News: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction, incl Lahm's comments

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Agree with this as well.

And, so help me God, if we bring a coach on for a second-cycle for the *third time*, we haven't learned anything

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

"always the sorrow-stricken" - describing Gulati. One insightful phrase from a German sportswriter tells me more about Gulati than years of reading banal, boring copy from ESPN/ABC/USSA water-carriers. What did Klinsmann say about soccer mirroring the culture of a country?

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

http://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/a...-Fussball-Architekt-startet-neue-Mission.html
Welt Online

Nothing new, but Klinsmanns first match is here at least of little interest while Germany plays Brazil on Wednesday.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Ha! Ha!. The article was worth it for the Al Davis quote alone.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

I can't believe they refer to Rocky Balboa and Al Davis as if they were real living people....

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

so you are saying Al davis is like bernie from weekend at bernie's.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Al Davis has been dead for years. Just don't tell the Raiders.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Just win Juergen ..... "JWJ" .... .... that would look good on a banner below the USSF logo ....

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

"The USA, with an area of about 9.63 square kilometers almost as large as Europe ..."

Who knew, I though we were about 1 million times bigger than that.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

If the German is a translation of Al Davis' slogan, it's hilarious that a simple 4 syllable, 11 letter slogan becomes that huge cluster******** in German.

I wonder what kind of abortion would emerge if they had translated that other Raider slogan, Commitment to Excellence.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

"Commitment to Excellence" is actually really hard to translate, since there are a lot of german words which come close in meaning to "commitment", but not one of them is spot on. That's why "commitment" is on the verge of being adopted by the German language.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

So the translation of 'Just win, baby' adds a 'must' and a 'simply' and deletes the 'baby,' which is the best part. Is there any German equivalent of 'baby' in that context? Would "Nur gewinne, baby" make sense to a German?

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

I could say that to the majority of German speakers I know and they'd know exactly what I mean, but that's because most of them speak English (often better than my German).

This is one of those things about languages that I always find so fascinating in the intellectual sense, and so frustrating in the practical sense, the fact that so much just does not quite translate. The German translation they give for "Just win, baby," "Du musst einfach nur gewinnen" basically means the same thing, but just takes on a very different character and tone. "You must simply win," is just not quite the same thing.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

It "could" also be written as "Gewinn nur, Baby!" just like it can also be written in English as "You just have to win."

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

I'd probably go for something like, "einfach gewinnen, Jungs!"

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

http://www.bild.de/sport/startseite/sport/telegramm-15873394,textId=19343898,tabindex=0.bild.html

Mexico better in the first half, the US better in the second half. An equitable result, according to the best-selling tabloid.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

I have to point it out that several German fans who commented a long time ago in this thread really nailed on the head what Jürgen would be for us, at least early on.

I'll recap briefly what happened:

We come out in a rather strange line-up, which has a lot of people shaking their heads. Some of the players are out of position, some are a little bit redundant, some are strange picks.

To those of us fans who know this team (and Jürgen admits that as a coach he's really just getting to know it) some of these experiments look promising, some definitely do not. And the team is a little bit tentative due to a lack of familiarity and chemistry, expected for what is essentially a "new team."

But the team shape and defensive spacing was actually excellent compared to our recent games with Bradley at the helm. Mexico scores one rather flukey goal and has only one other good chance besides (on a set piece).

But at the end of 45 minutes we have not had one good attacking sequence the entire half.

Sideline reporter asks Klinsmann how he feels. "I feel really good. The guys are just learning what it is I want them to do, and I think they're starting to figure it out. As things go on, you'll see them relax and start to push the match forward."

The reporter asks, "Do you feel that anything needs to change?"

"No, I don't think anything needs to change. This is actually looking really good to me."

Jürgen is smiling broadly. He seems to love what he sees. Most of us fans are shaking our heads. The game doesn't look good at all.

The 2nd half starts out a little bit tentatively again, but we're giving no ground at all to the Mexican attack, which continually falls apart before our final third. Jürgen makes his subs. Mexico makes theres. All of a sudden, we're getting guys forward in space. We level the score. Jürgen and Mexico make more subs. We're pushing up very high into Mexico's end and slicing through their defense about as well as we have against this team in years. A bid for a PK is rejected, and Mexico's last defender gets a yellow instead of a red for pulling down an attacker on the breakaway. We do not find the winning goal, but we found space all over the width and central channels to attack from. With a lot of what would usually be 2nd choice attacking players (and to be fair, several 2nd choice Mexican defenders), we're looking more confident and with more ideas than we've had in ages against a rival that a lot of people were afraid we'd lost the edge against.

They looked like they were having fun out there.

And Jürgen was smiling the whole time.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Mexico bossed the first 60 minutes but created few clear-cut chances, with one good chance going begging and a somewhat flukey goal out of nothing.

The US bossed the last 20 minutes and equalized while looking far more incisive in the attack than Mexico during their much longer spell of dominance. All in all, it was relatively equitable. But in the end we looked like we had a lot more confidence than we've played with since the World Cup ended.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

That was awesome. I wish I could rep you for putting a smile on my face and hitting the nail on the head... but I've supposedly done you too recently

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Why thank you!

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

What's remarkable is that it took only two days of practice and 60 minutes of game time to achieve this impact. I would've expected a dip in form with a new system, then something more like 5-8 friendlies, before seeing any sort of positive improvement.

And I'll echo the comment above that it was fantastic reading commentary from Germany fans who have seen Klinsmann over the years. And for the translations as well. Good stuff.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

tmi

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Don't quit your day job.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Indeed, I was thinking that we were going to go through a "wilderness" period confusion for several matches before we showed anything positive. Maybe the simple fact that it was a friendly against Mexico, a team we know so well (even though they just recently beat us soundly) had something to do with us getting our act together quickly, but that's something to build on.

I don't necessarily think that it's going to be wine and roses from here on out. But the (newfound!) compactness in the defense is a foundation to build upon, and hopefully we can continue to get spells where we find attackers in space like we did in the last 20 minutes of the game last night. Probably with a lot more experiments all the while all over the field until Klinsmann feels that he's got the right mix of guys. It very definitely seems that that process of finding the right mix of guys is just beginning. And I expect that we'll continue to see some headscratching experiments along with some that look initially promising for a while still until he figures out just what it is that we can and can't do.

 

Re: Jurgen's hiring, the German reaction

Agreed on the compact defense. But some credit may have to go to Thomas Dooley, whom I think may know a thing or two about defending. More than say, Mike Sorber, for instance.