Classic soccer rivalry extends to World Cup

HERZOGENAURACH, Germany, June 28: When Germany play Argentina in the World Cup quarter-final in Berlin on Friday it will be the third meeting of coaches Juergen Klinsmann and Jose Pekerman with the record all square.

In both previous meetings, the teams drew 2-2, in a friendly in Duesseldorf in February 2005 when Hernan Crespo scored both Argentine goals and in a Confederations Cup match in Nuremberg a year ago.

Klinsmann and Pekerman have both been in their jobs for almost the same time, the German taking charge in August 2004, a month before Pekerman succeeded Marcelo Bielsa, who was doing well after his 2002 World Cup failure but quit by surprise.

The circumstances of each appointment were quite different, however, with Klinsmann's seen as an act of desperation rather than bravery by the German football association, DFB.

The DFB had been rejected by former Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld and Otto Rehhagel, who had just guided Greece to glory at Euro 2004, a tournament in which Rudi Voeller's German side had played poorly.

Pekerman, who as the Argentine Football Association's (AFA) technical director had appointed Bielsa in 1999, inherited a team that was doing well.

In 2004, Bielsa's sides won the Olympic gold medal and reached the Copa America final.

The last time the two nations met in a World Cup, when West Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in the Rome final in 1990, was the culmination of a coaching rivalry that marked the 1980s and which Klinsmann and Pekerman may only begin to emulate if they stay in their jobs beyond this tournament.

Franz Beckenbauer, president of the organising committee for this World Cup, faced Argentina's Carlos Bilardo in two World Cup finals, each winning one, and several significant friendlies.

The two present coaches' footballing background is quite different with Klinsmann a high profile former player who was in West Germany's 1990 title-winning team but had no experience of coaching.

Pekerman had a modest playing career but won plaudits as a coach steering Argentina's under-20 team to the World Youth Cup title in 1995, 1997 and 2001.

Both, however, sought to put their personal stamp on their teams with Pekerman reverting to a more traditionally Argentine attacking game centred on playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme whom Bielsa had regarded as too slow for his tactics.

Klinsmann set himself the goal of winning the World Cup by playing fast, aggressive football far removed from the laboured performances of Voeller's side.

He won enemies who criticised his decision to strip Oliver Kahn of the captaincy and made him fight for the goalkeeping spot with Jens Lehmann and leave Christian Woerns and Kevin Kuranyi out of his World Cup squad.

The faith shown by the DFB looks to have been well placed.

Germany's fitness levels have been higher than their opponents and they have been playing football that is light years ahead of the standard of their Euro 2004 performances.

''We're getting hungrier and hungrier as the tournament goes on,'' Klinsmann told reporters after the 2-0 win over Sweden in the second round. ''We fear no one here.'' Criticism of Pekerman's appointment centred on the perceived leap in quality needed to handle seasoned professionals as opposed to raw youngsters.

But so far, thanks no doubt to picking a squad full of his former proteges in the successful under-20 teams, Pekerman's team have played some of the best football of the tournament.

Beckenbauer and Bilardo can both be credited with the development of 5-3-2 or 3-5-2 tactics from the first time they met when Bilardo's team impressed Germans with a 3-1 win in a friendly in Duesseldorf in 1984.

Bilardo built a team around Diego Maradona and Argentina beat Beckenbauer's West Germany 3-2 in the 1986 World Cup final in Mexico City.

Beckenbauer renewed his squad, introducing a number of promising young players, among them Klinsmann, and blooded them on a South American tour in 1987 that included a 1-0 defeat to Argentina in Buenos Aires.

Two years later, Beckenbauer finally tasted victory over Argentina when his side won 1-0 in the Four Nations Cup tournament in Berlin in 1988. Two years later he got his World Cup revenge in the Rome World Cup final.

REUTERS

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