When Jurgen Klinsmann took over the national team, he wasn’t interested in making modest tweaks. He wanted to lead a revolution.
New training methods and a more dynamic playing style were needed. A youth developmental system had to be reemphasized, and some of the team’s most enduring and iconic stars would be pushed aside.
The criticism was relentless. Yet Klinsmann never relented, and a decade later, the German team he rebuilt won a World Cup.
“In 2004, German football was down. We took decisive steps,” Joachim Loew, Klinsmann’s handpicked successor as Germany’s coach, said after raising the trophy two years ago in Brazil.