It’s only a slight exaggeration to say the only people in the United States who want Juergen Klinsmann’s autograph are the waiters seeking his signature on their credit card receipts.

The former Germany coach and striker might be virtually overrun in his home country by autograph seekers and could probably not walk down a street anywhere in Germany even in the middle of the night without causing a stir.

But in California, it’s Juergen Who?

“It’s great that we can lead a normal life here,” Klinsmann told me when there was only one autograph request during the course of a two-hour interview in his adopted California home - from a friendly waiter who brought the check for lunch.

“It’s just a completely different world. That would change overnight if we (he and his family) ever went back to Europe.”

I’ve had three interviews in California with Klinsmann over the past few years, all of them in very public coffee shops, bars and restaurants, and there was only one soccer fan who recognised him and asked for an autograph, and he was from Europe.

Even then he stood shyly a few metres off in the distance for a moment — perhaps to make sure it really was Klinsmann — before sending his uninformed yet infinitely more courageous American girlfriend up to our table at an outdoor cafe to ask on his behalf.

Klinsmann, who had just been explaining to me that no one in America knew who he was,  laughed at the irony before happily signing his name: “That almost never happens here, really. It’s only the occasional tourist from Europe or South America.”

Klinsmann savours his nearly anonymous life in America. He once even played in a local California soccer league under an assumed name, until some started wondering who this guy was named “Jay” — as in “J” — who was scoring all these goals. He believes that even though David Beckham has sparked a wave of interest in soccer in the United States he will still be able to remain just another face in the crowd.

“Even with Beckham being here now soccer doesn’t have the mass appeal that other sports do,” he said. “Soccer isn’t part of the culture and that’s why nothing has changed for me, even after the World Cup. I can still go shopping or out to eat without anyone noticing — just like before.”

Erik Kirschbaum, Huntington Beach, California