By SBI SOCCER
Throughout his tenure as U.S. Men’s National Team head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann has called for his players to be accountable. Now, one of his most notable former players is asking the head coach to do the same.
In the aftermath of the USMNT’s Gold Cup struggles, Landon Donovan says that he believes Klinsmann’s status as head coach should be called into question should the U.S. lose to Mexico in the upcoming CONCACAF Cup. Donovan’s comments come in the aftermath of a fourth-place finish in this past summer’s Gold Cup, as the U.S. sputtered out against underdogs Jamaica in the semifinals.
“Around the world, if a player plays poorly and a player has a bad string of results they get dropped from the team,” Donovan told ESPN FC. “Jurgen said many times he wants our players to feel pressure — so if they lose a game they can’t go to the grocery store the next day. If they lose a game they are getting hammered in the press. Well, the same holds true for the coach and so we had a very poor summer with bad results in the Gold Cup.
“The last game against Brazil was probably the worst game I’ve seen them play under Jurgen. The reality is that now, anywhere else in the world, if this coach had those results, and they lose this game against Mexico, they’d be fired.
“I think if Jurgen wants to hold all the players to that standard, then he has to be held to that standard too.”
The former U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder has not always enjoyed an ideal relationship with Klinsmann, dating back to his days with Bayern Munich. Most famously, Donovan was left off the 2014 World Cup roster before making one final USMNT appearance last October.
What do you think of Donovan’s comments? Agree or disagree?
Share your thoughts below.
It’s still sour grapes. Klinsmann is a coach and he has a contract. He should not be fired, and the standards that are applied are for a team that eventually will be able to compete with the best. It is not a forgone conclusion that a mighty country like the USA must win just because. Part of the reason I love soccer is the fact that small countries have as much of a chance of winning if they are great as big countries, e.g. the Netherlands. Coaching is not nearly as big a deal with soccer as it is with football where every play can be called by the coach and the player is merely an agent.
Landon Donovan has to blame only himself for not having been part of the World Cup. He published his lack of form for all to read. I find it rather problematic to address the subject before a big game.
We all want the team to win. I hope Landon Donovan agrees. Needless to say I am an Earthquakes fan.
LD isn’t really saying he think Klinsmann is doing a bad job or should be fired. The point is Klinsmann talks endless about the pressure and cut throat environment in Europe and thats what we need. However on the flip side of that Klinsmann perhaps has the safest job for what he is being paid, in all of football. He saying lets hold JK to the very thing he is calling for.
You are right. He isn’t making himself very popular among people who want soccer to be the best it can be.
but that isn’t an apples to apples comparison.
US national team players, or any national team, go home to their clubs. that is where their job lies. so when JK says he wants his US players playing in the toughest environment, he’s talking club level, so that when they come into the US team, they are at an even higher level.
coaches for national teams have a completely different reality. they are employed by the federation and only have international games to work with. by definition, it is going to be more safe. so saying every big tournament is grounds to be fired for a bad showing is not the same as asking your international players to play at a higher club level.
i understand what LD is trying to say, but in the end, it’s not a like for like comparison and does nothing more than stir up a conversation about JK. which isn’t a bad thing. but the comparison itself is not accurate, IMO.
This is just ridiculous. For full disclosure, I was a LD fan as a player and have been critical of JK as a coach even though I think he is better than some give him credit. That being said, Landon needs to learn to shut up. Honestly, it is clear that these two do not like each other. I was not going to say anything before the world cup because I didn’t have enough information. However, at this point and from what I have seen from LD over the past year, he DOES NOT like JK. I came to the conclusion that JK does not think much of LD, either. Difference is JK keeps his mouth shut and LD keeps running his. JK didn’t even say anything disparaging while LD was still playing.
Listen, I am an American and USMNT FAN, but I also lived extensively abroad. The Confed Cup does not matter. It Just Doesn’t to anyone else. Personally, I only care about World Cup, Gold Cup, and Copa America (if we play). This one off game doesn’t matter to me with the exception that we are playing Mexico. You cannot slam JK for loosing a friendly to Brazil (playing like the best team in the world right now) while dealing with key injuries and ignore winning friendlies against Netherlands, Germany, and Peru a few months before. He had a bad Gold Cup. If WCQ starts off poorly then you consider letting him go.
People have to keep in mind he is also transitioning the team. With the exception Jozy and FJ most of stars/starters will be 30+ during the next world cup. That is too old for a starting line up. There is a major gap in the Jozy generation (25 yr old). Guys between 23 – 27 have not come through. We have good depth in mediocrity (more than ever), but few international level stars. He clearly brought in a transitional team for the Gold Cup with all the talk about young players grabbing the reins, but they didn’t (on them). On top of that he made some questionable player moves during the Brazil friendly (on him).
People need to chill and LD needs to shut it. If you watch the video, LD is smirking as his speaks (as in I got you, Juergen).
Edmondo,
This is a one off game.
