As a World Cup on homesoil looms for Germany and the expectation levels amongst fans reaches fever pitch, it is no surprise that national coach Jurgen Klinsmann has tried to steer attention away from problems with the chosen stadia and on-pitch concerns. What is surprising is that he is turning to the coach of the German national hockey team to help him prepare his side for the World Cup.

The DFB have been in talks with hockey coach Bernhard Peters over the newly created post of technical director in a move that has outraged many football traditionalists but has the full backing of head coach Klinsmann. ‘Peters could contribute a lot,’ Klinsmann said at a recent news conference, ‘He has a different way of thinking…There have been talks with the DFB and we’ve been convinced by his way of doing things’ .

While Klinsmann has been calling for some time for a technical director to be appointed, he was initially in favour of former Germany and Scotland coach Berti Vogts being given the role but Vogts ruled himself out of the running, saying he didn’t want to get involved in a power struggle between the German FA and Klinsmann himself.

Bernhard Peters, meanwhile, has been coach of the German men’s hockey team since 2001 and led them to victory at the World Cup in 2002 and to the bronze medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Whether an appointment to the technical director post will be made before the World Cup kicks off in June is another matter as is the question of whether Jurgen Klinsmann himself will extend his contract beyond the end of the summer’s football showpiece.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 3:18 pm and is filed under International Football News. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.