Herr Klinsmann’s dive into the American dream

PANIC set in at the back of the hastily-arranged press conference on the ground floor of Niketown.

Quick clarification: no, America has not given over an entire town to Nike. And definitely not on prime real estate around the corner from Tiffany’s in Midtown, Manhattan. The human race has yet to breach that barrier.

However Nike did shut its five story town down on Monday morning so that one of the many sporting entities that bears its swish could enjoy a little bit of the excessive media fanfare that percolates around New York.

After last Thursday’s relatively sudden dismissal of Bob Bradley, the swiftness with which the US Soccer Federation appointed Jürgen Klinsmann (24 hours later, officially anyway) spoke volumes about how long this had been in the works.

And as a fairly mundane press conference neared its end after what must have been a whirlwind weekend, tensions began to rise slightly: Klinsmann was refusing to answer a question in German. It was awkward.

In among the dozen or so TV cameras lined up behind the rows of sportswriters, a female reporter had asked politely in English if she could have her question answered in die deutsche Sprache for the benefit of viewers back home.

Klinsmann, just as politely, replied no. Wait until afterwards, he suggested.

Then the guy from RTL waded in. He had a deadline of 20 minutes and counting. Could Herr Klinsmann please deliver even a few token words in his native tongue?

The former striker, still blonde, still bronzed thanks to the Californian sun, was steadfast in his refusal. He’d do a one-on-one as quickly as possible once the general Q&A was over.

For a brief moment, the rest of us watched this domestic struggle which I’m tempted to equate to modern Germany. On the one hand was that stereotype so beloved by the rest of us: timing and efficiency.

On the other, the new generation railing against that cliché and showing all the hallmarks of the individualism that defines his adopted home.

And this was his moment. He wasn’t about to make the PR faux pas of drifting into a foreign language in front of the press pack he is going to try and impress between now and the summer of 2014 in Brazil. Especially given the fact that the topic of foreign coaches came up again and again throughout the course of the morning.

“There are pros and cons,” Klinsmann acknowledged. “It’s important to understand your culture. One of my challenges will be to find a way to define how the US represents its country and its style of play.”

So from the get-go, Klinsmann and his new boss, US Soccer President Sunil Gulati, were both eager to emphasise his 13-year residency on the west coast, his American wife Debbie and their children Jonathan and Laila (“more American than German” according to their father).

This wasn’t going to be a case of imposing his will on the huge and complex American system. He wanted his new charges to impose themselves on the opposition. Because that, he pointed out, is the American way.

Those carefully chosen sound bites were not about to be chopped down by a quick shout-out to the folks back home.

The RTL guy protested but elicited little sympathy, least of all from his colleagues alongside him.

“We all have the same problem mack,” pointed out a belligerent local with one eye on the 24-hour news ticker.

A deadline is a deadline, no matter which side of the Atlantic it’s on.

He might have been ably assisted by Joachim Löw but Klinsmann will be forever credited with being the figurehead for that German renaissance in 2006. Players with talent let loose on an unsuspecting world.

But he didn’t lay those seeds. Nor did Pep Guardiola at Barcelona.

“You build on what was built before. Soccer in the USA has come a long way. The awareness is getting bigger and bigger. It’s growing. You can’t stop soccer any more in this country.”

Ironically after the German TV crews were finally placated, Klinsmann was thrown a grenade, a philosophical query opening up several avenues with infinite possibility of terror.

“What is the American mentality?”

And this against the backdrop of the debt talks in Washington DC. Nervous laughter shimmered around the press corps but he kept his head and handled it beautifully without choosing to jink his way past a few home truths.

“Americans like to lead, they don’t want to be told what to do. So we’ll impose the game on the opposition.

“Except if it’s Brazil or Spain obviously. Then you need a different approach.”

With World Cup qualification a straightforward proposition for the US, Klinsmann has more time on his side than your average European coach to gather ideas for all the approaches he could possibly need.

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