreciative.

1:05:59Jurgen Klinsmann: And he sees that you have a bad day and for whatever reason, you don't finish off the things the right way, but you work really hard with him and you keep working and working. He wants to kind of... he wants badly more for you to score than himself to score. And then there were certain goals where I scored maybe an 80th minute, then finally, but I had a bad game. And he said, you deserve it so much now. You know, you worked the shit out of yourself, but it was not really the best game for you. And I adored that. I really adored that. He had a lot of football intelligence in Italia.

1:06:34Gary Neville: He has a football brain, a spectacular football brain. Who was the best partner that you ever played with? You obviously played in fantastic teams. Who was the best player, the player you enjoyed playing with most?

1:06:47Jurgen Klinsmann: Well, enjoying is one thing and then playing with the best one. Because over years I had a very tense relationship with Lothar Matthäus because character-wise we were so opposite. In what way? You didn't get on with each other? More an off the field kind of. It started into Milan, then we met up again at Bayern Munich. So the player I played the most games in my entire career is Lothar Matthäus. We never realized that, but because we played at Inter together and at Bayern together, a national team, he had 150 caps, myself more than 100, and so we realized, well, we have so much actually in common, but we were going at each other verbally.

1:07:28Ian Wright: Is that because of your characters totally?

1:07:30Jurgen Klinsmann: Yeah, because we were just so different in the way we looked at life, we looked at things. But throughout those years, there was such a huge admiration from my end to him. He was literally in the early 90s. I would say probably from 88 to 92, 93. For four or five years, he was the best player on the planet. So when Diego basically went downhill then towards the end of 88, 89, and he was not himself anymore in the 90 World Cup already. and then obviously the drug issue came out 94 then but lotha mateos took over in 89 90 to be the best player in the world for a couple of years and i mean he was just like a box-to-box midfielder um that did all the right decisions in a split split second he was both footed he had

1:08:28Gary Neville: incredible speed the first 10 yards when he was like and and yeah playing playing alongside him

1:08:36Jurgen Klinsmann: i think playing against it was diego maradona that i admired the most also rude good for me fantastic marco van basten and in the early 90s the best striker in the world i would say for until he had he broke his ankle his ankle yeah yeah but alongside it was luther matthews and Yeah, we're literally not best friends, but we're texting every two weeks. It's nice. Yeah, it really became such a great friendship and respectful friendship. Maybe you needed that needle. Do you think you needed that in the team to drive each other on? I think it was actually also something really positive, good for it, because I was the 19th World Cup team that won it.

1:09:20Jurgen Klinsmann: I was representing the younger group of players a bit, you know, and he was the establishment. He was the boss with Rudy Föller, with Andreas Brehme. So three for Augenthaler from Bayern Munich, the sweeper there, they ran the show. And I was kind of representing the younger kids, the rebels a bit. And then later I took over to the 96th European Championship winning team. So I think it kind of gave us additional energy. He thought for many years I kicked him out of the national team. at 96 he was not called in because he had a horrible injury the year prior he thought I didn't let him back in I closed the door I said I never did that but he came back for the 98 World Cup team and in France but no it was like that we kind of gave each other constantly additional energy additional energy it's a good word it's well said

1:10:22Roy Keane: it goes to show you don't have to be the best of friends or off the pitch as long as you've got that respect when you get over the white line.

1:10:28Gary Neville: You played 108 times for Germany and scored 47 goals which is absolutely incredible. But what we always think I don't know maybe it's just the fact that you beat us in the 90 and 96 tournaments and maybe it's just that sort of period. Obviously I was part of the 96 squad with England in 98 we all watched it. What was the secret of the German team being able to get over the line and just because you said that the fine margins there were fine margins it's penalty shootouts and you know put you in both and you then go and win the tournaments what is that difference what is that sort of magic bit that you have that you had sorry

1:11:03Jurgen Klinsmann: I think it's difficult to say because it's like this you know it could have gone either way Gazza missed a chance oh my gosh

1:11:16Jurgen Klinsmann: there's so many opportunities that England had in both games that easily could have won both tournaments but I think the cultural path of Germany was that through the 54 and the 74 teams, you know, winning the World Cups, you know, there was building an extreme amount of resilience in our society in Germany. And I saw the resilience in my parents. And Lothar Matthäus had a similar family. And you looked in every family of these players, you know, you saw they're coming out from backgrounds where it's, and never give up hunger and also responsibility that we carried. We always, obviously, even our generation, we still needed to justify ourselves for the horrible things that happened in World War II.