Everyone seems to be questioning the rationale for the roster but that seems pretty straight forward.
The USMNT hasn’t played together for a month That is a really long time.
If you want to put a somewhat cohesive unit on the field then the more veterans who have played together under fire before the better.
That means Fabian, Cameron, Besler, DMB, Beckerman, Mikey, Jones, Bedoya, Jozy and Clint are probably locks. And for the speed and energy you get the young veterans, Zardes and Yedlin, in there sometime.
And for motivation this is the “2014 WC core’s” last chance to win something important as a group. Only Zardes and Yedlin are better than 50/50 to be in Russia, if the US gets there.
After this it is probable that a lot of the veterans will be put out to pasture, especially if the Under 23 team becomes as productive as it seems like they are going to be. If you listen to Herzog and watch the Under 23’s it seems obvious that more than a few of them are going to be seriously in the mix for 2018 especially Miazga and Morris, and probably a few others.
Donovan just be quiet. You won Gold Cups. JK won a WC
Sick of his whinning. Be a man and show loyalty.
Dude just cant handle pressure
truth hurts don’t it smdh
Why do people still care what Landon says. its the same thing every time when asked about JK. We get it, you are still pissed and take every opportunity to take shots at JK. Talk about something else.
Totally agree
i’m pretty sure he was specifically asked about this game and the future of US soccer if the team won or loss! I doubt LD is thinking about JK as much as his haters thinks he is but you never know. JK single handidly deterred LD from adding to his USMNT legacy and it probably still bites at him till this day in a sense but overall i think what he is saying is right, especially considering the manager has lived by that creed since he’s headed up the program
Watch the video. It’s in the link on the ESPNFC website.
Ronniet,
If you really believe LD’s comments were not engineered for ratings by ESPN then you don’t know ESPN.
This is the network that has blowhard pundit Stephen A. Smith, on his show, threaten Kevin Durant for questioning Smith’s “veracity”.
Landon is not naive but I’m sure he was just being candid. However he was wrong. He was comparing apples and oranges .
The standards that apply to players are not the same that apply to managers.
Players play. Managers manage.
Players are judged on how they play. The standard for that judgement is set by the manager.
It is the manager who determines which players meet his standards and who gets to play.
You may not care for his standards or his choices but unless I’m very mistaken, that is the job description of every manager of every decent pro team in any sport that I’ve ever seen
.
Meeting that standard is how a player is judged
JK was hired to manage the USMNT to the 2018 World Cup and then manage them to a higher finish.than has normally been the case..
Meeting that objective is what his bosses,,the USSF, should judge him on. He has failed to meet the SBI fans expectations but that is not what the USSF hired him to do.
And so far, there is no indication that JK won’t succeed in doing what the USSF hired him to do.
JK has been in the middle of World Cup prep. He has experimented on a grand scale in a bunch of friendlies, something he told everyone he was going to do. If you followed Germany before the 2006 WC you would know that JK sees friendlies as practice sessions, as chance to experiment.
The only reason anyone cares about the 2013 and the 2015 GC’s were because they were the ticket to the Confed Cup. And the only reason anyone cares about that is because it is good preparation for the World Cup. In other words the two Gold Cups and the Confed Cup are important only in so far as they prep the US for Russia.
So as lousy as the 2015 GC was, the US still has a shot at the Confed Cup.
Not getting into the Confed Cup would be unfortunate but can hardly be classed as a major setback.
The first WC qualifier has yet to be played And there are still about 2 and a half years before the WC, an eternity in this game.
And there is (potentially) Copa America to test the team as well as the Olympics for the younger ones.
Firing JK if they lose to Mexico would be like firing an MLB manager for having a lousy spring training record.
If he runs into trouble in the preliminary WC qualifiers:
Nov. 13, 2015 — vs. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines/Aruba winner
Nov. 17, 2015 — at Trinidad and Tobago
March 25, 2016 — at Antigua and Barbuda/Guatemala winner
March 29, 2016 — vs. Antigua and Barbuda/Guatemala winner
Sept. 2, 2016 — at Saint Vincent and the Grenadines/Aruba winner
Sept. 6, 2016 — vs. Trinidad and Tobago
If that happens then he not meeting expectations. Then you fire him.
Do you really think the US is going to have trouble with these qualifiers?
And finally, if you take a cursory look at the financial aspects, you’ll see that the USSF , short of his SBI fans leading a million man march on Washington DC, will probably give JK as much rope as possible before they finally hang him..
DId you know that the German parliament called on JK to appear before parliament to explain why Germany did not look so hot leading up to the 2006 World Cup?
No, i don’t work at ESPN and i’m guessing you don’t either so neither of us knows what’s for ratings and what isn’t but if you want to use that to make your argument for credible than go right ahead. I think LD is more qualified to speak on these things than any fan ever could because he lived and breathed that environment so to say he is comparing apples to oranges is silly. The people who see his opinion as petty and undermining are only doing so because they don’t care much for him and have a problem with others not getting on board everything klinsmann.
