FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -Bayern Munich's top official has given coach Juergen Klinsmann a job guarantee until the end of the season despite the club's worst start in three decades.
Seven games into the season and 100 days into Klinsmann's tenure, the defending champions are 11th in the Bundesliga standings with nine points, trailing leader Hamburger SV by seven.
"He is the right coach for us and in principle he is doing everything right," Bayern chairman of the board Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said in an interview published Tuesday in Germany's biggest-selling newspaper, Bild.
"Only the results at the moment are not the right ones," Rummenigge said. "We are going to be patient until we get back on track. We have confidence in him."
Asked who will be in charge of Bayern in the 34th and final round of the season, Rummenigge replied; "Juergen Klinsmann."
"Definitely. Without any doubt," he said.
Bayern has lost two and drawn one in its last three Bundesliga games, conceding nine goals, and there were chants of "Klinsmann out" after Saturday's 3-3 draw at home against Bochum.
Rummenigge said some players would be warned against being egoistic, but he would not give any names.
"I require the team now to scratch, bite and spit," he said.
Rummenigge said goalkeeper Michael Rensing would now have to prove whether he can come to terms with pressure.
Rensing, a longtime understudy of Oliver Kahn, who retired at the end of the last season, has had uneven performances.
Klinsmann, in a separate interview with Bild, said Bayern still had a chance of defending the title, although Hamburg had opened a big lead.
"Hamburg has been very strong until now but what counts is the final standings," Klinsmann said.
Throughout his career, Klinsmann said, he always had setbacks but always took a positive attitude.
"At the end there was always celebration and satisfaction and that's how it is going to be this time, too," he said.
Klinsmann took Germany to a third-place finish at the 2006 World Cup at home but had never coached a club before Bayern.
