Anyone who has any lingering doubts whether Juergen Klinsmann is determined to be an agent of change at Bayern Munich should have a word with the city’s photojournalists. 

All 20 photographers accredited for Klinsmann’s first news conference on Wednesday stood up and walked out in a silent (and somewhat silly) protest because of a new rule limiting them to three minutes of pictures at the start.

Just as Klinsmann was a catalyst for change in his two years shaking up some of the antiquated structures in the German FA from 2004 to 2006, it seems abundantly clear the former Germany striker is not going to be satisfied with the status quo in Munich. 

They might have won the Bundesliga and German Cup last year, but that’s not enough for Bayern.  

In a refreshingly open 45 minutes, Klinsmann sketched out his ideas about Bayern’s direction — candidly saying the goals are a German domestic double and reaching the final of the Champions League — and kept referring to the centrepiece of his masterplan, a new Hochleistungszentrum (high performance centre).

He’ll be expecting his players to spend all day — from 9:30 to 5:30 — on site and use the few hours between morning and afternoon training sessions to work on their language skills, fitness abilities or learn about new things.  

“Matches are decided in the head,” he said at the news conference, which was broadcast live by two German TV networks. “It’s important to keep learning, to stay hungry to learn more.”  

Klinsmann, who spent the last decade living in California, has a number of critics in Germany sceptical of his American-style optimism. They are also unsure about imported training methods from a country they tend to view as a minor soccer nation.

But as well as working with the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, Klinsmann spent time in South America in the last two years and has worked hard to learn Spanish — adding to his Italian, French and English skills.

“I did a lot of travelling. And obviously I spent a lot of effort to learn more about soccer. It’s my belief that everyone can learn something from someone else. You just have to open yourself up to it,” he said.  

He was certain his players were going to welcome the new challenges rather than feel any burdens, adding it will “set new energies free.” Klinsmann said one of his biggest challenges will be keeping all his talent-laden squad happy.

“We’ve got two players for every position and for some positions there are even three people at a very high level,” he said. “I’ve got my work cut out for me. But I’m really looking forward to it.”  

He said he had intentionally refrained from any TV or print interviews of any kind for the last six months but had been excited about the new season in the Bundesliga since the moment Bayern bosses called him just before Christmas.

“I’m extremely ambitious and sometimes as a player I was a bit too ambitious at times. But I want to move something here at Bayern. What I’ve missed most the last two years was the day-in and day-out work with the players. If everyone gets a little bit better the team will automatically be better. I can’t describe how happy I am to be back.”

PHOTO: Klinsmann smiles during a news conference in Munich. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

The Bundesliga gets a bad rap at times. German clubs have for the most part failed to reach the latter stages of the Champions League in recent years, matches can sometimes seem to move in slow-motion and the officiating can be uneven or even downright scandalous (see Hoyzer, Robert).

But despite all that, Bundesliga players have been sparkling in Euro 2008. And with players from the German league on 15 of the 16 teams no league is more widely represented.
 
There have been players from the German domestic league in the starting line-ups of almost all the teams that have played of the tournament. Only Spain have no Bundesliga players in their squad.

And many are making a mark — from Franck Ribery of France to the Netherlands’ Rafael van der Vaart and Croatia’s Josip Simunic. Even the first goal of the tournament was scored by a player who cut his teeth in the Bundesliga — Vaclav Sverkos of the Czech Republic, who spent 2003 to 2007 at Borussia Moenchengladbach and Hertha Berlin.

After watching so many Bundesliga players popping up in post-match TV interviews and speaking their lightly accented German, I had a hunch the Bundesliga was probably the most represented of all domestic leagues at the Euro. And so it is, at least according to the Bundesliga’s website, which says there are 65 players on 15 teams at the Euro, comfortably beating the Premier League (44), the Primera Liga (43) and Serie A (38).
 
Here are a few possible explanations why:
 
German clubs — lacking the deep pockets of their rivals in England, Spain and Italy — have long been especially open to young (i.e. inexpensive) talent from Eastern European and Southeastern European countries, where bargains can be found. Secondly, Germany has large groups of immigrants from many countries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe and some of the best players for Turkey, Croatia and Greece, for example, grew up in ethnic communities in Germany and play in the Bundesliga.
 
Another factor contributing to the international feeling of the Bundesliga is that some clubs in the heart of Europe seem to go out of their way to bring together a nucleus of internationals from one country or another. Bayern Munich have their French connection in Ribery and Willy Sagnol. Hamburg SV have a Netherlands trio — Van der Vaart, Nigel de Jong and Joris Mathijsen. Nuremberg are filled with players from the neighbouring Czech Republic and Eintracht Frankfurt have a big Greece contingent in Sotiris Kyrgiakos, Ioannis Amanatidis, and Fanis Gekas.

Please go ahead and keep sniggering about the Bundesliga. But you have to admit — Bundesliga players are ueber alles. Aren’t they?