1:12:08Jurgen Klinsmann: So you still, in a certain way, even if your generation is not part of it, but you still feel responsible. You still feel like there's a bigger picture to everything. You have to do more. You cannot give up. You need to act a certain way. I remember as a captain, we played a game in Israel, and we went to a Holocaust memorial, and we put down a wreath, and it was live on CNN. And everybody just told before, I said, just not make any mistake. But I said, what kind of mistake? Not wearing the wrong outfit, not, you know, I don't know. So we were always conscious about what happened in World War II.

1:12:54Jurgen Klinsmann: And I think that gave us an enormous amount of also capability to focus, just to zoom in. Zoom in. Now you've got to get a job done. Don't step too much to the right and don't step too much to the left. and I think these tournaments we developed this mental capability to okay you know we're not the best team here the better teams here but somehow we're gonna figure out a way to beat any any of these teams you know in 96 Euros that was Italy had a fantastic team with Zola you know and these guys and we played Italy in the last group stage game and if we lose that we're not even going through Zola missed a penalty Andy Koepke and that tournament probably the best goalkeeper he saved everything I said this is but we knew we just stood kind of ourselves for we stayed focused and I think that that last piece of belief in ourselves that we are resilient we gonna go through there now no matter if they hit another five times the post or the crossbar we will get and and in 96 we were by the time the final came we were 13 players left.

1:14:10Jurgen Klinsmann: We lost 10 players in the process. But with heavy, heavy injuries and ACLs, injuries that were taking them out for the next half a year. And then we asked UEFA if we can call in one more player. And UEFA said, yeah, we have to ask Czech Republic who ended up in the final if they agreed to it. And if so, they get another player too. But they had no injuries. But they got another player too. So we could call in one player Jens Todt, he played for Hamburg. He came over. Two goalkeepers had field player jerseys made by Adidas in that moment in the 96 final because we had no field players anymore. And we knew that and that Czech team was, you know, was Pavel Nedved, Proborski, that was a fantastic team.

1:14:59Jurgen Klinsmann: But still, we said, you know, we are Germany. Somehow we have to win this thing. So you beat us, it gets worse, you beat us with half a squad.

1:15:06Ian Wright: Half a squad.

1:15:08Jurgen Klinsmann: I was injured that much. I didn't play that much because I was injured.

1:15:14Roy Keane: Andy was injured. Anymore, keep going.

1:15:18Gary Neville: Stick to Football is brought to you by Arm Clothing.

1:15:23Jurgen Klinsmann: Was you more proud to play for Germany or coach Germany? No, playing is the best you can ever do. I never thought I would manage a team. I did all the coaching licences because Bertie Vogt, my former coach, He wanted the 90 and 96 team, somehow a group of those players, go the coaching route. We need, you know, like now Frank Lampard and Stephen Girard and Michael Kerry. You need these people being fed into the coaching aspect of things, so a solid base. So he organized a special coaching course for us, and then I did the last, but I thought I will never. I lived in the United States then already, and then the fiasco happened.

1:16:05Jurgen Klinsmann: And they lost in the group stage in 2004, European Championship in Portugal. And they were heavily criticized. And Juri Föller was the manager. And two years before that, he got them into the World Cup final with Brazil. And he said right away, I'm done. I'm out of here. And then they asked Otzmar Hitzfeld, the Bayern Munich coach, to take over. And he says, no, this team is not good enough. And then they asked Otto Rehag, who won the Euros with Greece. You know, he became King Otto in Greece. And he says, no, I'm not leaving Greece. I'm the king here also a wonderful manager and so they didn't know what to do and Bertie Vogt came on vacation to California with his son and he stopped by at my place and we had some barbecue and a glass of wine and suddenly he says well what about you you have the license and you could take over you have the best negotiations ever on a corner board

1:16:56Roy Keane: but when they're saying they're going on vacation they're definitely pulling up outside your house

1:17:00Jurgen Klinsmann: what did you say no? I said Bertie please don't joke around now because that's serious stuff. He said, yeah, but I'm serious. Because he says it's mainly, especially in a national team environment, it's people management first and foremost. And then all the other pieces, if it's an analytical side, if it's guiding a staff behind the team, meaning the medical, the media staff, the administrative staff, that's other areas we can cover with. but first and foremost, it's about your players. And you have always been good with players. And he said, then let me talk to them. So next day he called the federation.

