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Klinsmann laments respect given to Argentina in wake of semifinal loss

Photo by Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports
Photo by Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports

Following the final whistle, Jurgen Klinsmann approached Lionel Messi for a quick embrace. It was a sign of respect between two of the game’s greatest strikers, but Klinsmann insists that respect on the field of play proved to be his side’s undoing on Tuesday night.

Messi and Argentina put the U.S. Men’s National Team to the sword on Tuesday night in a 4-0 win that catapulted Argentina to the Copa America final. It also ended the USMNT’s run on a sour note, with only a third-place game remaining to recover a bit of goodwill in the wake of Tuesday’s resounding defeat.

It took just three minutes for the USMNT to find themselves behind the eight ball. A moment of magic from Messi found Ezequiel Lavezzi for a third-minute header. It left the U.S. shellshocked, and then never recovered against a team widely recognized as one of the best in the world.

“I think it had to do a bit with the early goal,” Klinsmann said, “but then you are trying to scream onto the field, ‘Go at them! Go! Become physical! Step on their toes!’ I think tonight you could clearly see in that moment, once we were down 1–0, we had far too much respect. They smell that. They feel that. And they start to play their game with all the quality they have.

“After that early goal, I think our players could feel they were just probably in every position on the field just better than we are.”

Battling from behind from the first moments, the U.S. effort remained disappointing. As goal after goal flew in from Argentina, the U.S. failed to muster a shot on the day, one which will go down as a wasted opportunity.

Throughout the tournament run, Klinsmann has said that opportunities like Tuesday’s don’t come too often. It’s the No. 1 team in the world, after all, and the U.S. was given a chance to go at them in a legitimate competition.

They failed, and not just on the scoresheet. Unable to muster much of an attack and inexplicably careless in defense, the U.S. was knocked out without a fight.

Klinsmann lamented several small moments. Just before Messi’s masterful free kick that swung the tide even forward, Klinsmann says the start forward took the chance to move the ball towards net. The USMNT didn’t object, and Klinsmann hinted that it was their admiration for the star forward that made the difference throughout the night.

Overall, it was a night where positives were hard to come by, but Klinsmann said the goal was to take Tuesday’s match as a step back ahead of a pair of steps forward.

“Hopefully when we play these teams every year, when you play them on a regular basis, I think that respect kind of gets smaller and smaller,” Klinsmann said. “It’s all mental and the more often we can play these teams, these caliber of teams, the more we’re going to learn. The more I think the players will be more and more confident to take them on. With some teams, it already kind of happens. Today it didn’t because it was just a number too big for us.”

The key will now be to put the Argentina defeat past them, as the U.S. will now approach one final clash with a South American contender.

Whether it’s Colombia or Chile standing in the USMNT’s way, the third-place game will offer Klinsmann and co. a chance at a bit of redemption. In Colombia, the U.S. could exact a bit of revenge against the team that saddled them with a tournament-opening loss on the big stage. Against Chile, the U.S. would have another chance to take down one of the world’s elite, a team that is coming off a Copa America title just last year.

Still, any progress will need to be made in the face of overwhelming disappointment. With one match still to play, the U.S. will need to review, and improve upon, each aspect of Tuesday’s game ahead of another chance to go toe-to-toe with one of South America’s elite.

“We never really got going,” said goalkeeper Brad Guzan. “When you go down a goal and give their players too much time and space on the ball, they have the ability to pick a pass. They have the ability to bring the ball out of the air. In that aspect, we probably gave them too much time and space.

“Of course you look back at it,” he added. “We’ll look back at the video of the game, the mistakes, the goals, places where we could have done better like we do with every game. We’ll look back at it and now we’ll turn our focus and attention to the third-place game.”

Comments

  1. This man (JK) has lost the plot. He is buried so deep in his OWN bull Shit, it sad … MOSTLY for US(A). What I saw was not excessive respect, but CONFUSION. He picked they, He coached them…

    Again, He will get a pass for winning the game he should win, and getting bombed in the one he was hired to WIN.

    Pyrrhic victory over binary results. WE need measurable improvements from this man, yet all we get is hyperbolic clap trap, “step on their toes”, pure shit; “swallow the pill? which one, RED or BLUE?, wake up US Soccer, He’s NOT the ONE, cough up that blue pill, and MOVE ON.

    NEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  2. They were going to press us and we seem to have been told to back off in a shell from them. The idea was probably to tackle the crap out of them when they came into our bunker as with Ecuador but we couldn’t even keep up with the speed of play. So they had both the offensive and defensive initiative and since the defensive game plan was the coach’s, the timidity came from up top.

