Achtung Baby!

Even with my Teflon status at work, I still can’t wangle a trip to New York city today to gatecrash the Jurgen Klinsmann press conference at Niketown. Of course, I sit down to watch it at my computer this morning and just get more and more frustrated at the soccer journalists who are in that room. Why oh why don’t they ask him the hard questions? Here is a list of questions they should have but didn’t ask Herr Klinsmann on his first day in office.

1.      When you first saw the movie “Victory”, did you cheer for the Allies or the Germans in the soccer match in Paris?

2.      Would you be prepared to try to convert an American football player into a soccer goalkeeper as Michael Caine did so successfully with Sylvester Stallone in that movie?

3.      During your time at Tottenham Hotspur in England, you apparently drove a Volkswagen Beetle around London in a blatant FU to the British automobile industry. Will you continue to drive a German tank or will you now be prepared to do the right thing and drive a real car like a Chevy or a Cadillac?

4.      Will you be coaching the players in simulation given how good you were at diving in your heyday?

5.      Your bio claims you’ve been living in California for years. Have you ever visited the mainland United States before today?

6.      Will you be bringing the famous German sense of humor to this job with you?

That not a single reporter saw fit to ask even one of these sums up the problems facing the American media in the 21^st century.