FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) Jurgen Klinsmann claimed his first point since returning to coaching as his Hertha Berlin team let slip a two-goal lead to draw with Frankfurt 2-2 in the Bundesliga on Friday.
Hertha was clinging to a 2-1 lead in the 86th minute when Sebastian Rode hammered the ball in from a corner for Frankfurt to deny the Berlin team the win.
Hertha is in the relegation playoff spot in 16th and winless in its last six league games, while Frankfurt is 10th.
Dodi Lukebakio gave Hertha the lead with a shot through Frederik Ronnow’s legs. That goal was assisted by Marko Grujic, who later made it 2-0 with a header from a free kick.
However, Frankfurt almost immediately replied with a header of its own from Martin Hinteregger, the Austrian defender with five Bundesliga goals.
Frankfurt’s fans expressed their disapproval of the video assistant referee after it ruled out two goals for the hosts. There was a rare disallowed own goal when Hertha goalkeeper Thomas Kraft palmed a cross into his own net but was found to have been pushed while jumping.
Klinsmann took over Hertha last week on a temporary deal until the end of the season, after Ante Covic was fired with the team under threat of relegation. Klinsmann hadn’t coached since being fired in 2016 by the United States, and last worked at a club in 2009 at Bayern Munich.
“Since this is a small, deep-set muscle, the problems only occur at certain, very specific loads, which is why he was able to play and train for so long with problems. We will now give Josh’s injury time to properly heal, then he will get back to training in January.”
There are four more match days in the Bundesliga before the league goes on holiday break until mid-January.
While it turns out there’s quite a lot of money to be made for representing footballers and facilitating transfers and negotiating contracts, including your own piece of the pie, the well is set to dry up in just over 12 months’ time.
First things first, how much money are we talking about here? More than $650 million in 2019 alone — up nearly 20 percent from 2018 — according to numbers released by FIFA on Wednesday, and that number doesn’t include players who moved between two clubs in the same country, only players who made international transfers. That would be the good news.
Here’s the bad news, for the agents at least: FIFA has approved new guidelines which will cap agent fees at 10 percent of transfer fees and 3 percent of player salaries beginning in 2021. OK, so there’s still decent amount of money to be made in your new career.
The agents and FIFA are at odds over the new rules, which prompted the governing body to release the figures, as if to say, “See? These are the really bad guys ruining your sport.”
Bayer Leverkusen got its young speedster back at the right time.
Leon Bailey’s cut through Bayern Munich on Saturday, scoring twice in 63 minutes for a picture perfect return from a two-match red card suspension.
Both goals showed his knack for using the right angles to execute runs with his blazing speed, as the 22-year-old Jamaican scored his 20th and 21st career Bundesliga goals to lift Bayer to within six points of first place Borussia Monchengladbach via a 2-1 win at the Allianz Arena.
It looks like an open league. And Bailey wants to see his team finish higher than its fourth place standing of the 2018/19 season.
“I see our team being at the highest level,” Bailey tells ProSoccerTalk three days after his big performance in Munich. “We have, of all the teams right now, the best chance to be in the Top Three this year.
“The Bundesliga level is high right now and the points are very close, and even the teams that are behind are doing their best to beat teams ahead of them which makes it more complicated but it’s a very intense league and I’m happy to be a part of it.”
Bayer hasn’t had Bailey for much of the season, the Bayern match his sixth league appearance in 13 opportunities thanks to the aforementioned red card suspension and a muscle injury.
He’s also managed just two 45-minute appearances in Bayer’s UEFA Champions League run, which is still alive against the odds.
Bayer lost its first three matches of the group stage and had most leaving it for dead, but beat Atletico Madrid and Lokomotiv Moscow to set up a final match day visit from Juventus.
And Cristiano Ronaldo and Co. aren’t scaring Bailey’s teammates, who need to beat already-qualified Juve and see Atleti drop points at home to Lokomotiv.
“We enter with the same approach toward every game, go into it with 100 percent focus and hopefully we can beat them here at home,” Bailey said.
It’s been a wild ride for Bailey, who started his career with Genk in Belgium, amassing 15 goals and 21 assists in 77 matches.
He’s continued to deliver following a move to Germany, posting 21 and 12 in 92 appearances. That’s seen him linked with a lot of big clubs, including Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
And at long last he’s debuted for Jamaica, earning six caps since the start of the Gold Cup in June.
Bailey assisted against the USMNT in the Reggae Boyz’s 3-1 semifinal loss, and got his first goal in a September win over Antigua and Barbuda in the CONCACAF Nations League.
“It made me learn a lot and I’m grateful that I can actually help my country, be there for them right now, and hopefully we can make it to a World Cup,” he said.
Jamaica’s the fourth ranked team in CONCACAF and will be contesting the Hex in a bid to land its first World Cup bid since 1998, its only appearance in the tournament.
“It would mean everything to me, of course for the country,” Bailey said. “Right now we have a good team, Since I joined the team a lot of English players came and I think we have a good possibility to make it.”
That, most likely, would mean getting the best of Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT.
Bailey says he sees some comparisons between what Bayer did against Bayern and what the Reggae Boyz will need to do to the Yanks.
“They have a lot of quality players and they have a system that reminds me a little bit of how Bayern Munich plays, but we can defeat them if we put our minds to it like we did against Bayern Munich.”
He’d missed USMNT duty at the Gold Cup as well as the entire RBL preseason with a groin problem, as well as Leipzig’s first three months.
In his absence, the club is a point off the league lead and has already advanced to the knockout rounds of the UEFA Champions League under new coach Julian Nagelsmann.
The question is whether the new boss will rate him as much as Ralf Rangnick. He’s unquestionably a wonderful talent, but faces a similar challenge to what Christian Pulisic stared down in his start at Chelsea (although Adams has a half-season under his belt with Leipzig).
