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Klinsmann might retire from soccer
Posted: Sunday July 05, 1998 01:33 PM
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Klinsmann says he wants to spend more time with his family (AP) |
NICE, France (AP) --
Juergen Klinsmann, the German captain who played his last national team
game in the 3-0 loss to Croatia in the
World Cup quarterfinals, said Sunday he may quit soccer altogether.
"I'll go away with my family for a couple of months and then decide
whether to go on at all," Klinsmann said. Klinsmann spoke less than
24 hours after the German team's stunning loss in Lyon. The Germans
returned to their headquarters outside Nice during the night and some
players already had left France. "I'll think things over without
rushing in the next couple of months," Klinsmann said. "My intention
was to play well and do everything for the team. I'd have loved to have
gone to Paris and to get my final and 110th cap in the final. I am greatly
disappointed,' Klinsmann said. "There is a feeling of great emptiness.
But I am proud to have been able to play for this team and to have been its
captain," Klinsmann said. He was one of the better members of the
disappointing German squad, and scored three goals. Klinsmann, who
will be 34 on July 30, finished his 11-year international career with 108
caps and 47 goals -- sharing second place on the all-time German scoring
list with Rudi Voeller. Gerd Mueller had 68 goals in 62 games. The
German captain had 11 goals in three World Cup tournaments. He won the
World Cup title with Germany in
1990. Klinsmann said he may retire fully from soccer for "purely
familial grounds." "I have a 15-month-old son who needs and whom I
need desperately," Klinsmann said. "I want to be there for him and for my
wife." "Our physicians tell me I could go on, I am very fit
physically. But I always thought of this World Cup as the possible end," he
said. Klinsmann, who played for Stuttgart and Bayern Munich in the
Bundesliga, also played club soccer in Italy, France and
England.
There have been reports that he may go play for Major League Soccer in
the United
States. Klinsmann's wife is American.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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