PHOTO: Franck Ribery sits on the pitch during France’s Group C match against Romania at the Letzigrund Stadium in Zurich, June 9, 2008. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Bayern Munich could win the Bundesliga championship this weekend without even kicking a ball.

With a 12-point lead over Werder Bremen and Schalke 04 and four matches left, Bayern — who don’t play again until visiting VfL Wolfsburg on Sunday — will be watching from their recliners on Saturday when Bremen and Schalke try to keep their faint hopes alive.

Should Bremen and Schalke fail to win their respective home matches against Energie Cottbus and Hanover 96, Bayern will be crowned champions.  

The Germans have an interesting term for winning the championship in that fashion — “Sofa-meister” (couch champion).  

But Bayern captain Oliver Kahn said it doesn’t matter how they win a record 21st German championship — even if they take it lying down.  

“If we end up winning as Sofa-meister, that’s the way it goes,” Kahn told Premiere Television on Sunday. “You can’t change it. That’s the way it is. Obviously you’d rather win the championship on the pitch.”  

Kahn missed Bayern’s 4-1 win over VfB Stuttgart on Sunday due to injury. He said he would have played if Bayern could have won the championship on Sunday — which would have been possible had Bremen lost and Schalke not won on Saturday. As it turned out Bremen managed a 3-3 draw at Karlsruhe and Schalke beat Hamburg SV 1-0.

So Kahn didn’t even suit up for the match on Sunday…and gave interviews about “Sofameisters” instead.

Erik Kirschbaum, Berlin

PHOTO: Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery celebrates with coach Ottmar Hitzfeld during the German Bundesliga soccer match against Stuttgart, April 27 REUTERS/Michael Dalder

Luca Toni has evidently not learned much German in the eight months since he moved over the Alps a few hundred kilometres north of native Italy to the Bavarian capital of Munich.

With plenty of translators at his service and a wide range  of fine Italian restaurants in Munich to pick from, there’s little need to spend time studying the difficult tongue-twisting language of Goethe and Schiller. His interviews in the German media are invariably translated from Italian.

But Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld revealed on Sunday that Toni has in the meantime enriched his vocabulary with at least one German term - Tor (goal).

“I asked him at half-time if he wanted to play the whole match or come off and he just said ‘Tor, Tor, Tor’,” Hitzfeld said after Toni had scored twice in the first half against Dortmund, by which time they were leading 4-0.

Toni, who came to Bayern from Fiorentina in the close-season, has proven that you don’t need to speak fluent German to understand what keeps your German employers happy. That one three-letter word “Tor” is enough.

He has 31 goals in all competitions and leads the Bundesliga in scoring with 18 goals with six matches left.

Even though he didn’t score a third goal against Dortmund (the match finished 5-0, but it was Andreas Ottl who got the fifth), Toni ended up playing the full 90 minutes on Sunday just three days after going 120 minutes (and scoring twice in the last five) in Bayern’s epic UEFA Cup tie at Getafe.

But it’s not only his goal-scoring that makes Toni such a watchable player.

“Even when his shots miss, the anguish on Toni’s face and the gesticulations with his hands are so expressive and so much fun to watch,” said one commentator on Premiere Television.

PHOTO: Toni scores his first goal against Dortmund during their Bundesliga match in Munich, April 13, 2008. REUTERS/Alexandra Beier

The Carl Zeiss Jena playmaker’s unfortunate ejection in the 51st minute of their German Cup semi-final match at Borussia Dortmund - when they were behind 1-0 but close to equalising - pretty much took the life out of what was until then a good game.

The relegation-threatened second division underdogs were putting up a great fight against Dortmund and had the Bundesliga side on the ropes. After Simak was sent off Dortmund got two late goals to win 3-0.

Perhaps Simak, a Czech, did not fully understand the impact in German of the gesture — covering his eyes with his fists. “Tomaten auf den Augen” (Tomatoes on the eyes) is a popular phrase in Germany to refer to referees who were blind to something obvious that happened in front of their eyes. Some newspapers even publish pictures of the referee with giant tomatoes covering their eyes after particularly daft decisions.

Or perhaps it was all just a cultural misunderstanding by the Czech. He didn’t realise German referee Manuel Graefe would feel insulted to the extent that he would give him a second yellow card just seconds after flashing him the first for his mild complaints about a foul.

There have been other misunderstandings lately. Hertha Berlin’s French-speaking Swiss coach Lucien Favre was able to avoid a suspension by convincing league officials that he did not make the insulting “bird” gesture (which in Germany usually means “I think you’re crazy”) to a referee in Hertha’s 1-1 draw at Dortmund a week earlier, as the referee had charged, while complaining about an erroneous red card that was then quickly rescinded.

Simak did not attempt such a defence.

“Yes, unfortunately I did,” Simak later told journalists when asked if his gesture was the “double tomato”. “It was a mistake. I’m unhappy about being sent off for it. But soccer is a sport full of emotions.”

And maybe tomatoes.