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| FOOTBALL CAREER OF JURGEN KLINSMANN | |
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KLINSMANN in TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
Club Career | Tottenham Hotspur | Bayern Munich | Sampdoria
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Season 94/95 - A brilliant season As usual for the summer after every World Cup, players who played well in the World Cup would be hunted by big football clubs. As Klinsmann had scored five great goals in his relatively short five-match journey in the 1994 World Cup, Klinsmann became the target of several big clubs. Among his admirers, Klinsmann chose to join Tottenham Hotspur of the British Premier League. He chose England because he wanted new challenge and learned new thing and he chose Tottenham because it was a great team which played attractive attacking style of football under the management of Osvaldo Ardiles. In this season, Ardiles also signed Ilie Dumitrescu and Gica Popescu (both had displayed their fine attacking skill in the 1994 World Cup) in order to enhance the team's attacking power. As Ardiles liked to play all out attack style of football, he usually put five attackers on the pitch: Klinsmann and Teddy Sheringham on the front; Nick Barmby just behind them as supporting attacker; Darren Anderton on the right wing and Dumitrescu on the left wing. These five attackers were called the "Famous Five" (photo below) and just by hearing their names you can imagine how strong the Spurs' attack was. Up front, Klinsmann performed brilliantly and scored six goals from the first six league matches and finally, he scored one goal from every two league matches on average. This was not surprising as Klinsmann was good at scoring and the "Famous Five" frontline created a lot chances. Yet, Tottenham's performance was not so good at the beginning of the season because they ignored their defence. After the bad start of this season, the manager of Tottenham was sacked in November. The successor was Gerry Francis who improved the team's defence. Finally, With the goals from Klinsmann, Tottenham finished the seventh in the league (out out of 22 teams at that time) and reached the semi-final of the England FA Cup. Although Klinsmann could not win the Premier League title, this season was a real success to him because he had changed the mind of the British. At first, the British hated Klinsmann and regarded Klinsmann as an actor in the field diving for free kick or penalty. Someone even called him "The King of Diving". That's why Klinsmann celebrated his first goal in England by diving on the pitch with his teammates! (see photo on the right) But Klinsmann reacted positively and used excellent football skill, beautiful goals and good conduct to change the mind of the British completely. He scored immediately on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday and at the end of August, he was voted the Player of the Month. When the season ended, he scored 29 goals in England (just behind Shearer, Fowler and Ian Wright in the top goalscorer ranking) and was voted the Footballer of England of the year and onto the PFA Premier League eleven. Although Klinsmann had always described Tottenham as his home and praised the fans of Tottenham as the best fans, he decided to leave because the team could not directly qualify for the UEFA Cup. So, he left Tottenham before the end of his two-year contract by invoking an opt-out clause in his contract. The chairman of Tottenham, Alan Sugar, was furious with Klinsmann's decision at that time and in August 1995, Sugar went on television and crumpled up and tossed away Klinsmann's old Spur shirt, saying he would not wash his car with it.
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Klinsmann and Ardiles (right) who resigned in November 1994 
The Spurs' "Famous Five" front line in the season 94/95. Staring from the left: Barmby, Klinsmann, Dumitrescu, Anderton, Sheringham 
Klinsmann was able to get into the tempo of English soccer immediately and scored a powerful header in his debut against Sheffield Wednesday. After scoring, he celebrated his first goal in England by diving with his teammates. In an interview after the game, he said: "It was a very special moment because before the game started we were welcomed at Sheffield Wednesday's stadium by all the diving signs, 5.9, 5.8, all that sort of thing and we were all laughing about it. Teddy Sheringham came up and said 'Jurgen, if you score your first goal here, we're all going to do a dive'. It was like all the pieces of the puzzle came together, I scored the goal and the whole team came over and did the dive. The wonderful thing was that the fans from Sheffield even laughed about it. Everyone took it the right way and it was a great way to start the season." |
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The surprised return Klinsmann joined Bayern Munich (in his home country) for the season 95/96 after leaving Tottenham. His initial plan was to play for Bayern Munich until his retirement from professional football. However, due to personal dispute and disagreement with his coach, he joined Sampdoria in Italy in the season 97/98. But due to injury problem and drop in form, Klinsmann failed to secure regular position. So, once again, he decided to join the Spurs on loan in the middle of his disappointing season at Sampdoria. |
