Archive for June 9th, 2006
A Swede for England – A …
…Dane for Germany?
According to the Danish tabloid BT, this could have happened. In an interview with the paper, the former Danish international captain and present manager Morten Olsen said that the German soccer federation contacted him back in 2004 when Rudi Vller was forced to leave the job as German manager following a dismal performance in the European Championships.
Even better: The guy on the other side of the line issued with the task of convincing Olsen to change jobs was none other than Franz Beckenbauer.
In the end, Olsen declined the offer and the DFB chose former international Jrgen Klinsmann as manager. What is slightly fascinating is that one of Klinsmann’s initiatives in order to boost German morale was to change the colours of the German team’s away jersey from the awful Green-and-White to … Red-and-White.
The Real Competitors in the Global Economy
Rule #1 in all social science is: Never trust anecdotal evidence. On the other hand, I was immediately intrigued by this quote about the (alleged) decline in American entrepreneurship:
“In the vast majority of companies I look at today, the leaders are Israelis, Indians, Chinese, Finns, Danes. They aren’t coming out of the American culture,” he [David Strohm, general partner at Greylock] said. “Liquidity is a major problem.”
The Chinese and the Danes are coming. Globalisation is on the roll.
Source: C|Net 2006-06-09 – ‘What’s killing American competitiveness? Too much money, says VC’