Every other manager in the World would have taken LD to the WC even if he was a bit out of form or overweight. Does LD not garner the respect that he could have been brought into team and allowed the time to get in better shape once they got down to Brazil for the actual camp, because at the end of of the day it’s about putting the best product on the field to win a tourney and i’m sorry but on his worst day that man was head and heels above 20 of the players taken to Brazil but i digress. To say that the GC is only looked at preparation for the WC and that people only care about it because it books a spot to the Confed Cup is also silly. Winning titles and dominating the region are ultra important for team morale and team building while also infusing a winners mentality into the squad. Not winning it and bowing out the way that they did sets a team back on all of those fronts. Diminishing the results of this years GC is again deflecting the job thats being done by JK. If people are going to bring up the ’13 GC title as proof that JK managerial skills are not all bad then you how can you then turn around and brush off the ’15 is just a part of the process of building towards the ’18 WC. You can’t have it both ways and it’s hypocritical like a lot of JKs moves. And one more thing, can we all agree that the ’13 GC was a B level tourney as opposed to this years where each side had it’s A team, which frankly should be more worrying to folks.
I do agree however that the Confed Cup is a bit over hyped but at the same time i think it’s important to be in it because it is one of the few chances we get to test ourselves away from american soil in a tournament setting against the winners of each confederations championship, again stressing the importance of winning the GC. I think not getting to the Confed Cup would be a set back to some degree because it would mean that we only gave ourselves a chance thru a B level tournament and couldnt step up and finish the jobs on 2 seperate occasions with our A team. Lastly, JK has said that getting to the CC is a serious priority, the same words mimicked with regards to the GC so at what point do we start believing in what he says and ultimately what he does??
Klinsmann fans can continue to overlook results in games that matter as the process and over emphasize friendlies that mean nothing but what seems to be clear is that this team is headed into more important games off the back of disappointment and indecision.
Ronniet
“No, i don’t work at ESPN and i’m guessing you don’t either so neither of us knows what’s for ratings and what isn’t but if you want to use that to make your argument for credible than go right ahead. I think LD is more qualified to speak on these things than any fan ever could because he lived and breathed that environment so to say he is comparing apples to oranges is silly. The people who see his opinion as petty and undermining are only doing so because they don’t care much for him and have a problem with others not getting on board everything klinsmann.”
I don’t have a problem wth what LD said or the timing of it. But if you don’t think ESPN knew exactly what he was going to say and how it would spark the reaction it predictably did then you’re very naive. You don’t have to work at ESPN to figure that out. This wasn’t 60 Minutes. Did you learn anything new? Did you suddenly say to yourself ” Wow, I never knew that, maybe Landon is right!” I doubt that .
ESPN thrive on promoting controversy and getting ratings. Its not like everyone didn’t already know what LD was going to say. Putting it on the air was good for business.
it’s what ESPN does.
“Every other manager in the World would have taken LD to the WC even if he was a bit out of form or overweight.”
Can you prove that? Easy for you to say. We will never know. Every other manager doesn’t have the information and the perspective JK did. And actually neither do you. But it’s pretty clear there are more than a few managers out there who would disagree with you.
“To say that the GC is only looked at preparation for the WC and that people only care about it because it books a spot to the Confed Cup is also silly. Winning titles and dominating the region are ultra important for team morale and team building while also infusing a winners mentality into the squad. Not winning it and bowing out the way that they did sets a team back on all of those fronts. Diminishing the results of this years GC is again deflecting the job thats being done by JK.”
Really? How does that work?. Because I notice that the US has beaten Mexico out of the Gold Cup a few times in the recent past and that hardly has prevented Mexico from going to the World Cup.
I also notice that Mexico recently had just about the most humiliating train wreck of a WC qualifying campaign in 2014 where they needed help from Zusi and then they had to win a playoff game. But they did okay in the World Cup.
Do you think the USMNT players have the mental fortitude of kindergarteners?. I think you are being overly bleak.
“If people are going to bring up the ’13 GC title as proof that JK managerial skills are not all bad then you how can you then turn around and brush off the ’15 is just a part of the process of building towards the ’18 WC. You can’t have it both ways and it’s hypocritical like a lot of JKs moves. And one more thing, can we all agree that the ’13 GC was a B level tourney as opposed to this years where each side had it’s A team, which frankly should be more worrying to folks.”
Success and failure are both part of the learning process.
“I do agree however that the Confed Cup is a bit over hyped but at the same time i think it’s important to be in it because it is one of the few chances we get to test ourselves away from american soil in a tournament setting against the winners of each confederations championship, again stressing the importance of winning the GC. I think not getting to the Confed Cup would be a set back to some degree because it would mean that we only gave ourselves a chance thru a B level tournament and couldnt step up and finish the jobs on 2 seperate occasions with our A team. Lastly, JK has said that getting to the CC is a serious priority, the same words mimicked with regards to the GC so at what point do we start believing in what he says and ultimately what he does??”
