Photo by Michael Janosz/ISIphotos.com
Jurgen Klinsmann is under a little bit of heat overseas for one of his recent personnel decisions.
According to reports out of the Netherlands, AZ Alkmaar coach Gertjan Verbeek criticized Klinsmann for calling up Jozy Altidore for the United States' friendlies against Costa Rica and Belgium.
The reports state that Bob Bradley had agreed with Verbeek to not call up Altidore for these fixture dates while he was still at the helm, and Verbeek was upset that the agreement was not honored when Klinsmann took over. Given that the dates are official FIFA international fixture dates, Klinsmann had no reason to not call up the players he wanted to see, but AZ is concerned about the amount of travel and minutes logged by its starting forward.
Altidore started and played 63 minutes in the 1-0 loss to Costa Rica on Friday and is available for selection for the match against Belgium. AZ's technical director, former U.S. international Earnie Stewart, is expected to meet with Klinsmann in Belgium to smooth things over.
What do you think of this development? Think Verbeek has a right to be upset? Should Klinsmann have not called up Altidore or compromised and only called him up for the Belgium match?
Share your thoughts below.
Perhaps the coach needs to talk to Earnie Stewart, ya that one who just happens to work for AZ. After the Costa Rica game, Jurgen gave him a plug during the presser after the game. Coaches do this all the time and this guy just needs to calm down. Jozey has been nursing a knock and Jurgen stated he knew about this and hence the limited time he played. Maybe this is why he is not a national level coach? Perhaps I am wrong but there is a case about Dempsey and why he did not travel to LA. But this dude needs to calm down.
Pfft
AZ fans would fully expect a foreign team to released Dutch players for a FIFA fixture.
Have the coach take it up with FIFA
Maybe Juan Agudelo should earn time for the Red Bulls before we pencil him in ahead of Jozy who is worlds better than him right now.
I don’t know what the big deal is. Jozy Altidore is rubbish anyway.
Nice first touch from that great pass into the box from Donovan in the Costa Rica game. He only hit it like 9 feet in front of him straight to the keeper.
Klinsmann should start Juan Agudelo up top with Dempsey and call in Herculez.
I can see why AZ are angry it was an agreement made by the coach not the USSF. So people saying blame the USSF do not make sense. Because, all Klinsman had to do was not call Jozy’s number. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 😀
At least a player for the USMNT plays for a club that cares whether he is there or not.
How about we have to schedule a match in a place where are going to get fans of the team we are playing. Not alit of Costa Ricans on the east coast. We need to pay this new coach somehow, Also east coast fans better start showing up to the games that don’t includeArg.Brazil or Spain. P.S. I live in PA
I love all of the armchair coaches blaming USSF/Klinsmann for the scheduling of these matches.
Bottom line: there’s a new coach, and he has a limited amount of time to determine form, fitness and chemistry IN INTERNATIONAL MATCH SETTINGS before CONCACAF qualifying starts. This means that he needs to schedule a number of matches within a limited time frame that he deems acceptable, know who his core group is going to be and which players can help implement his brand of football on the field in a winning manner.
Klinsmann is his own man, and he doesn’t owe you, club coaches or club fans abroad a damn thing. He has a job to do. Stop sounding like a bunch of entitled brats and enjoy the beautiful footy.
“You are kidding yourself if you don’t understand that.”
Its understood :-)…but any time you sum up a bigger issue in 3 words it is tends to leave a few things out 😉
1- Should they have scheduled a game on the West coast and then our first big Europe match a few days later? Prob not the best option. The hard part is its hard to leave all guys like Clint in Europe since this is all new with Kinns in camp
2- We saw in the Gold cup what can happen if we listen to the clubs…we lost TC. Even with it being the Gold Cup teams still asked to keep players. RSL and LA didnt want players gone for both and the EU guys are at the start of their season so many of these clubs might want to keep players. However, as soon as he starts saying Yes to some it will be easier for more and more to complain in the media and have reasons to keep their players.
Coach K can make it clear from the start that he will try to work around players needing to cement themselves on a team. He will try to work around some travel issues or issues when their are big games like in MLS near friendly dates. But…he also needs to make it clear that US matches matter and perhaps now more then they might for other games.
Its a complex issue…but the US needs to want its top inform players as much as any other country.
I am sure coach K is going to try to smooth things over, but rather then ranting in some magazine article like the AZ coach did he will likely try to do it coach to coach or staff to staff like AZ should have done.
So wait. Some of you goons want the Kaiser to not call up players because they may get tired and too much travel time really? So what you’re saying is don’t call up players in big clubs or somewhat big clubs because it might put a little sand in the coaches vajayjay and instead have the Kaiser just assume that those players will fit into his system? Right? It’s called a process for a reason I bet once he figures out who works or not under his system he wouldn’t hesitate not to call them up. And in all seriousness Ernie Stewart can eat a D he reminds me of Clavijo and how he totally screw agbosamunde with that stupid contract under that sport agency and now he can’t get a club what so ever.
Whatever, it’s an international break. He can take it up with Jozy if he doesn’t approve, but Klinsmann doesn’t owe Verbeek anything. If Altidore didn’t think he could handle it, he wouldn’t have agreed to come. Wait until he returns, then decide if it’s worth complaining about.
