The Beautiful Game has kicked up a lot of dirt in recent months. In bella Italia, a momentous match-fixing trial starts next week. In Germany, now hosting the World Cup, a referee who rigged matches for a betting syndicate was sentenced to 29 months in ze clink last November. Maybe all the background noise about people doing crummy things for money explains Jürgen Klinsmann's slip of the tongue on Tuesday. In an interview after Germany's 3-0 thrashing of Ecuador (Miroslav "Miro" Klose scored twice), Coach Klinsmann said:

"Miro ist seit Monaten in bestechlicher Form."

Say what? "Bestechlich" means "bribable." Klinsmann obviously meant to say "bestechend," which means "dazzling," "brilliant," "great."

A clip of the slip was shown later that evening on "Waldis WM-Club," a World Cup TV talk show hosted by sportscaster Waldemar Hartmann. It was striking that Waldi and his guests, which included sharp-tongued comic Harald Schmidt, merely mentioned the goof discreetly and moved on.

Before Germany notched three exhilarating victories in the World Cup's first round, Schmidt relished ridiculing Klinsmann's Swabian-accented, oft-ungrammatical German (Klinsmann: "Es wäre doch wunderbar, wenn wir die wären, die wo im Sommer Weltmeischder werden."). But now Klinsmann, who was mercilessly criticized before the tournament, is sacred. He's made flag-waving believers of millions, and the rest don't dare profane him in the excited multitude.

Costa Rica, Poland and Ecuador -- those are the teams Germany has beaten so far. Hardly the cream of the crop, sports fans. Tomorrow the knockout stages start when Germany plays Sweden, a tougher nut to crack. If Klinsmann's charges lose, he'll have to watch his tongue again.