Soccer Without Borders

Erik Kirschbaum is a foreign correspondent based in Germany, originally from New York City has worked for Reuters and the Los Angeles Times. Kirschbaum is an American of German heritage working with an American viewpoint overseas, he has written a book about a displaced German in America who is changing the way the nation looks at a very European sport.

Taking on the scope of a blueprint for change of soccer in America, Kirschbaum is part biography of Jurgen Klinsmann, head coach of the United States Mens National Team (USMNT), telling the story of how his determination helped him come from a small town in rural Stuttgart to become one of the best forwards in footballing history and certainly of the last 15 years of the 21st century.

Following his retirement, Klinsmann continued his thirst for knowledge and hunger to succeed into a coaching career starting with the German national team for the home World Cup of 2006, when his influx of attacking ideology and specialist coaching led the hosts to a cruel semi-final defeat versus eventual champions Italy.

Klinsmann then leaves the role for his assistant, Joachim Loew, who taking the foundations he built leads Germany to a World Cup triumph in 2014 in Brazil, the first European team to win the World Cup outside of Continental Europe.  Klinsmann was in Brazil too, as coach of the United States and they exceeded expectations qualifying from the Group of Death with Germany, Portugal and Ghana to get to the knockout phases before a cruel defeat to a reborn Belgium.

The novel makes pains to realise how diligent to learning Klinsmann has been throughout his career.  Having played in Italy (Inter Milan), France (Monaco), England (Tottenham Hotspur) as well as his own country with Stuttgart and Bayern Munich, the striker would always jump into learning the new language during his time away from the training field. Klinsmann is of the belief that a player must be educated off the field as well as given all the benefit of having the best on-field training, if a career is cut short a player should be educated enough.  He makes the point that paying young players too much too early in a career would quell any desire to better their performances or hunger to improve.

Klinsmann seemingly took an American impulse for different coaches for different positions and brought them to the German national team in the run up to 2006, also the employment of a nutritionist and most importantly a sports psychologist to help with the pressure of a home tournament is the difference between margins of victory and defeat.

Since 2006, in other sports, the proliferation of sports psychologists across a whole spectrum of professional sports have been at the forefront of exceptional performances - from the British Cycling dominance from Chris Hoy to Bradley Wiggins to Chris Froome, to the resurrection of Ronnie O'Sullivan and his relationship with Stephen Peters who could take a player with little tournament preparation and win successive World Championships.

Soccer Without Borders, does waiver from time to time, and does repeat itself too often but it is written with genuine relish and enthusiasm for the subject at hand and the effect the person has had on his sport which is continuing apace in America.

Klinsmann has had a profound effect on world football, his application of a more attacking philosophy for Germany has filtered out into the Bayern Munich infrastructure and established the dominance they enjoy to this day, his German squad of 2006 had an injection of quality youth at his disposal - Philip Lahm, Bastien Schwiensteiger, Thomas Muller - who became World Champions; and he is making great strides to make the United States a mainstay of future major tournaments starting with the Copa America this summer which is being staged in the USA.

The book is part biography, part analysis and is an entertaining foray into unmasking a man who is equally modest and professional about his exploits.

Soccer Without Borders is out now on e-book/kindle from Amazon, but is released by Picador Books in Hardback on 13th July in the UK

Dinamo Tbilisi v Tottenham 1st Leg review

Tottenham Hotspur started their European campaign in far flung former Soviet state of Georgia to play the League champions Dinamo Tbilisi, the day after Arsenal had defeated Fenerbahce convincingly in Turkey 3-0.

Tottenham did a thoroughly professional performance in Georgia by completing a comprehensive 5-0 away victory which puts them in the group stage of the Europa League barring an unbelievable meltdown at White Hart Lane next Thursday.

Yet why were the Lilywhites so dominant and what did we learn:

1. Andros Townsend is here
The young Spurs trainee graduate finally matured into the fully fledged first team player many knew he had the talent for.  Following on from his creditable loan spell at QPR where he became one of the few players in that squad to gain some credit.  In Tbilisi he bossed the right wing, played with a mixture of speed and finesse to leave defenders in his wake as his expertly taken opening goal showed.  He then set up the 2nd and 3rd due to some precision passing and crossing.

2. Robert Soldado's movement
The Valencia player who scored 24 goals in La Liga last year showed his brilliant movement to find space in the penalty box for both of his vertiable tap ins to make it three in two games to start his Spurs career.  Spurs need a player who can score goals regularly without the peaks and troughs usually associated with Jermain Defoe and Emmanuel Adebayor.

