Tag: Jurgen Klinsmann

Why Jurgen Klinsmann was the best coach the U.S. ever had, by Jurgen Klinsmann

The unbiased truth from the man himself


You did it, America. You got me sacked and ruined the best thing that ever happened to your national football team. That’s right. I didn’t say “soccer”—I’m not on your payroll anymore, so I don’t have to use your words. It’s Fußball! Deal with it.

Anyway, your bitter, neophyte media all wrote the same article blaming me for everything from the Mexico and Costa Rica losses to global warming enough times that the USSF fired me before I could fully implement my top secret and totally perfect plan to create the United Soccer States of Jurgen Klinsmann. And now you’ll never know what it’s like to win a World Cup (or a European Championship, for that matter) like me.

While everyone else is busy pointing out what they wrongly interpreted as things I did wrong, I thought I would be generous enough to lay out all the good things I did in terms clear enough for a few of you to maybe understand.

I made you learn about tactics

When Bob Bradley or any of the other glorified high school gym teachers who came before him were in charge, you were just happy when they put more than eight players on the pitch and had them all wearing the same colors. But when I showed up, suddenly anyone who ever changed the default formation on a FIFA video game is Marcelo Bielsa.

The truth is, football tactics are like art. Where one person sees a 4–2–3–1, I might see a majestic steed galloping through a stream. Or a flash of colors and shapes too brilliant to put into words. There are no correct answers with this stuff. Tactics are one of the world’s great mysteries. Like algebra or the Tooth Fairy.

I challenged the MLS power structure that grips U.S. Soccer

While previous managers had their top players striving to test themselves in the best leagues around the world—the ultimate cathedrals of higher learning for our game—I had MLS paying them big money to do the equivalent of moving back into their parents’ basement after their freshman year of college.

MLS is trying to create a mediocre monopoly on the sport in this country that only benefits their owners and I tried to warn you about the dangers that presents for the national team. But you just called me a “Eurosnob” and watched as Don Garber ranted at me like a parent angry at the teacher for giving their perfect little angel who never does homework a C on a test.

Also, it’s very interesting that they waited to fire me just after a report proving me correct about the need for promotion and relegation and a 60 Minutes feature on the women’s team’s fight for equal pay came out. How convenient that in a moment they needed a distraction from two major issues they don’t like, I suddenly have to be fired. Open your eyes, sheeple. Don Garber puts fluoride in the players’ Gatorade bottles.

Oh, and it definitely wasn’t a coincidence that they surrounded the announcement with Landon Donovan ads. This was a vendetta.

(USsoccer.com)

I strengthened a depleted player pool with a wealth of dual nationals

By pure luck, Bruce Arena had probably the best U.S. team ever in 2002 and when I came on, I inherited the last of that group at the tail-end of their careers. Since this country treats player development as a privilege for rich kids in need of extracurricular activities to round out their college applications, I had to get creative to replenish the player pool. So I used the respect everyone outside this unappreciative country has for me to attract a group of dual nationals that Bruce “Players on the national team should be—and this is my own feeling—they should be Americans. If they’re all born in other countries, I don’t think we can say we are making progress.” Arena never would have brought in.

So if you think we were bad even with these players, think how much worse the team would’ve been without them. And if you’re wondering why I couldn’t completely overhaul the country’s youth development system and produce a team of Leo Messis in the two years I was technical director, well I’m sorry I never mastered the ability to bend the space-time continuum. Maybe you should hire Dr. Emmett Brown and his time traveling DeLorean to replace me.

I got results when it mattered most

Not to go all Tim Sherwood on you, but I had the second most wins and second best win percentage of all U.S. national team managers. Sure we lost some games we should have won, but when it mattered most, I got results. And that’s what international management is all about. Total wins and losses don’t matter. Just results in major tournaments.

I won the 2013 Gold Cup (and was named the 2013 CONCACAF Coach of the Year), got out of a very difficult group at the 2014 World Cup (which included eventual winners Germany and Euro 2016 winners Portugal) that none of my small-time predecessors would’ve gotten out of. And I won our group and got us to the semifinals of the Copa America Centenario just five months ago.

So what if we didn’t win the 2015 Gold Cup or reach the Confederations Cup? No one important cares about either of those tournaments. Plus, what do you want me to do—win everything? That would be greedy.

The losses to Mexico and Costa Rica, a.k.a. our two toughest opponents in this round of World Cup qualifying, were unfortunate, but ultimately not as important as people pretended they were. Just because they happened to be the first two matches of the (long and forgiving) qualifying round, the media had an opportunity to spin this as the U.S. being at risk of missing out on a World Cup and salvage a bit of traffic from the international break. Good luck getting my successor fired during the next slow news week, too.

I demanded more

Ultimately, this was my only sin. I believed the U.S. could achieve great things in this sport. I believed you would have the patience and maturity to let me lead you on an incredible journey. I believed the sport should be held to a higher standard in this country. And I thought you were starting to see that. But, in the end, the only person you wanted to hold to a higher standard in all of U.S. Fußball was me. How tragic. For you, but also for me. But mostly for you.

Maybe one day the U.S. will win a World Cup, see the shameful error of your shortsightedness, and thank me for my genius like Germany did after I built the foundation for their success. Or maybe you will slide backwards, eventually giving up on a men’s team entirely after I refuse to forgive your grievous misjudgment and return to save you. Either way, you will miss me.