1:17:43Jurgen Klinsmann: He obviously knows everybody. And they called me back and said, oh, we just heard that you met with Bertie in California. I said, yeah, that's what I did. Yeah, we are interested in having a talk, a chat with you. And I said, but I'm not interested in flying to Frankfurt for a chat and a cup of coffee. Yes. And I said, how can we do that? And at those days, you know, you don't Zoom. It was not there yet. I said, let's meet in New York. I fly to New York and you fly from Frankfurt to New York and we talk. And that's how it all started. Wow. Yeah. And you enjoyed it? You enjoyed the role? I had a blast.

1:18:21Jurgen Klinsmann: I really had a blast. I learned so much. And my luck was when I went to America, I wanted to learn the business side of things. and I had two called Mentos. They were both vice presidents of Adidas, global Adidas, and they worked for other companies like Umbro. They worked for other companies and they built their own marketing company. And so they taught me the business side of things. I was involved with the Los Angeles Galaxy to build the stadium there. It was called Home Depot in the beginning. And I had a consulting contract to build this. So I did fairly okay, but I learned many other aspects.

1:19:04Jurgen Klinsmann: And then I could go and see Phil Jackson coach the Lakers two days and Kobe Bryant, crazy football fan, you know, and we talked football the whole time. And then I went to meet Billy Bean from the Oakland A's and saw the whole analytical side he developed. But we're talking that was 20, 22 years ago. So he explained to me how they analyze basically the COVID-19. It's a money ball, right? Money ball, yeah. And then I went to Pete Carroll, who coached the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and won the championships there and then became the coach of the Seattle Seahawks a couple of years later, winning the Super Bowl.

1:19:43Jurgen Klinsmann: And he ran me through scouting. He had a scouting department of 10, 15 people. They analyzed every single play in the college American football world. those days with big screens and he said what play do you want to see and I said I don't know any plays of American college football I show you son we played Notre Dame four years ago we had this play and he they pulled it up and had it on the screen and then he explained to me how then they prepare a playbook for the players they give that playbook out to the players they have to study the playbook about every tactical move, every tactical variation they have to to go over and that's why the rookies so the young players in the first year play so little because they cannot learn the playbook so fast so he gave me his playbook of usc that university and i had a friend of mine he went to the rivalry university in los angeles called ucla and we sat in the car afterwards and i had the playbook and i give him the playbook said you know hold the playbook because we need to look into it and see how they do that how do they They programmed that.

1:20:55Jurgen Klinsmann: And he said to me, I cannot touch that. I said, well, you cannot touch that playbook. He said, yeah, but I'm from the other university. I'm not allowed to open that playbook. And we put it in the back seat. And I said, you guys are weird. Then I at home, I then opened the playbook and I studied it. And I said, this is incredible. That's like we would study corner kicks, free kicks. And now they would do it for playing out of the back, which is so modern nowadays. and those things were all done already. They were 20 years ahead of our football. And so I learned all those things. And then when I got the German job and they said, you know, would you be open to this guy?

1:21:38Jurgen Klinsmann: I said, yeah, but I have to be honest. I look at things now differently because I live now here already six years in the United States. And I look at things maybe a little bit too different. And I don't know if we match. I don't know if we can synchronize. And the president of the German Federation then at those days was then my former president of Stuttgart. It was the same person. He became president of the German Federation. And he said, yeah, you were always a little bit out of the normal. What do you mean with that? I said, president, I said, if I come in, I might shock some people because I will do it very, very different to how Rudy did it.

1:22:16Jurgen Klinsmann: Rudy did it based on his education from the German Federation. I would do it based on the education I received now the last years here in the United States. In many ways, yes, we melted with the German approach because I did those as well. But it might be a little bit too aggressive. So I need from you a piece of paper saying I have the carte blanche to start. It's not about money. It's about how I want to do it. And if you are not happy with me doing it that way, we can split anytime. Anytime. I don't care about the contract there. You come to me, you say, it's not working. I fly home to California.

1:22:57Jurgen Klinsmann: It's not a problem. And so I brought American fitness coaches in with Mark Verstegen, you know, it's called Athlete's Performance, that worked individually with the athletes in American football and baseball and basketball and hockey. but based on their positioning, based on what they need. So we work differently now with the defenders. We work differently with midfielders. And then I brought analytical people in. I brought in a sports psychologist, which 20, 30 years ago, if you bring in a sports psychologist, they thought you are crazy yourself. So do you need some help? And I said, no. And I said, I have no idea if this is beneficial or not.

1:23:38But everything you did before me in this sector, in this category, didn't work, right?