JK did say the Confed Cup was a priority. And if they win Saturday they wlll get there .But if they lose it doesn’t mean the World Cup campaign is mortally wounded.
“Klinsmann fans can continue to overlook results in games that matter as the process and over emphasize friendlies that mean nothing but what seems to be clear is that this team is headed into more important games off the back of disappointment and indecision.’
So when you win friendlies it means nothing and when you lose friendlies it means the program is in chaos? If I did not know better I would suspect that you were biased against JK.
No one is overlooking the results. Where you and I differ is on what those results mean.
The Brazil game told me that Brazil is far deeper and better than the US and that they seem to be on a mission since Germany humiliated them in the World Cup. What that has to do with the Mexico playoff game, a month later, is beyond me.
It will be a month since the USMNT played the Brazil game and even longer since the Peru game and the Gold Cup Panama game.
So it is very tricky to say what , if anything, good or bad, will be carried over from those games.
Successful pros generally learn from the mistakes, take heart in what they did do well and ignore the negativity. That’s how they succeed.
Why not say this? Donovan has good reason and is definitely more qualified then we are. Did you really believe Klinsmann’s reasoning that others were “ahead of Donovan” for the 2014 World Cup? Maybe a few, but that many players? You could easily tell it was personal. How many times has Klinsmann brought in “his guys” even if they are out of form, benched, etc., simply because he picked them and doesn’t want to admit he’s wrong? The laughable formation selections, enough said….
The kid is right, everyone, including the coach should be accountable. Is this game as important? as the qualifiers or WC? NO. This game is as important as the GC. So, if our previous coach was let go because of the GC results, why not this one?
I really hate getting in the middle of these but I find it funny that it’s “truth” when LD takes a swipe but JK’s actions and decisions are always “grudges”.
For the love of God I am so tired of this Landon vs Klinsmann stuff
Couldnt agree with LD more. I tweeted the same weeks ago. I doubt Gulati would have the nerve though.
OMG… tons of posts, dont have time to read them all. I totally agree with Donovan, JK has enjoyed a free ride for a long time while producing little. We are looking like crap lately and its not just one game. I give us a small chance of beating Mexico. They are improving and we’re not. Few changes from the team that flopped at the Gold Cup. JK is still clueless Beckerman? Zusi? The Ole defense? how does he expect any different result than before. What are we building?
Lose and he should go. He has had long enough to build a team and instead he dresses the same retreads game after game. Where is the building? Dont tell me the younger levels cause those guys are not making the senior team
One USA fan hoping LD eats some crow
Eats some crow? You hope we lose and there are no consequences for our coach? Landon never said he hope we lose…
Wrong time for Landon to be saying IMO. He’s going to put a ton of pressure on Klins less than 5 days before one of the biggest games In history? Not very smart.
JK needs to dump lazy/Jozy Altidore. And why isn’t Brek Shea on the roster? he is fit and playing again.
If Klinsmann is fired, does youth soccer still have to change registration from academic year to birth year? Because that will be Klinsmann’s biggest lasting legacy still poisoning youth soccer years after his exit.
Let me guess – your kid is born in early August, and you’re upset that he/she won’t have the age advantage over all the other kids anymore?
LOL
his youth system setup is working pretty good for the Germans.
awful timing LD. very bitter, slightly petty. i actually don’t think he’s that far off, but i’m still not convinced i would fire any coach over this game. the Confeds Cup is nice, but idk. to me, a poor Gold Cup plus a poor Copa American (or WC qualifiers) is the kicker.
+ 1
I am miffed about the GC, but it happens, even to the best of them. The fact is our heroes are heading into their twilights and we are at the beginning of figuring out who’s got next. Which means we’re not that good right now. Regardless of what happens on Saturday that fact will remain.
For me you don’t fire JK for Saturday’s result.
LD is spot on..He’s also bitter too.
I tend to agree
So it begs the question, what’s his position if we win? Contract extension? In my humble opinion, the US is playing a superior style of soccer, with a deeper player pool than at any time in our history. JK has been successful at attracting dual nationals to the US camp that a coach with a lesser international profile (Boca? Are you people serious?) would never have been able to. These players, again in my opinion, are essential to bridge the gap between our existing player pool of mid-20 something year olds and the new generation of talent that has people so excited. If Jozy has a monster game, credit to JK? If Jozy fails to show up (again) – blame to JK?
that’s what i want to know? if we win, will everyone shut up? doubtful.
Win the Gold Cup?
Because that ship has sailed dude.
So we agree doubtful.
no, this game.
people are not going to shut up and nor should they. Listen this game is a one off against an opponent that is our rival and one that we’ve also dominated since that 2011 loss in the GC final so we stand a good chance of winning but our results in tournaments leaves much to be desired and it has seemingly come down to poor roster selections, which is what bothers people.I think fans would be more lenient if JK was trotting out our younger players and we were getting bad results but atleast we’d know it was because of the immaturity and inexperience rather than what we’ve seen in the likes of the GC and against Brazil with our veteran unit
no, they won’t shut up and that is my point. i’m not sure our tournaments have left much to be desired. there has only been the WC, GC, and now this.
getting out of the GoD certainly isn’t leaving more to be desired. but we all agree the performances were “meh” so we’ll call it a wash.
