Before Jurgen Klinsmann got into the coaching game he was a pretty good soccer player. In fact, he is widely considered to be one of the best soccer players Germany has ever produced, and, you may have noticed, Germany has produced a few pretty good soccer players.
Jurgen Klinsmann once played U.S. soccer using a fake name
USMNT coach spent a summer playing in the American minor leagues as Jay Goppingen.
Kevin C. Cox
Like many players-turned-coaches, there was a bit of a gap in his resume. It has long been part of American soccer lore that Klinsmann filled some of that in-between time playing under an assumed name in the minor leagues. It’s even on his Wikipedia page.
Well, in an interview with Yahoo Sports, Klinsmann has officially acknowledged that he was, in fact, Jay Goppingen and played for Orange County Blue Star during the summer of 2003.
“I was just having fun and staying healthy and fit, and having a group of guys to kick the ball around with,” Klinsmann said. “It was for me after a long career, it was just enjoyable. It was a lot of fun and the name thing is funny.”
It’s a lot like Shoeless Joe Jackson publicly admitting that he played minor league baseball under a false identity after his major league career ended without, of course, the whole being banned from the sport thing.
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