It has been a bit quiet after the excitement of the World Cup. Sometimes its hard to say that we were the focus of the world’s attention for more than a month.
The ZIdane Materazzi affair really got the public going for a while. I have to say that the German public was in favor of Zizou and they in general support him for leveling Materazzi. Well, Italy did destory Germany in the last few minutes of their match, so the sentiment should be unsurprising. Zizou’s mother got into it and the German press was full of how Zizou’s mother wanted Materazzi’s balls on a platter. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
The big news is the Ruud Van Nistelrooy who has been the subject of a transfer from Man U to Real may ultimately land up in Bayern.
Real is not willing to pay Man U the money for Ruud and why should they? They are obviously looking for the in form players in the Serie to make their way to their club. They have snagged Cannavaro and Emerson. Plus, Ruud just proved to be a bit, shall we say…. rude while he played for Man U. Van Basten did not do Ruud’s career any favors by not playing him in the Portugal match. So Ruud has quite a bit of a baggage when it comes to playing soccer. Bayern has lost some firepower with Ballack leaving and it would be a miracle if any of the Serie players want to play for the Bundesliga.
Germany is still taking Klinsmann’s resignation in stride. They have an able successor in Joachim Low but nothing fired the imagination as Klinsi did. Good looking, articulate, emotional- he could have been a Latino. And of course as a player, he was quite the showboat. US Soccer should really go all out and get him as their coach.
George W Bush came to visit but not to pitch the US coaching job to Klinsmann. Something tells me that it was all for the best because after Dubya called up Bruce Arena to wish his team well in the World Cup, the US made a prompt exit.
As for the World Cup, the consensus seems to be that this World Cup was more important for Germany than it was for the game itself.