New man Loew to build on Klinsmann legacy

BERLIN, July 12: Germany's new coach Joachim Loew played a key role in Juergen Klinsmann's drive to overhaul German soccer with innovative training methods and the introduction of an attractive, attacking style of play.

As assistant coach for the two years that Klinsmann was in charge, Loew won a reputation as a clever tactician and organiser who was able to take inexperienced players under his wing and transform them into top-level performers.

The 46-year-old Swabian, affectionately known as Jogi, helped Klinsmann fend off huge opposition to their progressive training methods and fitness programmes.

''We were strong, and we were a very, very good team that learned how fruitful cooperation through communication, transparency and open criticism can be,'' Loew said last week in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Flanked by Klinsmann at a news conference in Frankfurt today Loew said it would be a huge challenge to continue on the same path but that it was ''unavoidable''.

''That's the only way we can achieve a lasting place among the very best in the world,'' he said. He has a two-year contract that runs until after the 2008 European Championship.

At the time of their appointment in 2004, coaching novice Klinsmann said Loew would bring experience gained as coach of German clubs like VfB Stuttgart and Karlsruher SC, and Turkish sides Fenerbahce and Adanaspor.

Klinsmann said today Loew had never been merely an assistant and was more of a partner and a kind of supervisor.

Under Loew, Stuttgart won the German Cup in 1997 and reached the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup the following year.

In 2002, he led Wacker Tirol to the Austrian league title. He left his coaching job at Austria Vienna in early 2004 after falling out with the club president.

He was a midfield player in the 1980s with clubs including Stuttgart and Eintracht Frankfurt, scoring seven goals in 52 appearances in Germany's top league.

A man who favours dapper suits worn without a tie, Loew has said he gains most fulfilment from seeing a young player developing into one capable of competing with the very best.

He singles out German central defender Per Mertesacker, who was heavily criticised for nervous performances at the start of his international career but showed at the World Cup that he is among the best in the world in his position.

According to an unofficial fan Web site, Loew enjoys Turkish food, Italian red wine and his favourite film is ''One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'', starring his favourite actor Jack Nicholson.

Loew was born on Feb. 3, 1960 in Schoenau in the south-western German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg near the borders with France and Switzerland.

REUTERS

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