Jürgen Klinsmann

My book would have been empty.

Same as you did.

Same as all, I think, the football-driven...

Nations, too.

That was the way we grew up.

I think my life changed dramatically.

I don't know if I was a bit different when I still was playing for Stuttgart in the UEFA Cup final with Napoli and all that.

But my life definitely changed to a different way of thinking and looking at things the moment I stepped into Italy.

I had a couple of lessons in Italy in the first few months at Inter Milan, also with teammates, where I thought, you know, typical German in those days is we expect certain things to be a certain way.

It's just how our brain was programmed.

And there was a day that I, the washing machine was broken, I called a mechanic, the mechanic didn't show up, in Italy, you know, and came back, came then two or three days later, and I confronted the gentleman, said, you were supposed to come two days ago.

I said, yeah, I know, but I had no time, but I'm here now, right?

And I said, but you were supposed to come two days ago.

It stressed me out.

And he was looking at me like, what's wrong with this guy?

And he said, so do you want me to fix the washing machine?

And I took that, okay, he's right.

So I thought, I tell that story to my teammates next day in training ground and the Italians.

And then those days, only three foreign players were allowed to play in a foreign country.

And so in my broken Italian, very broken Italian, I explained it to my teammates.