A survivor who's nothing like he is Bild

Paths to the semi-final: Juergen Klinsmann is a lifelong contrarian, writes Tom Humphries. But he has risen above the fray and his team's performances in this World Cup have made him bulletproof

When Germany kicked off this tournament, in a game so distant now it seems to belong in another century, they began in a most un-German way. They tore into Costa Rica with cubbish enthusiasm, lifting an entire crowd in Munich to their feet with the momentum of their play. They have hardly paused for breath since.

These have been a remarkable few weeks for Germany, as a nation and as a team. The discovery that it is alright to have a little bit of pride in the nation and its flag has brought a goofy smile to German faces. And the style of the football team has been a change, which has surprised Germans too. Speed over method. Who would have thought it?

Juergen Klinsmann, Germany's extraordinary manager, has done away with Germany's traditional 3-5-2 formation. He opts for a 4-4-2 system with a diamond formation in midfield. Everything revolves around speed of attack. The defenders push up, compressing the middle; when they have possession, everyone gallops into attack.

Watching German television brings you a flavour of how quickly things are moving on away from the pitch. For a while the ubiquitous Franz Beckenbauer had to wrestle for screen time with the vastly popular Angela Merkel.

As time wears on, however, both Merkel and Beckenbauer are being pushed to the shadows by Klinsmann.

Beckenbauer best represents the old Germany. He would like Klinsmann's team to play with a libero, a man in the Kaiser's style, a player who would walk the ball out of defence and slow the game down while the advance scouts looked for an opening farther ahead. That's the German way.

Klinsmann is a lifelong contrarian. He has always been a little outside the mould, even for a German footballer. He speaks four languages fluently, is a contributor to Greenpeace, never charges for media appearances and when he was with Tottenham liked to drive a 1960s Beetle around town. And he has always believed German football needs to be quicker.

That, and the fact he lives 6,000 miles away in California, made him a hard sell to the German public.

Whatever happens tonight in Dortmund, though, Klinsmann is one of the big winners this month. His football philosophy has seduced a nation which was bracing itself for some embarrassment following the displays of the national team at the European Championships two years ago.

This World Cup is the culmination of an extraordinary career. Klinsmann is sometimes referred to in Germany as the baker's son from Botnang, and the family business still runs on slanty Etlinger Strasse in the Stuttgart suburb. Klinsmann trained for two years as a baker when he left school to begin football life at 16 with the Stuttgart Kickers. He soon left behind the possibility of a lifetime of early mornings and hot ovens.

His playing career brought him a World Cup winner's medal in 1990 and a European Championship medal six years later when he captained Germany. He scored 204 goals in 445 clubs games and another 47 goals in 108 games with Germany. More importantly, he reckons, he played under coaches like Arsene Wenger, Giovanni Trapatonni, Cesar Menotti, Ossie Ardiles and Otto Rehhagel. He played for Spurs in two separate periods, not because there weren't offers from bigger English clubs but just because he liked London.

When it all finished in 1998, he drove his Beetle back to Germany and took stock. With his Chinese-American wife, he moved to California not long afterwards and for a brief period in 2003 he lined out in the American Premier development league for the Orange County Blue Stars under the nom de guerre Jay Goppingen (he was born in Goppingen).

He lives a quiet life in Huntingdon Beach, where he passes virtually unrecognised and where his children avoid all of the trappings of celebrity childhood. Three times a week he conference calls with his fellow German coaches and twice a month he commutes to Germany.

This distant relationship has helped him draw enemies. He was sharply criticised in the German daily Bild (for which Beckenbauer is a columnist). But Klinsmann would point out that he had previously removed certain privileges of access which Bild had become accustomed to with the German national team. The paper traditionally received the German team line-up the day before a match and enjoyed unfettered and usually exclusive access to the team.

Bild, when treated like any other paper, found Klinsmann's commuter habit unacceptable and shed doubt on his philosophy of out-and-out attack and of packing the team roster with young players.

Bild and Klinsmann have a long history of enmity. When he was a young player, Klinsmann once visited a juvenile prison in Adelsheim in central Germany. He was curious to understand the impact of social environment on young criminals. It was a private visit, but Bild got hold of it and ran the headline "Klinsmann Lobbies for Murderers". Klinsmann was unmoved, but thus began his lifelong habit of not dealing with tabloid newspapers.

