BERLIN – German football columnists were highly critical
Tuesday of Juergen Klinsmann's decision to step down as coach of
Hertha Berlin after just 11 weeks in charge of the Bundesliga club.
Kicker sport magazine described Klinsmann decision, which he
announced via Facebook without informing the club management first,
as "illoyal and egoistic" and his time in charge "an almost 11-week
misunderstanding."
Referring to a first failed spell in charge of Bayern Munich during
the 2008/09 season, Kicker wrote: Klinsmann tried for the second time
as a club coach. As before at Bayern, the experiment went terribly
wrong.
"Hertha BSC, whose upcoming opponents are direct (relegation) rivals
Paderborn, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Bremen, now have to sort
themselves out and reposition themselves.
"This does not have to be bad news for (Hertha's) footballing
progress and the atmosphere in the dressing room and at the club."
A Sueddeutsche Zeitung football columnist wrote that the announcement
came "so surprisingly via Klinsmann's Facebook page on Tuesday
morning that it had to be checked whether someone had hacked the
account...."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: "Hertha have made no progress
under coach Klinsmann. But the former national coach harms himself
even more than the Bundesliga club with his silent departure: In
Germany he is unlikely to have a future."
The local Berliner Morgenpost said Klinsmann's surprise resignation
was "brazen and irresponsible to Hertha."
Several commentators speculated on the fact that Klinsmann had wanted
a contract beyond his present arrangement until the end of the
season, but the club did not want to commit at this stage.
The Sportbuzzer portal described developments in Berlin as a "big
city joke" in reference to Hertha's ambitions of becoming a big city
club.
Klinsmann's resignation is "the embarrassing final line under a
chapter of exaggerated expectations," it said in a commentary.
There was in addition "new potential for conflict" in view of the
fact that Klinsmann wants to remain on the supervisory board,
effectively in control of the management he claims lacks confidence
in him.
Bild.de took up the same theme in saying: "Exciting: Klinsi goes back
to the supervisory board. So in the control body for the people whom
he accuses of lack of trust."
Among other reaction, Lothar Matthaues, Germany's most capped player
and a former international team-mate of Klinsmann, said that
Klinsmann would now found it difficult finding work in Germany as a
coach.
Klinsmann's name "has probably slipped down a drawer," he told Sky
television.