P.S. That’s a nice new Premier League job you’ve got there, Bob Bradley. It would be a shame if I took that one, too…


https://upscri.be/16bb19

The U.S. hit bottom with 4–0 loss to Costa Rica

The Jurgen Klinsmann era appears to have run its course

(FIFA/AFP/EZEQUIEL BECERRA)

Losing in Costa Rica after losing to Mexico at home to start the Hexagonal round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying was always a distinct possibility for the U.S. Even with the “dos a cero” streak against Mexico and a 4–0 win over Costa Rica in the Copa America group stage last summer, both those teams are arguably better than the U.S. So it’s not the fact that they’ve lost to both of these teams in a matter of days that’s the problem. It’s the how that’s the killer.

In spite of a grievous tactical miscalculation from the start against Mexico, the U.S. could have come away with a respectable 1–1 draw…had it not been for a defensive lapse that allowed Rafa Marquez to score an 89th minute header for the win. Against Costa Rica, the U.S. conceded shortly before halftime, then completely lost control of all bodily function and allowed three goals in a span of 10 minutes after the break.

This was the first time they conceded four goals in a World Cup qualifier since 1968 (the dark ages of U.S. soccer) and the result leaves them bottom of the table, having conceded more goals than Trinidad & Tobago. As Bobby Warshaw wrote after the Mexico loss, Jurgen Klinsmann is proving incapable of leading this U.S. team. These weren’t just losses, these were losses that demonstrated bad ideas, poor communication, and clear motivational issues.

Of course, these were only two matches and the U.S. has plenty of time to regroup and qualify for the 2018 World Cup. But the manner in which they reached this position is undeniably troubling and demands questions be asked as to whether a new leader is required to right the ship.

It’s entirely possible that a new manager does no better than the current one. I doubt anyone looks at this group of players and thinks they have the untapped ability to go out and consistently run the table (aside from Christian Pulisic, who is still just 18 years old) right now. But at this point it’s difficult to come up with an argument for keeping Klinsmann and not giving change a try.

It’s been six years since Klinsmann took charge of the team, which is an exceptional period of time for an international manager—or any manager of the modern era, for that matter. Even the most successful international managers see their command over a team unravel if they stick around long enough. And Klinsmann seems to have reached that point.

As Bobby mentioned in his pre-match Q&A session (watch the video below) and Grant Wahl later echoed, former U.S. coach Bruce Arena is a likely short-term replacement for Klinsmann just to get the team through the World Cup should a change be made. Obviously that’s not a step forward, but you have to bandage your head wound before you can put on a new hat.

The U.S.’s next qualifiers aren’t until the end of March, so if a change is to be made, this might be the last, best time to do it before the World Cup.


Jurgen Klinsmann, U.S. team are basically the greatest ever now

An uninspiring performance in an expected loss to Colombia to begin Copa America Centenario fueled a familiar rise in angst over the state of the U.S. team and calls for Jurgen Klinsmann to be sacked. Hours before the U.S.’s second group-stage match against Costa Rica, federation president Sunil Gulati legitimized these calls by telling reporters, “We have to win games … no one has ironclad job security. Jurgen’s already said, for coaches and players, it’s about results.”

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The opening match of the Copa America Centenario is now a thing that has happened

At a purely objectively level, few people thought the U.S. would open the Copa America Cashgrabenario by beating Colombia. Though FIFA rankings are deeply flawed, this was still the No. 31 team in the world facing the No. 3 team in the world.

But memories of advancing through a difficult group at the 2014 World Cup and months of hype leading up to a special tournament designed specifically to be played in the United States encouraged a uniquely American brand of optimism to grow in the lead-up to the tournament’s first match. And then an underwhelming Colombia beat the U.S. 2-0, with goals from a corner kick and a penalty that resulted from a handball. Oh, and James Rodriguez left with an injury in the 73rd minute.

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Jurgen Klinsmann gives the U.S. everything they don’t know they want

Imagine a world in which the U.S. men’s national team win every match they’re supposed to win. They’d roll past all the CONCACAF minnows and only ever really do battle with Mexico and in friendlies against South American or European competition. World Cup qualification would be a given — a joke even.

“Will the U.S. beat Guatemala?” one fan would ask. “Oh, I don’t know!” another fan would reply, sarcastically, and then they’d laugh and laugh and laugh as they check their email inboxes for World Cup hotel room confirmations three years before the event while in attendance at an NBA game instead of watching the U.S. because, come on, of course they’re going to win.

In this world, most supporters — and not just the casual ones — only give the team their full attention every four years when they inevitably appear in the World Cup and play matches that are actually interesting. In this world, being a fan of the U.S. men’s national team is boring.

Enter Jurgen Klinsmann — a manager who delivers the varied and unique entertainment U.S. fans and press alike will never admit to craving at this point in the country’s development of the sport. He fosters debates that Americans simply cannot resist and never get sick of, to the benefit of journalists and social media platforms alike.

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Abby Wambach thinks U.S. should sack Klinsmann and stop using “foreign” players

Just before playing her final match for the U.S. national team, Abby Wambach has proven that she might have a future as Donald Trump’s running mate.

Appearing on the Bill Simmons podcast, Wambach, who has scored more international goals than any other person to ever play the game (184), shared her thoughts on the problems with the U.S. men’s team.

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