GC was a failure.
but if we win this, that’s a 1-1-1 “tourny record”. if we include 2013 GC and WCQs, then it is 3-1-1. so the truth is there is a disgusting amount of sensationalist attitude going on between some fans and some media.
So this one game counts as much as a world cup? LOL! JK fanboys will twist things however they can for their hero.
3X BB’s salary and no better results. Time for him to go. If we’re going to spend big bucks on a coach we can do a whole lot better.
how could you possibly get that from what i said? and how am i a fanboy? because you don’t agree with me thinking firing him after this game is not warranted? the Fox News approach.
“If we’re going to spend big bucks on a coach we can do a whole lot better.”
you have a alternate universe to compare to? or you just guessing and fitting an idea into your narrative? we have no idea how another coach would do…regardless of their salary.
slowleftarm.
2.6 million is not big bucks. At least not if you compare that to other big name managers that people have mentioned like Klopp or Bielsa
Yes, I’m serious with the Boca suggestion.
I will concede the JK has brought in some German nationals that others may not have. Though only two have had a significant impact to date, and one of those two actually first was courted by Bob Bradley. But there seems to be some potential that a couple others could pan out to becoming impactful players for USMNT. Granted, Boca may not have been able to attract them like JK did. However, are you arguing that we need a German coach in perpetuity, just to keep herding all those German-Americans who can’t play for die Mannschaft? At some point, we are talking about who is next, right?
Curious about this superior style of soccer? Friendlies do not count, especially when players are playing to not get hurt and are more relaxed on defense. Didn’t look very superior during the Gold Cup.
Other than FJ and JJ, none of the dual nationals have been any better than the players we already have. At its root, the mania over dual nationals is a belief that Americans can’t play soccer so we need ringers to help us. We don’t.
Such hot takes.
– LD’s message that Jurgen seems to be the Teflon Coach is an accurate assessment. He has more financial backing and slack in his reins than anyone else in USSoccer history, regardless of performance.
– LD’s history with Jurgen makes him an imperfect messenger at this time.
– Jurgen clearly is not American, despite having an American family and spending many years here. Instead of developing a team by making American strengths stronger, he is playing mad alchemist and trying to make American players European. If someone thinks ambition is some rare trait only found in Not-America, then …. I don’t know what to tell them.
Americans like the best. Americans like being the best. Use this and encourage Americans to make American soccer the best version of American soccer possible. Didn’t we all learn from Cool Runnings that emulating another’s cultural drive only hampers your own development?!
I love the Cool Runnings line. Should be a hashtag whenever debating Klinsmann.
Jurgen: “Soccer in America still has such a long way to go before it can be like the big countries in Europe”
#FeelTheRhythm Too bad he would never understand the reference.
Basically my thinking, too, though I wasn’t smart enough to think of the Cool Runnings analogy.
Andrew,
Can you tell me what the ” best version of American soccer possible” is?
And how does that differ from what JK is trying to do?
Are you suggesting that the Arena/BB amalgam was the very height of what Americans are capable of?
Because I have to tell you there were an awful lot of USMNT fans who wanted to burn BB at the stake by the time he got let go?
I also have to tell you that LD was at his best during that Arena/BB period. Do you think that was a coincidence?
He was what made that version go because I saw most of those games and without LD , the US didn’t beat any good teams in games that mattered.
And guess what, right now, I see no one capable of replacing him. So where does American soccer go then?
I’m not sure where you’re getting your assumptions about what I meant. I’m not LD die hard and I was a loud BB hater. Americans like winners. Play to win the game in front of you. A big problem with Jurgen is that there is little urgency for HIM to contribute to winning individual games. He is quoted several times as saying that it’s not a coach’s game, but a player’s game and is well documented as having a “roll out the ball and play” attitude, even at the highest levels of competition.
To indirectly answer your question, what Jurgen most lacks is a sense of American identity, which is something we intuitively seem to cling to in competition – and for a lot of citizens within every day life. We believe we can and should win, no matter what we’re doing. We can and should out compete. We can and should be more fierce.
To directly answer your question, the best version of American soccer, in my mind, is a team with this American identity PAIRED with increasing technical skill. The beauty of this is that if you just don’t impair this process, the two will naturally come together.
So as to not be misinterpreted, this is not a personnel issue. The player pool is fine and they’re all professionals. Not everyone can be Jermaine Jones or Clint Dempsey in terms of fire, but from what I can tell, pretty much all of our player pool bleeds for the crest. Terrific.