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Season 97/98 - Battle against relegation 22 December 1997 was a day that the fans of the Spurs would remember because on that day, their chairman, Alan Sugar, announced Klinsmann's return to White Hart Lane. It was clear that Sugar was no longer angry with Klinsmann as he said "maybe I was a bit naive about football contracts back then ... But we [Klinsmann and I] are on very good terms now and have been for several years." For sure, Klinsmann's return was the best Christmas present for the fans of Tottenham because the Spurs was struggling in the relegation zone. Although Klinsmann declared that he was not "Santa Claus" and had no "magic wand", who else could be more suitable and able to rescue Tottenham besides the German captain? Besides scoring, Klinsmann also had to motivate the team. In an interview, Klinsmann insisted: "The team is strong enough to rescue itself ... I will give them a hand and do everything I can ... I am used to taking responsibility, I am already captain of the German national team so to cope with pressure is not a problem, it is normal ... Expectations are very high and it's a wonderful challenge and I will put in everything I can. The team has changed a bit since I left so first I have to train and play with them and then I can judge the situation ... I have experience and I am the kind of player who likes to push his team-mates and to give a lot of mental support and that's what I will try to do ... I see a very good chance to help the team come up the league because I don't think they deserve to be down there. If we don't struggle too much with injuries in the next couple of months I think we will come up." Moreover, it was also an occasion for Klinsmann to rescue his form after the slump in Sampdoria. Just before playing his first game Klinsmann said: "Physically I'm back fit after the ankle ligament injury I had, and I've done a lot of hard work in the past six weeks. Now all I need is to get back into the rhythm of playing." Bernie Kingsley, spokesman for the Tottenham Independent Supporters Association also explained: "This is great news ... It is obvious that we needed to bring in new players and Jurgen did well before so we hope he can do well again ... He has the charisma and ability to give any team a lift. We hope he's still the same player because it would be a shame if people were saying he was not as good as last time ... There is a lot of pressure on him but one player cannot do it all by himself and we need at least a couple of others to come in as well ... Jurgen has an immense talent and a personality to match ... The fact that he wants to play in one more World Cup is an added incentive for him. It's a bit like when Gary Lineker came to the club before Italia 90 to build himself up for the World Cup finals and hopefully Jurgen will respond in the same way ... Jurgen and chairman Alan Sugar buried the hatchet a long time ago and this shows that Sugar is more prepared to go with the ways of football than in the past." Klinsmann's contract was only six-month long because he had yet to decide whether to continue his professional football career after the 1998 World Cup. He did not wear his usual number 18 jersey because number 18 was already taken by Steffen Iversen. So, what was his number? 33. Why? Because he was 33-year old at that time! Klinsmann's first game was a home league derby against Arsenal immediately after the Christmas. Although Klinsmann's arrival could not bring immediate victory to Tottenham, his arrival did inspired the team as they dominated for much of the 90 minutes in the 1-1 draw. His first goal came in his fourth match against West Ham. In around January 1998, there was a rumour that Klinsmann would act as the team's player-manager. However, Klinsmann politely dismissed this rumour explaining that "Player-coach is more than a full-time job and isn't fun. Mornings you work with the team, afternoons sit in the office and evenings observe players. My family is too important to me for that." In the rest of the season, Klinsmann and his teammates played very hard and finally Tottenham could avoid relegation by a 4-point margin. Klinsmann himself had scored in three of the most crucial victories to avoid relegation - victory against West Ham (1-0), Newcastle (2-0) and Wimbledon (6-2). In the game against Wimbledon, Klinsmann scored four goals and completed a hat-trick (probably his last hat-trick) in 6 minutes!. After successfully rescuing Tottenham from relegation, Klinsmann decided not to stay in the club because of his unresolved differences in opinion with the team's manager, Christian Gross. On leaving the club, Klinsmann went to France to play for Germany in the 1998 World Cup. Eventually, Klinsmann announced he would not play in professional football club anymore in the beginning of 1999. The second spell in Tottenham therefore marked the end of the football career of this prolific striker. |
Klinsmann wearing no. 33 shirt 
Klinsmann scored against Wimbledon. In this game, he scored 4 goals |
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