Is Klinsmann dreaming of California – or Man City?

Football management is a merciless business. With five matches of the Bundesliga season left to play and an outside chance of winning the title still remaining, Bayern Munich yesterday responded to the prospect of a season without Champions League football by sacking Jurgen Klinsmann.

After Ottmar Hitzfeld left last summer, Bayern's hierarchy wanted a manager who would modernise the club. Klinsmann - and his coterie of American mind, body and soul experts - was brought in to do this. But, thrashed by domestic rivals Wolfsburg and humiliated in Europe by Barcelona, the team has looked out-of-shape in recent weeks, and Klinsmann now leaves the Bavarian club after less than a season in charge.

The club has moved quickly and coaxed Jupp Heynckes, a manager at Bayern 20 years ago, out of retirement to stand for the rest of the season. Names that have been mentioned to take over permanently are high-profile ones: Roberto Mancini, Carlo Ancelotti, Louis Van Gaal, Frank Rijkaard, Bernd Schuster, Arsene Wenger, Martin Jol - the former Tottenham coach who has taken Hamburg to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup - and Chelsea's Guus Hiddink.

But what next for Klinsmann, the once-great German striker? Initially, he'll probably head to his house on the beach in California, where he runs a sports marketing business, and where his Chinese-American wife and their two children are based. Klinsmann likes the anonymity of his life stateside - while coach of the German national side, he was criticised for spending half the year there.

And then what? Klinsmann certainly has happy memories of English football, from his spells as a striker at Tottenham, and his success with Germany at Euro 96, hosted by England. Roman Abramovich once tried to recruit him at Chelsea, and he was all too publicly sounded out by Tom Hicks to take over from Rafa Benitez at Liverpool during one of their spats.

The most probable destination though, would be Manchester City. Mark Hughes hasn't exactly set the world alight since their rich Middle Eastern owners took over the club, and Klinsmann admitted earlier this year to being flattered by the club's interest in him.