3.  Lloris is solid
But for the French No.1 Tottenham might well have conceded on this away trip and the complexion of the tie might have changed if Lloris did not palm away a goal bound shot when Spurs were leading 1-0.  His solid punching and claiming of crosses hid some defensive frailties.

4. Coming up Roses (going forward)
For all the great goals Danny Rose may score, his defensive weakness was very clear to see at times.  Most of Tbilisi's attacks came down the right wing as Rose continues to improve his positioning, and also the pace of some attacking play led to both Michael Dawson and Younes Kaboul back pedalling and some panicky defending; this is mitigated by of the three man midfield, not one of Dembele, Paulinho or Capoue really sits deep.  Against players like Mata and Cazorla this will become apparent.

5. Rest is good
The chance to start Harry Kane and Tom Carroll, and to rotate the squad will be good next Thursday with the 2nd leg three days before the North London derby where freshness will be key for a huge battle.

UCL: Where Complacency meets Inferiority

The Champions League proper is back, following the thrills and spills of Arsenal nearly succumbing to Udinese - the group stage and the smorgasborg of 16 games over 2 nights featuring the stars of world and European football.  However, whereas the Champions League was a unique idea when it originated in 1992/93, now we have a mish-mash of superior teams mixed with teams who although champions they are not up to standard.

And due to the UEFA co-efficients and rankings and pot seedings, you get some dynamic groups.  You need only look at Manchester City's group of death with Bayern Munich, Napoli and Villarreal and then compare it with their city neighbour's snore-fest of Benfica, Basle and Gelati (of Romania, if you did not know). 

United are far and away the strongest English side with the largest depth available and yet Alex Ferguson had some problems following an international week and a PL fixture on Saturday evening.  He made numerous changes, gave David de Gea a much needed 'rest', Ashley Young is tired and he is still without his trusted central defensive pairing of Ferdinand and Vidic. 

United played a 4-3-3 of Lindegaard; Rafael, Evans, Smalling, Evra; Valencia,Fletcher, Carrick; Park, Giggs,Rooney. This side was deceptive, by flooding the midfield and picking Fletcher and Carrick, Ferguson hoped to nullify the emotional Benfica side that would be propelled by the passionate home support.  Giggs played off of Rooney who was very much mute all evening, Valencia rarely ventured forward and posed an attacking threat, whilst Park had to do a lot more defending than envisaged.

The team smacked of negativity, and yet Ferguson will believe he got a lot out of the game.  Players gained match minutes and if injuries do not clear then they can be called upon for the Chelsea game on Sunday, yet he must have a few questions.  What kind of statement does this performance give to the rest of Europe?  Contemporaries Bayern Munich and Real Madrid were both away from home and were dominant against lesser opposition, the difference being those two teams have harder groups.  United should top their group and will do with 3 home wins; and oddly the Champions League offers Ferguson a chance to utilise his squad options yet but for the weak finishing of Benfica's Nolito in the closing stages the campaign might have gotten off to the worst start. 

This complacency might haunt several teams, as it did Barcelona on Tuesday night when they did all the hard work against AC Milan coming back from a goal down to lead 2-1 gain 75% possession and yet concede a late set-piece goal which could be the difference between topping the group and coming second.  Barcelona have injury issues themselves - the first choice centre backs Pique and Puyol were out so Guardiola employed Mascherano and Busquets in central defence, and this lack of cohesion led to Alexandre Pato scoring after just 30 seconds.  Possession led to dominance and Barca had the lead after 50 minutes, yet they could not find the crucial third, as long as the score remained a goal difference Milan must have believed in one more chance.  It arrived in injury time from a corner by Seedorf met by Thiago Silva whose bullet header flew past Valdes who had the whole goal to protect with no markers on the goalposts.  That to me smacks of complacency, the last minute at home and you don't defend as if it is your last, The header went to the far post the most obvious post to cover from this specific set-piece.

Luckily, Barca and AC Milan are in a weak group with Bate and Plzen (yep, me neither) providing little opposition to these superior powers. 

And that is the problem with the UCL, the group stage is deliberate in keeping all the super-powers apart until the knockout stages in February begin allowing them all a thick slice of television money.  Unfortunately, certain big times may not actually start playing their strongest sides until they meet a team they believe to be their equal.