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  3. I mean wasnt the problem the formation as much as the people? Without Wood, this became a clear defend and counter game – jam the midfield Play Beckerman, but don’t leve him with so much area to cover. Speed on the outside. Instead the dump Wondo out there. Leaving Morris off became a clear mistake once we lost the only other pure forward who could run and Zardes hammered down a two way role.

    Oh well, and now to hear him say his team was intimidated and outclassed rather than simply saying they got beat. JK has done a world of good, the team has an order about it now. But man he blew last night along with the rest of the fellas

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  4. I agree with Klinsmann in this one, but you have to take responsibilities too, if you start your 3 veterans (zusi, beckerman, wondo) you are also giving too much respect.

    Aside of that i dont see we can take on teams at this level. This is what i most miss from Arena’s teams and Bradly’s teams, sure we bunker 89 minutes, but for one minute we actually look dangers to any country in the world.

    I would say good tournament (better than the last year at least) but there is still work to get that old fighting spirit to all the players (only jj and cameron seems to have it)

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  5. Many times since 1990, the US has played against top-5 teams in meaningful tournaments, and never have I seen us look more collectively timid than during the last five years. Last night was a disgraceful, cowardly display, as were our performances in the CONCACAF CUP, Gold Cup and against Belgium and Germany in the World Cup. Klinsmann set the tone for all those matches. Motivator my ass.

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  6. Go at them! Go! Become physical! Step on their toes!’ I think even JK was suprised by how cowed we looked. I mean Beckerman was in there to step on their toes! to go kick messi… and he couldn’t even muster the courage to go kick someone… lame.

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    • You have to catch em first, or at least get close to them. Before our players could get to their player with the ball, it was on its way somewhere else.

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      • yeah, again, my comment on the poor effort and not having come out to play/having come out like whipped dogs just hoping to limit the damage.

  7. CP22, Hyndman, Green, zelalem, Wright, yedlin, Brooks, Wood, miazga, ccv and Rubin that’s our future and it looks good. Then there is epb, Morris, kiewetter, arriola, and gyua. WC 2018 will see alot of these players, the purge is coming soon

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      • I don’t know the future but the players I listed have so much more technical abilities than the ones on the team now, I feel better now about the future than I did 4 years ago

      • out with the old: I think we have to go younger simply because the team is getting too old and not getting the big game results…Jamaica, Mexico, this. But the nature of the beast is that a number of people off such lists can’t really play at the level when given the chance. Agudelo and Adu long ago disappeared. Corona, F. Torres, etc.

        I would have liked to see more youth on the roster because I think, list happiness aside, they need to play so we can see if they are the real deal. Really, they need to play more than a game. The Morrises and Pulisics then go in one pile with the regulars and the others are our next Freddy Adu. But we don’t know if we don’t try and I feel like we missed that opportunity here. I think we already know how the movie ends with a lot of these 30+ players.

      • I think we are arguing the same point, CP22 and Morris have be integrated into the team as has nagbe and Hyndman to some point. Kitchen, Rubin, miazga, Acosta and I see see big things from Wright . I wish JK would have gone younger in the copa but next year’s gold cup should be the open audition for these players for the WC because Mexico will send a b team since they will be at the confederations cup in Russia. All is not lost, in JK I TRUST

      • out with old:
        The difference to me would be that there are such lists every generation, only some of them actually turn out, and we have to take some risks to find out which ones. There is a difference between a prospects list and who actually finds their feet. A few years ago Wood was given a cameo, last year he found his feet with some important goals, this year he is a force. Green started out with a Belgian bang and disappeared. It is sometimes surprising which ones stick or don’t.

    • I think for a while that a realistic ranking for the US was in the 18 to 20th places in the world. IF the young talent continues to progress and improve, we might be good enough to be something like the 12th best team in the world in 5 or 6 years. That’s good enough that we could make the quarterfinals of the WC maybe half the time.

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      • Just for comparison, but were 12th either going into the world cup, or just before, maybe going in at more like 17th. But JK got us up there in 12-13. That’s what we’re capable of when all the cogs are in place.

  8. The respect was part lineup selection. I think we needed one more offensive minded player.

    It is a tough balance for sure, but lack of a counter while sitting back with a defensive squad makes the game very tough and just a matter of time.