Bild have stayed on Klinsmann's case during his career, tagging him as greedy when he moved clubs and stitching him up in ludicrous fashion during the Euro 1996 championships when a hotel in England asked German players to stop using the sauna, as they would at home, naked. Klinsmann was not one of the players using the sauna, but Bild ran a picture of him without a shirt and cropped it to give the impression that the German captain was waking around an English hotel naked. Klinsmann sued, won, and then gave the money away.

That acrimony between Klinsmann and Germany's leading tabloid has been bubbling under this World Cup campaign. Klinsmann refuses to have anyone in the circle of the national team who retains close ties to Bild.

Klinsmann has been derided by Bild for bringing in a Swiss scout, a team psychologist and an American fitness coach to work with the team. In January, he tried to hire Germany's director of hockey to implement a unified coaching system and philosophy for the game in Germany. Bild went crazy. The German FA backed down and appointed Mattias Sammer instead.

Then, in March, Germany travelled to Florence and got beaten 4-1 in a friendly with tonight's opposition. Klinsmann said he had no doubts over his strategy.

Bild described him as "insolent and outrageous", he was told to "drop the Grinsi-Klinsi act" and "to stop whooping it up in sunny California".

Finally, just before Klinsmann flew home, there was a threat.

"If Klinsmann really does board that plane now, he'd better just stay in the United States," said Bild.

Klinsmann flew back to California that day.

You have to like the guy.

Next time out Germany beat the US 4-1 in Dortmund. Klinsmann came into the press tent afterwards swinging lumber. He told the German media that they should "think twice about things, right here in this room". If there is depression in the air, he says, "You've played your part, too." He speaks of the "enemy within".

There was a time in the approach to this World Cup when it looked as if Klinsmann wouldn't even be on board for the start of it. Bild, though a tabloid and a reasonably rabid member of the species, is part of the football establishment. For Klinsmann to take on that establishment and its unofficial organ was brave.

Somehow, though, Klinsmann has risen above the fray and his team's performances have made him bulletproof.

Angela Merkel, with whom he had a summit in mid-March where they discussed ways to make the World Cup what it has been, a festival of fun and football for Germany, has become a fan.

"We have the opportunity to redefine Germany," said Klinsmann, "to create a national 'brand'."

Somehow now Klinsmann is everywhere as the emblem of that new brand. He and Merkel are a mutual-admiration society. Franz Beckenbauer is being pushed to the background.

Tonight a nation united in football and in a new-found regard foritself will gather behind Klinsmann as he paces the line in Dortmund, bent forward from the waist, fists clenched, looking for all the world like a Junior B hurling manager roaring his players on.

When it's all over he will return to California, to his children, Jonathan and Leila, and to his work.

He is involved with a German youth project which brings 400,000 youngsters to play football every week, and he is a partner in an American marketing company. He has founded and funded Agapedia, his own charity to help kids "catastrophically" mistreated in places such as Albania, Moldova and Romania.

He's a different kind of football man, an unlikely warrior who is winning the war.

GERMANY

GROUP A - June 9th: Germany 4 (Lahm 6, Klose 17, 61, Frings 87) Costa Rica 2 (Wanchope 12, 73). June 14th: Germany 1 (Neuville 90+1) Poland 0. June 20th: Germany 3 (Klose 4, 44, Podolski 57) Ecuador 0.

Germany top the group on nine points, three ahead of Ecuador.

SECOND ROUND - June 24th: Germany 2 (Podolski 4, 12) Sweden 0.

QUARTER-FINAL - June 30th: Germany 1 (Klose 80) Argentina 1 (Ayala 49).

After extra-time, Germany win 4-2 on penalties.

ITALY

GROUP E - June 12th: Italy 2 (Pirlo 40, Iaquinta 83) Ghana 0. June 17th: Italy 1 (Gilardino 22) USA 1 (Zaccardo 27 og). June 22nd: Italy 2 (Materazzi 26, Inzaghi 87) Czech Republic 0.

Italy top the group on seven points, one ahead of Ghana.

SECOND ROUND - June 26th: Italy 1 (Totti 90+4 pen) Australia 0.

QUARTER-FINAL - June 30th: Italy 3 (Zambrotta 6, Toni 59, 69) Ukraine 0.