1:23:46Jurgen Klinsmann: That's why you flew home from Portugal after the group stage. So why would I now do anything the same way you did before me? So then take anybody else, right? So I will be very provocative. I will be aggressive in how I want to do it. I might call up players that you think they should not belong in the national team. Because I think by talking to friends of mine and coaches that I believe in, they tell me this kid at 19 years will be a very special player. Even if I don't see that yet, if he sees it, I trust that coach's opinion. So if you come and you see one special kid there at 16 at Arsenal and wherever, and then you say this kid will be good, I will have a look at him.

1:24:33Jurgen Klinsmann: And so the second game, we had actually a reunion of the 2006 team a few days ago. The first time after 20 years, you know, we came all together. And so there was a kid with the name Per Mertesacker. You know, he was 19 and he barely had 30 games in the Bundesliga. But I had two injured center backs. and in those days, you know, we didn't look around where is the next best center back in the league, which is German now. You look down to the under 21. Who is the center back in the under 21, right? It was for us more important within the federation to have this connection. So I called the under 21 coach, said, do you have a center back for me?

1:25:17Jurgen Klinsmann: So we're going to go to Iran. We play a friendly game in front of 100 ,000 in Tehran. I said, yeah, I have this kid, you know, he's a tall kid, you know, he's a little bit still trying to find his own buddy yes um his name is permate sakura and and uh i think he will be good one day so i called him and i said you know instead of going to the under 21 for friendly you go come with us and uh and then the day before the game in tehran a training session i told him listen if things go well tomorrow you're gonna get your first cap and he was like that is coaching and And then came the moment we were leading 2-0.

1:25:55Jurgen Klinsmann: The game went our way. And then I looked back to him and said, are you ready, Per? So this is how then it's just nice that these kind of stories then start and it's beginning. And did the players all embrace your new ideas and American coaches? They were very skeptical because for us, German, change is not easy. And I knew that. And I said in my introduction, I said, Listen, guys, I'm abroad now for six years. I mean, most of my career I was abroad. But I really believe that the way things were happening before did not work out, you know. That's just truth, you know. And Rudy did his best he could do.

1:26:39Jurgen Klinsmann: So they asked me to come in, and I'm really convinced that we have to go a different direction to try it out. If it doesn't work out with the American fitness coaches, with a sports psychologist, with the data and all this stuff, then I'm more than happy to change it again. When you come to me, like the captain was Oliver Kahn and Michael Ballack, those were the two captains. You come to me and you tell me it's not working, then I'm totally open or I leave again. It's no problem either. But then step by step, kind of the biggest problem was probably the rubber bands training session. So the warm-up of the training session with rubber bands, that's what athletes' performance became world famous for.

1:27:24Jurgen Klinsmann: I mean, they were on TV everywhere in Germany and the papers and the players felt a little bit like foolish, you know. And now it's everybody who uses rubber bands. But then the players started then to buy into it and said, OK, you know, let's. And then we had the discussion about who we are. Again, the Germans on searching their own identity. I had these workshops with the players or we coaches had it then saying how do you want to play? How do you feel inside? How should we represent this nation in two years from now in the World Cup 2006? And then the players came up with Michael Ballack said we want to go forward.

1:28:06Jurgen Klinsmann: Then the other one said we want to be highly aggressive. You know we want to go into one against one. We want to do this. We don't do that. And so after that talk, I put it on the flip chart, you know, 10, 12 words. I said, you know, if you analyze these 10, 12 words, I said to the players, I said, you know what that means. And they were looking at me about, and I said, that means a hell of a lot of work. You know, we need to be fit as hell. We need to, but if you are up to it, we can build the program based on what you want to be then, you know. And that's how we kind of step by step. We had the advantage not needing to qualify.

1:28:41Ian Wright: Yeah.

1:28:42Jurgen Klinsmann: So we can test out. Experiment, yeah. Experiment. And one experiment went really brutally wrong three months prior to the World Cup in Italy. We got a lesson from Italy for one in Florence. And half of the nation wanted to fire me. And half of the nation says, no, let's give him that tournament and see if he can do it. And everybody got involved then in that process. And this is something that I wish for England, that everybody gets involved in it and kind of sees it himself, herself in that process.

1:29:16Gary Neville: Stick to Football is brought to you by Arn Clothing. Jürgen, you just talked to us about all your incredible experiences. We're going over to the World Cup in three weeks to watch the World Cup in America, and you've got obviously a great experience of living over there. What can we expect that maybe we're not thinking right now? What's this World Cup going to be like?

1:29:36Jurgen Klinsmann: I think when we come from the outside, to another country and we have a certain picture in mind about that country. Now it's three countries, Mexico, Canada and the US, but it's mainly the United States, 80 % of the games are in there. I think it's really, really important that we come into that tournament with a big, big open mind because it's a wonderful nation. It's a fascinating country with all its pro and cons. It's the country of opposites, politically, economically, culturally, immigration-wise. It's the country of immigration. You have every person around the world living in that country, from every spot in the world, wherever their background is.