The problem is Jurgen does not cultivate the proper environment for the players. Without structure, trust, a united vision and understanding of how one should tactically play any particular game, putting any XI on the field will be like tossing XI cats out there.
The idea of stretching yourself is great, but that’s for the club coaches and private trainers to establish with each individual player. The international manager’s only job is to win the game in front of him and you do this by maximizing the effectiveness of each player. Not be isolating them and making them uncomfortable within the game.
So, to summarize, the best of American soccer is just be who we always have been, but steadily introduce the newer generation as they become ready. Soccer is fluid and with our population, we have the talent to compete. We naturally have the emotional courage to perform on a big stage. Coaches should naturally attempt to maximize their players’ effectiveness in a given game. The secret solution is for Jurgen to just get out of his own way.
Andrew,
“The problem is Jurgen does not cultivate the proper environment for the players. Without structure, trust, a united vision and understanding of how one should tactically play any particular game, putting any XI on the field will be like tossing XI cats out there.”
Two things:
1. You don’t know what obstacles JK faces when he tries to get players in for a given game. If he has 14 men in mind for a given game, by the time the game comes around maybe half of them are available and in form. This is the lot of national team managers. And it means that compared to club teams, things can often get chaotic especially for friendlies which the US plays a disproportionate number of.
2. With all due respect Andrew, none of us, not you and not me, knows exactly what the actual “environment” is for the USMNT players.
The only thing I am certain of is that JK’s actions regarding his players are pretty consistent if you follow the actions of other managers in other sports.
The good managers do not treat their players all the same for a very simple reason; they are not all the same.
For example, does Belichik treat Tom Brady different from other Patriots players?. Yes he does. And he treats him differently because he has produced for him in the past and expects that he will produce for him in the future.
As for this idea of an American identity in soccer, there really isn’t such a thing that is unique to Americans. Americans after all are an immigant nation, so if we choose to “play like Mexico” whatever the f++k that means, then that “style’ becomes America’s style.
For all practical purposes the best of the US soccer identity is expressed by the USMNT.
Bob’s style was essentially a refinement of Arena’s so it is reasonable to consider 2002-2010 USMNT as the embodiment of American soccer identity for that era.
In which case you are talking about 4-4-2, never say die, hit them on the counter and with Lalas approved set pieces soccer.
And by the way that perfectly describes the best of the England teams so in that sense it is hardly original or exclusively”American”. And if you ask the English, they’ve been trying to get away from their “style” for years.
Bruce and Bob were widely despised when they were USMNT managers and basically run out of town so it seems clear to me that the greater US soccer world was not happy with that American identity. And it did not hold up when faced with the big time teams.
JK has never claimed he wants the USMNT to play like Germany. The style he has said he wants is a style of play that if you care to look is played by the best teams in Europe, South America and other places in the world.
In the end it boils down to the players and right now the USMNT player pool is a little lean. Is it better now than say 10 years ago? Yes, if you are talking about the difference between the 2015 USMNT player pool to the 2005 player pool.
But that is irrelevant.
What you need to ask is, is the 2015 USMNT player pool better than the 2015 Mexico player pool?
Or the 2015 Belgium, France, Germany, Brazil, Spain, etc., etc., player pools?
Those are the guys the 2015 USMNT needs to beat. The 2015 USMNT is not going to play against 2005 USMNT.
+1
i f++king agree, gw.
We aren’t arguing the same thing, but you make good points for what you’re arguing. I said that to be the best we can be, we need to embrace the identity we’ve had in the past (saying NOTHING of the tactics or skill) and just continue to bring in newer players in the expanded player pool. All Jurgen has to do is not screw it up by tinkering with player preferences and styles.
I feel like this is common sense. Maybe it’s not. Athletes are rarely interchangeable; they have natural positions based on their personality and how they view themselves. Just like someone is usually right or left dominant, or a skateboarder has a naturally typical or inverted stance.
People are super uncomfortable outside of their natural position and it WILL negatively affect their performance. IF a player wants/needs a course correction within their career, their own personal trainers/coaches or their club coaches will be the ones to help implement that change. It is NOT the national manager’s job or responsibility. The national manager’s ONLY responsibility is to win the game in front of him or her.
Jurgen thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, no matter who he’s with and he has no skin in the game for individual wins.
Again, this is not about style of play or former coaches. This is only, and ever has been, about how Jurgen screws things up by ignoring his ONLY job as national manager: maximize what you have, win the game in front of you.
The problem is his role as technical director which work counter to his role as manager. And his massive, massive ego.
Andrew,
“People are super uncomfortable outside of their natural position and it WILL negatively affect their performance.”
Yeah, but……
One thing I notice about how SBI people react to all of this is that they imagine how they would feel if they were working for JK.
The flaw with this rationale is that you ( forgive me for making this assumption if I’m wrong) and I are not the best American soccer players out there right now. I am not, and maybe you aren’t, a high level professional athlete.
USMNT are not people, not like me and maybe you.
