Jurgen Klinsmann's term as Bayern Munich manager might have lasted longer had it not been for his loyalty to an assistant coach, Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says.
Klinsmann, now the coach of the United States, was fired after just one season as Bayern Munich manager in 2009 after finishing second in the Bundesliga and exiting the Champions League in the quarterfinals.
But Rummenigge expressed regret over the quick hook that Bayern gave Klinsmann and placed most of the blame on assistant coach Martin Vasquez.
"I believe both parties, him and ourselves, made one mistake," Rummenigge told Goal.com this week. "It was looking like something little but in the end it was an important mistake.
"His second coach, the Mexican [Vasquez] who was a nice guy and a very good coach, didn't know anything about the Bundesliga or about German football, and I believe at the end that was a mistake done by us and done by [Klinsmann].
Rummenigge is not the first to be criticize Vasquez, a former Chivas USA manager who followed Klinsmann to the U.S. national team. A Sporting News report in 2013 quoted anonymous U.S. players that called Vasquez "scatterbrained" and a yes-man for Klinsmann.
U.S. Soccer eventually reassigned Vasquez's duties in 2014, less than three months before the World Cup began in 2014.
Klinsmann led the U.S. through a difficult group to the round of 16 in Brazil, and Rummenigge said he wasn't surprised that Klinsmann has found success in America.
Rummenigge told Goal that Bayern and Klinsmann were both at fault for failing to bring in a different assistant coach for the Bundesliga giants.
"Maybe we had to choose a German who knew the Bundesliga who could have helped him, like maybe Joachim Low helped him during the 2006 World Cup," Rummenigge said. "It was little, but in the end it was a very important mistake.
"I have to excuse [Klinsmann], because I know he suffered about that and in the end got fired here. But it was not his mistake alone. We also made a mistake."