Soccer drama set to begin in Europe

The long months of waiting are over.

Now it's time for some real, honest-to-goodness, mud-slinging, in-your-face dust-ups.

Europe's 2008-2009 soccer season got under way this week with France's Ligue 1 kicking off over the weekend.

Today, the Bundesliga season starts in Germany and on Saturday the English Premier League begins play.

In a couple of weeks, Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A will be up and running, and the planet's most popular single-sport club competition, the European Champions League, will begin attracting the kind of global viewing numbers that the NFL and NBA can only dream about.

The stars in the European soccer drama are not only such players as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho, John Terry and Fernando Torres who take home upward of $250,000 a week, they are the coaches of the high-profile clubs, men whose names are known worldwide and whose public spats provide daily tabloid fodder.

This season is going to be more intriguing than ever, what with the return to the sideline of outspoken Jose Mourinho, the former Chelsea coach who earns a reported $13 million a year at Inter Milan, making him the world's highest-paid soccer coach.

Then there is 2002 World Cup winner Luiz Felipe Scolari, the fiery Brazilian who gave up the Portuguese national team to take charge at Chelsea and challenge Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and Rafael Benitez at Liverpool for the English title.

Scolari, who reportedly earns $11.7 million a year, has made it clear he doesn't appreciate comparisons with Mourinho. "I am not Jose Mourinho, so why compare me with him?" he said. "Mourinho says, 'I will win 10 championships,' but I am more modest than that."

In Germany, Bayern Munich swept all before it in 2008, winning everything but the coveted Champions League, which Manchester United won by defeating Chelsea in May. New Bayern Coach Jurgen Klinsmann's task is to bring European honors back to Germany.

Klinsmann has taken a novel approach to things. Instead of loading up on new players, the former Newport Beach resident who led Germany to third place in the 2006 World Cup has changed the environment at the Bavarian club, creating a $6-million training center where as much emphasis is placed on mental well-being as physical. Buddha statues, yoga and language classes, relaxation areas and eight-hour days are now de rigueur.