At that level, that USMNT World Cup level, it is normal practice for midfielders to take a shift at defender or forwards to drop into midfield and vice versa. This is because national teams have what they have, they can’t buy a striker or a left back.
Even teams like Spain and Germany do this. For example, Fabregas has played striker and Lahm played defensive midfield.
Everyone is astounded by the Bedoya as defensive midfielder vs Brazil but they ignore the fact that it was a friendly which is when you experiment. Bedoya has always been renowned for his defensive capabilities and he has always been since his Orebro days, a central midfielder who was shifted to the wing by Bradley. So , as screwy as it was, it wasn’t that screwy.
If you want to be a national team player for any country being versatile is just part of the deal. If you don’t want to do it you don’t have to accept the call up.
JK is no different from any other manager. He would love to have the same back four that he could write into the lineup for every game and forget about. But the USMNT has not had that since the 2009 Confederations Cup when Dolo, Demerit, Gooch and Boca were the fab four.
So he makes do with what he has.
As for JK’s “massive ego”, that is a job prerequisite.
People have different personalities and come across differently but if you think for one second that any decent national team or club manager does not have a monstrous ego, you are sadly mistaken.
Are you going to tell me that Van Gaal, Guardiola, Mourinho, Wenger, Klopp, Bruce Arena. Roberto Martinez or even Peter Vermes and Jason Kreis are not egotistical control freaks to the extreme?
Some have more power than others but they all want the same thing.
“ Jurgen thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, no matter who he’s with and he has no skin in the game for individual wins.”
Then why did he hire Jurgen Lowe when he was in Germany? Why did he hire his old coach Berti Vogts, a man with a massive resume to be his “defensive coordinator”?
Take Gyasi Zardes. JK always credits Zardes for his work ethic, his talent, his personality etc.etc and he always refers to how the Galaxy do a real nice job with him. I’ve never seen him take credit for Gyasi’s success or for discovering Jordan Morris, or for taking Yedlin to the World Cup and giving his career a mega boost.
Very few people would have taken Yedlin to the World Cup or given Morris half a chance.
But I don’t read anywhere where he takes credit for those guys.
He always talks about how “we” did this or that. I think he acts as if he is still one of the players.
Read this article by of all people Brian Strauss and tell me where JK doesn’t credit his players.
http://www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol/2014/07/01/usa-belgium-world-cup-defeat-jurgen-klinsmann-terms
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I still don’t see where we are really debating the same thing.
You don’t consider what a player is willing to do to play as evidence that it was the right thing to do. Players will play a full 90′ and not have any recollection of it due to head trauma (see previous World Cup). It’s up to the manager to put them in position to succeed by maximizing their talents and tendencies – or even communication.
The problem isn’t that he takes credit for anything. He doesn’t take BLAME for it. Authority figures are supposed to shoulder responsibility for what happens under them. He ISN’T attached this program and he doesn’t act like he cares. He only ever says “they need to do ___” or “they did ___ poorly”.
That’s fine to say if he’d done everything possible to maximize their strengths, but he minimizes them mostly and then faults them for under performing or being confused.
It’s a bit hyperbolic, but geez – he is just short of twirling a mustache and laughing. I guess I’m most appalled that Jurgen has not demonstrated a desire to win the game in front of him by maximizing each player’s individual strengths. Improving weaknesses is not his job. He has not taken responsibility for the disjointed performances that are a result of this. He heaps blame and pressure on players while taking none of either for himself. He is the prince in the ivory tower and when his tenure finally ends, his failures will be chalked up to how immature our nation was as a soccer community that we couldn’t appreciate or get behind his genius.
You do bring up a good point about coaches being massive egotistical control freaks. We see that all the time in every sport and it’s no exception here.
I don’t know if your a Star Wars fan, but what made the original trilogy good was that Lucas had people who overruled him on many aspects of the story and presentation. We got the prequel trilogy later when no one told Lucas no.
No one is telling Jurgen no. Relatively unchecked authority to create a program as he sees fit is supremely risky.
I kid you not, Lucas said, “Jar Jar is the key to all this” (video proof https://youtu.be/bz-SaMu8k3w). How many Jar Jar ideas has Jurgen had that someone should have been able to tell him, “no that’s probably not going to be good”?
Debating Jurgen really won’t do anything but get us heated, though. He’s just a kid playing with his toys without supervision. They just happen to be toys we care a lot about and Sunil is asleep on the coach.
Andrew,
You are making a lot of assumptions.
Why should JK take seek out blame if the media don’t assign it to him and he gets the blame for everything wrong anyway?
Now typically I’ve seen managers try to take blame for their team’s performance as a way to reduce pressure on his players. Make it about me and take the pressure off my guys.
But first of all, JK wants to put pressure on his players.
And second of all everyone blames JK anyway.