1:30:28Jurgen Klinsmann: It's the melting pot, which is always sad about the United States. So my biggest wish is looking at the United States and at that tournament as a white piece of paper. And then you're going to paint this painting with your experience, with the people, with the games, with the organization, with all the pro and cons too. So I think there's a huge chance that it will be a fantastic experience, a huge chance. And if you have that open mind, it really can be it. Are there risks to this whole bigger picture? Yes. because the political side is unstable in the world. Right now, we live through these crazy days, but we still cannot change it.

1:31:11Jurgen Klinsmann: So we cannot change that element. So we can just go with a positive mindset into that experience and make the best out of it for yourself, for your families, for all the fans, all the English fans coming in, and support their team. And I think it's really important to refocus on why your team is there. Your team is there to become world champion. And I told that the German media too, give the German team support, give them hopefully thousands of fans come from Germany, support them because Germany made the mistake. The last two World Cups, a brutal experience.

1:31:47Ian Wright: They talked down Russia and they talked down even more Qatar. And both countries organized a fantastic World Cup.

1:31:56Jurgen Klinsmann: I was in Russia, we were in Russia. It was fascinating, it was fantastic. and Qatar was unbelievable beautiful but we didn't want to give them the credit of the doubt. We didn't want to give them beforehand. So Germany talked down Qatar in the worst manner possible. The media influenced everybody so negatively that the fans didn't go to Qatar. There were no German fans in Qatar. And they influenced the team in the same way that the team then made a photo before the first game against Japan holding up their finger in front of the mouth. That went viral before the game started. I was at the game, and we got it on the phone, and I said, what are they doing?

1:32:36Jurgen Klinsmann: And then I said to my coaching colleagues from FIFA, from Arsene Wenger, they're going to go home first time. I mean, after the group stage, they're going to go home. And that's how they played. Their mind was not in the game. Their mind was, but in Germany, they say, you cannot be in Qatar. In Germany, they say, there's human rights issues. Germany, they say, there's this issue. So they were so negatively loaded. Their body was negative, negative. That's how they played. They played. They went home twice. And so they made Russia and Qatar two disasters for German football. And now I just... It's like what you said when you were in Italy.

1:33:13Jurgen Klinsmann: You're the guest. You're the guest. You have to take the ups and downs. You're a guest. How I was a guest at Spurs and I need to learn how does it work. You know, what is Spurs? What is the neighborhood? What is London? and what is all the places in England. And I wish that all the fans going to the United States and Canada and Mexico, obviously, go there and say, I'm going to paint my own painting about that experience. And I tell you, it will go well. It will be a super event. That's what they're good at. They're Americans. They know how to organize stuff. I hope it will be affordable for everybody at the end of the day.

1:33:50Jurgen Klinsmann: I hope the ticket prices still come down. I see totally the reasons why everybody is skeptical but I just hope that go there first and make up your own mind Your expectation of Germany to team do you think they can have a big impact? I think they have a team that has quality like England Spain France Portugal to win it you know obviously you have the two powerhouses in South America I think Brazil will play a good role because of Carlo Angelotti and Argentina is always there Who will win it? Who will win it in your opinion? Yes. My two favorites are Portugal because I see a little bit similarities to Argentina and Qatar where everybody played for Messi.

1:34:34Jurgen Klinsmann: Portugal, everybody plays for Ronaldo. Cristiano is fully supported by this incredible team. It's an incredible team of quality with a very, very good coach, Roberto Martinez. I think Brazil has also a shot at it. And England has absolutely quality. quality to if they have the belief so you want to say that England can win the World Cup we can finish on that you can absolutely finish on that but I'm not saying that because they have a German coach I'm saying that because you have the team you have the team to do that yeah

1:35:10Gary Neville: good luck Jürgen thank you so much it's been absolutely brilliant having you on thank you thank you so much fantastic

1:35:24Ian Wright: I'm sure at one stage when you was at Tottenham, I drove past, was he driving a Volkswagen Beetle? Yeah, but he had a Porsche Turbo in the garage. Yeah, right. Volkswagen Beetle, I'm sure I drove past you. Definitely.

1:35:36Gary Neville: Jürgen, can you fly a helicopter? Yes.

1:35:38Roy Keane: Can you?

1:35:39Ian Wright: He could do everything.

1:35:42Gary Neville: Thanks for listening and thanks to our partners and clothing. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and you won't miss an episode.