Insight of the Day: Bernd Schneider proves Klinsmann right

By: Jan | June 21st, 2007

Schnix Workout The German FA was in a desperate situation, when Jürgen Klinsmann took over the job as Germany’s new national coach in 2004. This desperate situation made some things a bit easier for him. He received enough power to push through a couple of large-scale changes within the association. He didn’t get away with everything. At some point the FA feared they might be looking too much like Klinsmann’s puppets and decided to block his candidate for the newly created sporting director position. Something that didn’t go too well with him, and it is rumoured to be one of the reasons why Klinsmann wasn’t willing to extend his contract. Anyway, that’s a different story. Some of Klinsmann’s changes provoked various negative reactions from the Bundesliga. One of his most notable or better public changes was the appointment of American fitness coaches. Their job was to bring in new know-how and training methods and to develop individualised training regimes for each player. To be able to do so he scheduled regular fitness tests with the players. To top it of, Klinsmann was never shy of voicing his negative opinion towards the outdated fitness standards in the Bundesliga. Obviously that sort of criticism didn’t go too well with the clubs. Following Germany’s successful World Cup campaign it was difficult for Klinsmann’s critics to deny that this guy knew what he was doing. But they were quick to point out that the good fitness levels of all players was something the clubs achieved during the season.

One year later, 16 of 23 players of Germany’s World Cup squad had suffered long term injuries and only a few could maintain their good performances from the tournament. Something that again provoked a little dispute between the national team and the league. And where does Bernd Schneider fit in? Well, he is the oldest player on the squad, apparently likes to smoke a cigarette here and then and played more matches than most other players of the national team. This didn’t stop him from being one of the best midfielders of the league last season, and he apparently lacked any visible signs of fatigue. In an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche he explained his secret “In my opinion the World Cup had a positive effect. The physical fundamentals had been created through the tough training camp. After the World Cup and my vacation I could train in well dosed and intense sessions despite the short time period before the season started. During the season I worked more on regenerative aspects than before. And I still virtuously follow the exercises that Jürgen Klinsmann’s fitness coaches offered us back then. This mix of hard training sessions and regenerative units has helped me a lot on my old days.”

There you have it. Now Bundesliga coaches go figure. Although in their defense, they silently expanded their coaching staff and brought in new expertise already. And coaches like Stuttgart’s Armin Veh or Schalke’s Mirko Slomka (to name a few) are very much open to modern training methods.