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    • I agree, we went so defensive we couldn’t string passes or move the ball. And then the overall bunker tactic failed because they played the ball too fast and technically. We were benefitting on the bunker tactics against more ponderous and sloppy teams. This sort of game we simply have to be capable of toe to toe, because they are going to press our people and not just let us counter.

      It wasn’t just selection, it was backing off and letting them pass.

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      • I understand this argument but I think Argentina is too quick, skillful, and precise for those tactics to work. Very few players in the whole world can press Messi and all their players excel at finding open spaces and making good passes.

  9. Don’t blame Klinsmann…that’s the easy thing to do and the lazy approach….US soccer and US soccer players are just not good enough for this level…look at the first goal!! you got pickpocketed for being naive …thats South American Soccer, they pickpocket you and humiliate you with Skill and “nastiness” you can only learn that in the impoverished neighborhoods of S america not in a soccer camp in florida…..Dont blame Klinsmann cause not even Pep or Simeone can fix this problema.

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  10. The constant Klinsmann bashing on this site is just SOOOOOOOOO tiresome. The comments on the game thread were all in favor of Pulisic over Wondo. Well, sure, Wondo was terrible, but you know what, so was Pulisic. He was a kid playing among men. Nagbe did nothing either. There was NO lineup that Klinsmann could have put on the field that would have been competitive. NONE.

    So, no, Klinsmann isn’t responsible for the loss. Argentina is simply a much, much better team, and they played like it. And, BTW, Colombia and Chile are much, much better than the US also, no matter who we put on the field.

    It’s time to quit the Klinsmann bashing. All it does is raise a convenient scapegoat. The reason we lost is that, when you are playing a top team that is in top form, OUR PLAYERS ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. It’s extremely simple.

    (None of this is to defend Klinsmann’s choice of Wondo – I wouldn’t have included him. All it is to say is: it does not matter.)

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    • I agree with you that Argentina are a superior team, it’s not even close. But Klinsmann’s lineup selection had us doomed from the get go even more than it should have been. Wondo has no business at this level, period. Pushing Zardes up top would have given us a more like-for-like swap with Wood because they both have the speed to threaten the backline. Wood has done well and we’ve had most of our success so far because of this. Wondo is old and slow and scores most of his goals on rebounds from putting himself in the right spot. If the midfield doesn’t have the ball and no one shoots, Wondo is worthless. Beckerman didn’t sweep up the middle of the defense like he has done in the past because, again, he’s too slow. We at least needed speed out wide and possession to even have a slight hint of a chance of showing well in this game. If we knew we couldn’t beat Argentina, which everyone did, then why not throw speed at them and let Nagbe and Pulisic. Klinsmann’s tactical decisions in the last three games helped, his lineup decision in this one killed us before the first whistle.

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    • Agree, We’ve got some players, but with guys 1-11 on the team tonight (actually 1-14 since 14 guys played), we had about 3-4 playing some mighty bad soccer and it completely threw the rest of them off. I think it was eight minutes into the game before we strung three actual passes together. We looked utterly, almost comically BAD.

      Beckerman came out and missed his first seven passes, some of them in embarrassing fashion. I was counting. Beckerman wasn’t just bad, he was DIRE.

      Wondo…ad nauseum, he’s just never looked good at the International level unless he was crushing smurfs in the early rounds of Gold Cup. Good God. Zero pressure up top, couldn’t hold the ball up, couldn’t get in a kick, still somehow managed to gift Argentina the ball off an inept first touch and then turned around and fouled Messi, in shooting range. There’s bad performances; that might have been one of the most inept I’ve ever seen in an American shirt. Wondo’s well on his way to becoming the least popular American player, like, ever.

      Argentina, in the meantime, had arguably the EPL’s best striker in Sergio Aguero sitting on the bench and they never felt compelled to bring him out. When we’re down to Wondo and they’ve got the luxury of an Aguero on the bench, you’re going to have a rough night.

      Those were, incidentally, two of the larger culprits in our crashing out of Gold Cup last year too; I can safely say I think it’s past time we dropped them. Shame about Beckerman because he had a good World Cup but he’s been horrifying since. Woof, that was rough to watch last night.

      Oddly enough, Fabian Johnson was about that bad last night too. Not sure what that was about.

      Bad, bad night, and it kind of showed the unevenness of the American talent pool more than anything else. Our starting 11 is fair-to-decent; we have zero quality depth at the moment when guys get injured or get into card trouble and we have to dip into the bench.