Obv. there had to be a non-soccer reason for it, it’s such a poor soccer decision. But it’s JK that’s going to AZ to smooth things over, not USSF VPs. I also doubt JK’s gonna go to Earnie and say “I have the right to call up whoever the f*ck I want.” He’s gonna say, “We screwed up and let’s do better.”
Also, JK needed to ascertain Jozy’s role in his new attack-minded scheme ASAP.
You mean until Klinsmann figures out how to get players to release through passes before the back line steps up.
Aside from being upset that Klinsmann didn’t honor Bradley’s agreement, which he probably didn’t know about it, Verbeek is out of line.
Reasons:
1. The matches are on an international fixture weekend.
2. Jozy’s our #1 striker. You can’t expect to block that kind of player from international duty.
3. JK had no input on the geographic location of either game
4. Jozy flew to LA days before the match and had plenty of time to get over his jet lag.
5. Jozy only played 63 minutes and likely won’t go the full 90 tonight.
6. Jozy’s been in Belgium for several days at this point–plenty of time to shake the jet lag. Plus, the Netherlands is on the same time schedule, so it won’t have any bearing on his return to AZ.
yeah, doesn’t he know that Klinsman is above criticism?
this club vs. country hooey is old as hooey. yet another club manager is testing yet another new country manager is all. tempest in a teapot.
Klinsmann didn’t schedule the matches or choose the venues… blame the USSF.
Klinsmann didn’t schedule the California and Europe locations. if AZ coach has a problem with Jozy’s travel distance, take it up with US Soccer. Klinsmann has a right to call up whoever he wants and it’s a FIFA fixture date, so get over it
it’s nice to see that Jozy’s coach is really concerned about him though, I don’t recall any other coaches complaining about not having him in camp
Considering Altidore’s play against Coata Rica, I would think that the AZ Akmaar coach won’t have to worry about Altidore being called back anytime soon. Until Klinsmann designs an offensive scheme that Altidore can play with the same alacrity and attitude he plays in the Erdeveise, Altidore will continue with more goose eggs for the USMNT.
But the scheduling of two games, in four days part, thousands of miles away from each other is dumb. I don’t think anyone thinks this is a wise decision. And two start relatively the same players with little substitution puts an undue strain on players.
I expect the schedule was made before the Klinsmann hire, so both Jozy’s coach and Jurgen are having to deal with a less than ideal situation. I’m not a big Jozy fan, but I’m happy to see that he matters to somebody besides the National Team. In the past Jozy couldn’t wait to get with the National Team so he could get a few minutes on the pitch. Bradley probably thought he was doing him a favor. Good to see a coach upset about losing him. Perhaps that mean’s Jozy is finally becoming a pro.
why thank you.
1. Repeating the “Club before country” is naive and oversimplifies this whole issue for the USA.
–Sometimes the way to boost country is give someone a chance to earn PT with their club (Kasey Keller and JOB are both good examples of this where Sampson and Arena didn’t call them up at times b/c it ultimately helped the US).
–There are probably some MLS players who get call ups where a regular NT gig with WC bonuses might match or exceed their club paycheck (so the argument that the club pays the salary is sometimes not quite to easy to say when it comes to MLS).
–Some players want to play on the NT as a way of gaining visibility to move to a bigger club and bigger salary.
So this argument of club before country oversimplifies things tremendously.
2. AZ Alkmaar’s belief is probably “we had an agreement with the USSF and now they broke it!” Clubs like AZ Alkmaar in leagues like the Ereie Division routinely make buy-no buy decisions on the basis of availability. If they’d known Altidore was going to get multiple call ups at this stage they might not have signed him. Or might have added a second striker for depth–who knows?
3. That said, ultimately, it’s Klinsmann’s duty to do what he feels is best for the NT program. At this stage (especially since Altidore is likely to be a critical building block), it’s important for him to get early exposure to some of these guys (Agudelo too). It’s unfortunately, I hope it doesn’t cost Altidore a starting spot but I think Klinsmann made the right call.
as a red bull fan I think this is a bunch of QQ.
AZ has no ground for complaining. FIFA dates and they are NOT playing.
There are only two things I can’t stand: those who are intolerant of other people’s national origins, and the Dutch.
Yet you have to understand that if it was club before country, then why have international soccer at all. Every time you allow a player to leave for international games you’re risking them getting injured. No one wants to pay huge amounts of money to a player and then not have them play at all. This is why FIFA has these mandatory release rules. No one wants to release their investments into an unknown future they have no control over.
Yes, but you don’t throw up your hands and say, “Screw you, oh well it’s just the old club and country conflict.” Are you really arguing that this couldn’t have been managed better? Even Jozy said he didn’t want to travel.
The point of mentioning all this is that a game is a game. If it’s organized on a FIFA date, players must be released, no matter how far they have to travel or whether it’s a friendly or official match. If this weren’t true, places like North Central and South America, some Asiatic countries and some African countries would not be able to gather full strength squads until WCQ matches began (which would be like gathering up some players, practicing for a few days and then throwing them into a game to figure everything out).
For those thinking about reading the rest of the comments…don’t waste your time. Malkin’s post is the closest thing to an intelligent argument that you will find.
This +1
Whatever. This happens all the time.
It’s actually nice to see that the coach cares enough to voice it. A compliment to Jozy’s standing at AZ is how I’m looking at it, unless he benches him or something