Jürgen Klinsmann Says U.S. Players Can Have World Cup Sex

It's Jürgen Klinsmann Week, and you have your choice of profiles of the USMNT manager. There's the New Yorker ("Klinsmann is a hippie pseudo-Buddhist flake"), the Times ("Klinsmann plans to make U.S. soccer less American"), the WSJ (Klinsmann wants to make U.S. soccer more American"), and many other fine outlets.

But leave it to Soccer Gods to get at the big questions. In a video interview (not embeddable here, so go watch), Klinsmann was asked if he planned on emulating other managers who have forbidden their teams from having sex during the World Cup, under the dubious reasoning that it unnecessarily tires players.

Said Klinsmann,

"We are very casual in the way we approach things. Their families can come pretty much any time, they will be at the games, they can come to the hotel and we can have barbecues together. I think every nation is different.

I played in different countries where you didn't see your girlfriend or your wife for two months. That was more the Italian background when I played in Italy. Every team and every country handles that differently based on their culture. So I respect the Mexican approach because it is their culture.

"We have a group of guys together and an environment together that is very open, it's very casual. But once we go on the field for training and for the games we are very serious and down to business."

Klinsmann was referring to Mexico coach Miguel Herrera, who barred his players from consorting during the tournament. "If a player cannot endure a month or 20 days without having intercourse, then you are not prepared to be a professional," Herrera said. "Let's play a World Cup, we're not going to a party."

A more realistic approach would be that espoused by Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who preaches moderation and safety: "The players can have normal sex during the World Cup," Scolari said. "Usually normal sex is done in a balanced way but some like to perform acrobatics. We will put limits and survey the players."

[ Soccer Gods]