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      • This is all absolutely correct. Hate the entire argument “doesn’t matter who you put out there, we were going to lose!”. Gimme a break. Wondo and Beckerman put in performances that were just about the worst I have ever seen from a US player. Did Pulisic look great? No, but the “boy against men” thing holds little weight for me as he plays consistently against “men” in Germany. At least he got subbed in correctly, versus 10 minutes of BS minutes for Nagbe, who actually could have helped us maintain possession and release some pressure against a superior opponent.

        Klinsy knew we were going to lose, and put these bums in to try to lose 1 or 2-0 instead of 4 or 5-0. That tactic failed. He has put in good to great lineups all tourney, and completely whiffed last night.

        If Beckerman or Wondo make another USMNT roster, I might tune out for a bit until WC18 (assuming we get there, which is a stretch if those two are involved).

      • What’s amazing to me is how we crush the Wondo decision ( rightfully) yet Dempsey and Bradley were invisible and horrible respectively. In the first 60 minutes, be for all hope flickered out of sight, how many passes did Bradley complete? The guy runs and runs, but it’s like a 7 year old ball chasing. So, if he doesn’t win the ball first time, there are gaping holes and acres of space around midfield. How can a team compete with Argentina, who has a quality midfield, when they’ve got all the time and space they need? Any time we get taken apart by a possession team, Bradley has an awful game. I wish we could identify a solution.

      • Regarding Pulisic: depending on your definition, he is not a “consistent bundesliga player”. He has 9 caps this year, only 2 or 3 were starts, and totaled 386 minutes. Not bad for a 17 year old, more than gotze got, and about on par with what messi got at barca ( if you like hype), but far from a week in week out player you seem to think he is.

        Second, ive said it before, and I’ll say it again: he was given that much trust and ability to play because bvb were not going to catch bayern, and were never gonna drop to third. So screw it, throw him in and tell him to go at it, and don’t worry; hummels, schmelzer, bender etc. got your back.

        NOT THE SAME as the usmnt, where it’s more like: go at it, but be careful, we’re stretched thin, and Fabjo will be overlapping so if you lose it we only have Brooks to save you.

        The fact is, the talent is there, you could see it, but he needs time to learn how to play against men, how to use his momentum to keep himself up and in control, lower his center of gravity at the right moments etc. That will come with more game time.

    • Inaccurate and oversimplified. I thought Pulisic had a hit and miss game and was outmuscled often, but he did get to the endline and create some crosses and corners. Pretending like that’s the same as Wondo, who did zilch and then made the giveaway and foul that basically iced the result in the first half, is just not true.

      Similarly, Jones seems to handle any level of game, Bradley to disappear at this particular level, and Beckerman seems simply past it.

      Making those sorts of personnel distinctions, not just lobbing everyone in a “sucks” pile, is actually what we need the coach to do (and better). Particularly because we can’t just discard the whole team nor do we have the depth to do so.

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    • Of all the US players, maybe only F Johnson and Brooks would be good enough to make the Argentina roster and that’s because if Argentina has a weakness it’s on the back line. Argentina completed 93% of their passes and they have the greatest player, perhaps in history, who was responsible for 3 of the four goals. Maybe we could have made the score 2-0 by eliminating mistakes, but that’s the closest we could have gotten, even with a full squad.

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      • So, your point is that you are not interested in trying to be as competitive as possible? It is the coach’s job to try to get the best out of what he has to work with. Saying we would have lost anyway (I don’t dispute that the talent gap is huge, and Argentina is well coached and highly motivated, making it unlikely that anyone will stop them this Copa America, let alone us) is not really a relevant rebuttal to the argument that the coach did not do what he could to prepare us to do our best in the situation.

    • I’ve generally been a Klinsi defender here, BUT his lineup to start the match at best screamed “Belgium” and at worst screamed either Spain 2011 at Foxboro or Brazil there last fall. I would rather have lost 4-0 by sticking to the 4-3-3. The argument in favor of the 4-4-2 was only because Wood made it effective. The replacements underscored the lack of depth and quality we have compared to a side like Argentina. Aguerro was an unused sub. One of the most consistent scorers in the EPL for the past 4 years, and second to Kane this year, didn’t make it on the pitch. Argentina would be a quality side even without Messi.

      Adding Wondolowski to the roster was a mistake. Period. I don’t care how hard he works or whether he’s a good “chemistry” guy, he rarely has ever scored outside of playing minnows like Cuba or Belize. He was jogging and made stupid fouls. Morris would have at least run hard during his shift. He was just starting to get his form in MLS and would have been a superior choice to Wondo.

