By DAN KARELL
Jurgen Klinsmann was unable to secure a commitment from Julian Green in November, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. Men’s National Team head coach hasn’t stopped trying.
With a new contract through 2018 in hand, Klinsmann is likely to continue recruiting a number of talented dual-national players to join the USMNT squad, including Green, who is currently with Bayern Munich at the FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco. In an interview with SportBild magazine in Germany, Klinsmann said that he’s remained in contact with Green to try and recruit him into the USMNT setup in the future.
“We’re not pressuring him, but we’re still in talks to convince him to play for the USA one day,” Klinsmann told SportBild.
The 18-year-old Tampa, Fla. native has impressed many including Klinsmann and Bayern head coach Pep Guardiola since the summer. In the first half of the 2013/2014 season, Green has scored 15 goals in 18 appearances with the reserves and earned multiple opportunities to train with the Bayern first-team. He made his official first team debut on Nov. 27 at CSKA Moscow in the UEFA Champions League.
Green made the controversial decision to originally accept an invitation last October to join the USMNT during their November camp in Europe, only to renege on his decision after learning that he’d have to file a one-time switch with FIFA to represent the U.S. even in a friendly. Currently, Green is still able to represent either the USA or Germany, and most recently played for Germany’s Under-19s in UEFA Under-19 Championship qualification in October.
Speaking about the World Cup next summer in Brazil, Klinsmann deflected any talk that the U.S. could finish last in Group G, termed by many a “Group of Death.”
“We don’t see ourselves as underdogs,” Klinsmann said. “”We won in Italy, played out a draw in Russia and won in Mexico for the first time in U.S. soccer history. We know that on a good day, we can take on the best in the world. We’re no longer a small footballing nation.”
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What do you think of this development? Glad to see that Klinsmann has continued to