There's something seductive about Jürgen Klinsmann, the man who replaced Bob Bradley as coach of the U.S. men's national soccer team Friday.
Maybe it's the well-worn tale of Klinsmann, the free-spirited son of a baker and man with flowing blond locks, who spent his first big paycheck not on a sports car but a used Volkswagen Beetle.
Or perhaps it's his self-deprecating knack for taking a negative and turning it into a positive. When he signed with Tottenham Hotspur in 1994, he was deeply unpopular with fans who considered him something of a diver: a player who would feign injury at the slightest contact to win a free kick. His reaction was to celebrate his first goal by taking a huge belly-flop on the pitch. It was a gesture that inevitably drew smiles and applause from even the most rabid Klinsmann haters.
Whatever else you may think of him, the German coach is certainly likeable, as well as engaging and articulate. Whether that makes him the right man for the U.S. job—or any high-profile coaching position, for that matter—is another issue. When you actually look at his résumé, it's rather thin. This makes the fact that the U.S. Soccer Federation reportedly offered him the job twice before he finally accepted all the more remarkable.
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