      Johnson had a terrible game as did Bradley, Zusi, Dempsey. Brooks was responsible for the third goal, although he has been tremendous during the Copa. Guzan has to go. Yes he made some great saves against Paraguay and Ecuador but he looked inept on the first goal, and I hold him responsible for the Messi goal. Yes, the free kick was tremendous but the wall failed to do its job. I only counted 4 men on the wall. The only player who impressed me was Zardes. If he ever get a first touch…

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      • “lineup screamed Belgium”

        ??

        You mean the Belgium game that was tied after 90 minutes? I certainly would have taken that this game!

        Look, I said above that Wondo shouldn’t have started. But there’s no way that starting someone else instead of Wondo, or playing 4-3-3 instead of 4-4-2, would have affected the result.

    • your comment is an observation that many have come to associate with Jurgen because he has and never will take the blame for anything that goes wrong. That performance was ugly

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  11. Not a single member of the press hitting him on Wondo looking completely lost or Beckerman being to slow for this level. No question about MB’s terrible form or not bring Morris to the tournament. No question about Nagbe getting garbage minutes only when we were in desperate need of possession. No question about the lateness of his subs versus Ecuador, causing Bedoya and Wood to get second yellows when they should have been pulled.

    No questions….no press.

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    • I am not a Klinsy fan by any means, i think he is overrated, but this loss is not on him at all. To go back and blame his sub choices is bad. Wood got his card before the 55th minute if i recall, so those would an incredibly early sub. Bedoya could have been avoided but his sub was not that late. Our lineup choices were limited to say the least, and other then not playing Wondo and I can’t really have seen much else he could have done, and Wondo playing had no effect on the outcome of the game. We were out played

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      • I actually like most of what JK has done but I put a good part of the loss on him.
        – Beckerman and Bradley partnership was awful. It weakened us at 2 positions as Beckerman isn’t the #6 that Bradley is and it pushed Bradley higher-up the field where we know Bradley isn’t successful. You are telling me Nagbe (as #10) and Bradley (as #6) would have been worse?
        – Wondo as forward when Gyasi was available. Sure, it would have mean Besler coming in a LB, so F.Johnson would have been LM, but that was worse that having Wondo?
        – Bringing on Pulisic at halftime but not Nagbe till 10 mins were left? Did JK not see that Bradley and Beckerman were having awful games?
        – Brining in Birnbaum as a CB and moving Cameron to midfield, breaking up the Geoff/John CB partnership? 4th goal was directly related to that move. If he had instead move Birnbaum to RB, moved DeAndre to RM and Zusi centrally, that would have been better.

        So, that’s at least 4 moves that have me shaking my head in this game. Would we have won? Probably not, but at least we could have made the game competitive? It was like watching the Varsity versus the JV.

        Some of his other choices, like not brining in J.Morris, or subbing out Woods/Bedoya earlier I’m ok with or think it’s beyond his control.

      • obviously some of the blame has to be put on the players for playing scared and sloppy soccer but the bulk of the criticism has be on JK. Jurgen can lament all he wants but If he doesn’t put out this ultra defensive lineup from the get go we may be talking about a win(unlikely), or at least a loss that everyone can feel good about. The three choices Jurgen chose to replace the suspended players all wet the bed, Bradley too, and that ain’t debatable. Beckerman didn’t record a tackle, i don’t believe, and was always behind the play, evidenced by not being able to keep up with Lavezzi’s run into the six yard box on the first goal. Zusi(wow)for all of his hustle couldn’t make a simple pass, booted the ball up the field to NO ONE every chance he got while thereafter patting his chest as if to say “my bad” the whole night. Wondo, where do i begin. Fouled defenders going up for headers, had on of the dumbest fouls you will see(on Lavezzi i believe)and it cost us a goal via Messi’s free kick as a consequence. Does anyone know what he was thinking trying to just run over a player dribbling the ball outside of OUR 18 yard box?? Had to have been frustration, which by the way has gotten Wondo in trouble in games before. When you have to pull a player out during halftime because of ineffectiveness, it’s a bad decision from the start a la the Wondo inclusion smh! Bradley has become a shadow of himself, and it can only be chalked up to the comforts of playing in MLS. His decisions making has become too slow and a detriment and his passes loosey goosey. Jurgen talked super tough before the start of the game all week about taking the game to the opposition and this what we got. This one hurts and there is a chance it could have been avoided if he had acted as tough as he talked. And i don’t want to hear what were our other options because there were different combinations of people on the field and the bench that would have faired better than what we got.

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