Borussia Dortmund, FC Valencia, Bayern conqueror FC Villarreal – prominent clubs will soon gather in the so-called Cashpoint Arena, Miroslav Klose’s new workplace. The 44-year-old former international, World Cup record shooter and world champion takes over the team of the Austrian Bundesliga club SCR Altach for the new season, and of course the first surprised comments in the local and national press resulted in the usual ambiguous motive: A world star makes the province happy – but does the province also make the world star happy?
The visit by BVB and the Spanish first division will not change the reflexive desire for football glamour. The three clubs have only arranged to meet in the municipality of Altach, which has a population of almost 7,000, for test match purposes, but Klose could still take away interesting impressions from the visit. FC Valencia has also just hired a coach who started out as a veteran: Gennaro Gattuso, 44, is in his ninth position as a coach in Spain. At the end of his career as an active professional, the famous Italian, also a world champion to the end of days, started his second career as a player-coach at the Swiss FC Sion. This was quickly followed by engagements with second division club US Palermo, OFI Crete in Greece and AC Pisa, only later did he end up with the bigger names, AC Milan and SSC Naples. In other words: a long way through the vastness of the football world that Klose expressly never wanted to take.
Klose will not play for the championship title with SCR Altach in the coming season, the club was almost relegated under the supervision of the Swiss Ludovic Magnin, only on the last day of the game was the rescue, which the home crowd celebrated with a comparatively friendly attack on the pitch. But in the modest sporting environment of the club, which receives an average of 4,130 visitors, Klose felt at home right away when he got to know each other. The first talks were “so open” that “it was clear to me: I want to do that!” He wants to reveal more details on Monday at his presentation, until then he did not want to comment publicly.
Hansi Flick would have liked to take Klose from FC Bayern to the DFB – but Klose declined
If Klose were actually fixated on working close to big football, he would now be a member of the national team’s coaching staff. After their time together at FC Bayern, Hansi Flick wanted to take him to the DFB last summer. But Klose declined. Firstly, he had to recover from an injury (due to two thromboses, the doctors had banned him from any sport); secondly, he had decided that he no longer wanted to work as an assistant. He got along well with Flick, but he had to start working on his own now, Klose explained: “Co-trainer would be the more comfortable way, and I don’t want to go that way.”
The will to learn the profession systematically characterizes Klose’s working life. During his apprenticeship at SG Blaubach-Diedelkopf (district league West Palatinate) and the association and regional league teams of FC Homburg, he climbed up to the Bundesliga in even steps. After acquiring the coaching licenses, he took his first steps at the DFB before taking over the B-Juniors at FC Bayern. He turned down the offered move to the A-Juniors – he thought it was too early. In 2020 he ended up in Hansi Flick’s support team. Now follows the first job as commander of the cabin, as the first among the 2014 world champions.
In said big football there have recently been some chilling examples of famous colleagues who wanted to get in at the top right away. Andrea Pirlo, 43, started out reasonably moderately with the Juventus U23s, but after just a week he had himself proclaimed head coach of the professionals, and another ten months later he was given a leave of absence. Now he is joining Fatih Karagümrük in Turkey, which probably irritates him himself. Frank Lampard, 43, also had to learn that his rank as a club legend was not enough to manage the Chelsea FC team without sound professional experience. He lasted a year and a half.
Klose probably doesn’t know too much about the players he’ll be teaching soon. The best-known name in Altach’s squad in this country is that of a former Bayern Munich player: Whether Gianluca Gaudino, 25, will stay at the club is questionable, so far he was employed on loan from SV Sandhausen. But for the world champion it should be important that he doesn’t need to call in a translator in the dressing room. He immediately had the impression “that I was in the right place – exactly the positive feeling I need to have,” Klose was quoted as saying. Not a sentence that you haven’t heard before in PR communications – but in his case a commitment that you can believe.