76 JURGEN KLINSMANN
FFT wasn’t the only game-changing arrival in 1994. By Gary Parkinson
Shortly after the World Cup broke new ground by being staged in the USA, a new arrival burst into English football and raised its level of intelligence, interest and loveability, changing the game forever. Yes, friends and neighbours, in August 1994 came the first issue of Fourfourtwo.
That month also heralded the arrival of Jurgen The German. That’s Klinsmann, not Klopp, Kopites. Two years into the Premier League, change was in the air.
The previous summer’s biggest top-flight signings had included Brian Deane to (recent champions) Leeds, Andy Townsend to Aston Villa, Julian Dicks to Liverpool, Roy Keane to Manchester United and Andy Sinton to Sheffield Wednesday.
By contrast, the World Cup summer – along with Sky money and the obvious success of the unquestionably foreign Eric Cantona – provoked something of an import drive. While there were still transfers for doughty names like Mark Draper, Neil Cox and Chris Sutton, Newcastle bought Philippe Albert and Wednesday went for Dan Petrescu, whose Romania team-mates Ilie Dumitrescu and Gheorghe Popescu would also move to White Hart Lane.
But Klinsmann was undoubtedly the biggest name, if not the biggest fee. He arrived from Monaco having previously played for Inter Milan, at a time when Serie A was global football’s richest and sexiest destination. That description would soon move to England, largely because players like Klinsmann came.
After all, Klinsmann was a World Cup winner, the chief attacking weapon of the fearsome (West) Germans... and a diver, whose flopping-fish over-reaction to Pedro Monzon’s high tackle in the Italia 90 final had ensured the Argentine the first-ever World Cup final red card.
With the English still insisting they were ethically above what was yet to be called simulation – as if serial penalty-winners like Franny Lee had never existed – there were some who regarded this as a culture clash too far: European Union membership gone mad.
Clambering aboard the elephant in the room and taking it for a ride like a German mahout, Klinsmann cooked up a cunning plan – and when he scored Spurs’ fourth goal in an opening-day 4-3 victory at Sheffield Wednesday, he celebrated by flinging himself forward and sliding on his stomach toward the touchline, there to be joined by overjoyed team-mates.
After a World Cup marked by notable celebrations – Bebeto and chums rocking the baby, Diego Maradona’s eye-bulging ephedrine haze, Finidi George pretending to be a urinating dog – here was the Premier League’s very own global superstar, a German with a sense of humour, gleefully mocking himself after scoring a key goal in a seven-goal thriller. Bliss was it, in that dawn of the Premier League, to be alive.
He did the dive thing again on his home debut, after converting a scissors kick at the Paxton Road end. But Spurs had bigger problems off the pitch: an FA bungs investigation had docked them 12 points, and by the time Alan Sugar’s lawyers quashed it in December, the club had realised that Ossie Ardiles’ apparent 5-0-5 formation might not be the greatest idea.
Reverting from the flash to the old school, Sugar hired pigeon-fancying mullet-wearer Gerry Francis, who promptly lost his first game 4-3. But Klinsmann glided serenely onwards to 30 goals in all competitions, with fans particularly enjoying a late equaliser at Highbury and goals home and away against West Ham. Spurs finished 7th, even if their points total was as close to the relegated clubs as it was to 2nd place.
And with that, he was gone again: a clause in his contract allowed him to slip away to Bayern Munich, where he won pots aplenty. With typical grace, Sugar – who later said that footballers are “scum, total scum. They are bigger scum than journalists... if they weren’t football players, most of them would be in prison” – appeared on television discarding a signed Klinsmann shirt, saying he wouldn’t wash his car with it.
Thirty months later, he signed him again. Swallowing his pride, Sugar, who was unpopular with fans as Spurs languished in the drop zone, invited Klinsi back to north London. Nine goals in 15 games later, with Tottenham safe, he retired and took his 1967 Beetle to California.
By then, the Premier League had Gullit, Wenger, Zola, Vieira and an ever-widening horizon of possibilities, not to mention a TV deal doubling the previous pricetag. From 1995 onwards, 12 out of the next 14 winners of the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year award were from outside England. The first of these was Jurgen Klinsmann.
THE PREMIER LEAGUE NOW HAD ITS OWN GLOBAL STAR AND A WORLD CUP WINNER