Is it his fault that Mikey didn’t boot the ball out of bounds vs Portugal in those last few seconds? Is he the one who made those bone head plays that Gonzo and Cameron have made while at center half. No but you guys blame JK anyway for things he has nothing to do with like Wondo’s miss. The guy is one of the greatest scorers in MLS history and has a workable shot at scoring and misses. And if he makes it everything is different. I’ve seen Wondo play a lot and watched replays of that play a lot. It wasn’t as easy as I first thought and Courtois played it perfectly but I still would have expected a man with Wondo’s pedigree to make that shot. How is that JK’s fault?
JK bitches about scheduling and officials. Wow, like no one has ever done that.
How’s this for an idea; how about USMNT players give interviews where they are taking the blame for playing like crap? When was the last time you heard Jozy say “ Well, I’m just not moving well ,my first touch is really off and I’m not making those guys worry about me like we need them to.”?
The media and fans are doing a fine job blaming JK and the players. They don’t need to invite any more criticism.
Whatever the rationale, the way things are now is JK gets the lion’s share of the criticism deserved or not and the players get very little.
In terms of actual people telling JK what he should or shouldn’t do, you and I don’t know what the real situation is with JK.
Does anyone tell Belichik ,Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll or Coach K how to run their operations?
Personally I despise micromanagers. If you can’t trust JK to do his job without sticking your nose in then fire him. Otherwise let him hang himself.
Compared to how you and I probably work I would say probably JK has more or less free reign.
And you may not like the results but the USSF appears to be okay with them. And forget about this “he has had since 2011” business. It’s a new cycle since the 2014 WC ended and the jury is still out.
As for, Jar Jar initially I thought he was just stupid. Then I thought he was just a minor irritation.
But what he really represents is that it is tough to make one classic, and then it is tougher to make a quality sequel. And then finally a trilogy that holds up well is the biggest ask of all.
And now Lucas and Disney are going whole hog.
The point being once you get past a certain size and scope, it is really difficult to maintain quality across the board. The original cast of Star Wars characters was big enough and interesting enough so that you could spend the rest of your life developing just them and their story lines. But given the scope and volume of where Lucas and now Disney is taking this puppy, you are going to get the occasional Jar Jar.
And you may be right about those advisors holding Lucas back making Star Wars a success but there is no Star wars without Lucas.
I wouldn’t mind keeping JK as technical director and just letting Andy or Tab take over as manager. It would really only be a change at the surface but maybe that’s what the team needs. My biggest problem with JK is just his message is so tired at this point. I think a fresh set of eyes looking and building the team would be useful too.
Tab should be no where near head coach.
+1
As a huge JK backer I have to agree with LD to a certain degree.
If its a blow out like 2011 or anything like at Brazil game – he should be out. We can not allow this regression to happen anymore
If its a win or close loss, Jurgen should continue to be on the hotseat as he needs to know that screwing around with questionable tactics or lineups in important games (WC) will have its consequences. I still think he is the best guy for the job but we have to keep him on a shorter leash after this failed GC and really sloppy post wc year.
If he’s employing questionable tactics or lineups in important game, then JK clearly isn’t the right man for the job.
Not sure why this is controversial… all he said is that Klinsmann is responsible for bearing the consequences of not meeting the standard that Klinsmann, himself, put into place. Juergen wanted us to be more European in or approach to football. European coaches routinely get replaced after a string of substandard results. Nothing wrong from expecting accountability.
Not wrong in what he thought, just wrong to say it. Be above the it LD you’re better than that.
Whats the deal between these 2?
Honestly whats with all the hate for JK? We got to the round of 16. Shouldnt we be happy? Gold Cups are worth less than African Cup of Nations
Bob got to the round of 16 too.
so did Arena…oh wait, he got to a final 8 as well!!!
Actually Gold Cups are worth the same as the African Cup of Nations. They’re both continental championships and we should expect better than the result and the performances we got this summer.
Who does Donovan think he is? Its 1 thing for Arjen Robben or Ronaldo or even the starting CB at Carpi FC but you are Donovan. Keep quiet
Brendan Rodgers is available….
He flopped in Germany.
All i need to know. Hes anti German
so did Juergen- or are you pretending that the Bayern Munich players did not openly mock him for his coaching on his way out?
blokhin,
http://www.empireofsoccer.com/german-lehmann-klinsmann-38818/
The German national team players liked him well enough.
Thank you! I told people that from my time in Germany as adult over the previous few years, Klinsman is respected because there is thought that he rebuilt the German program.
Hire a Dutch coach for post 2018
I assure you guys I Herr Klinsmann will get our boys to the QF of the WC in 2018 or i will personally refund my salary for the last few years
Now, more than ever I’m convinced that these two used to be a couple.
All this fighting could stem from an argument about leaving a towel on the bed, or skipping a sister-in-law’s baby shower.
We’ve all been there
lol!
G.G.
While there has been no acrimonious split, there were similar rumours about Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer.
Let’s say hypothetically Klinsmann does get fired following a poor result. Who do we think will succeed? Names? Domestic, European, or South American coach?
Boca, Dolo (though I don’t think he’d want to leave Germany), etc. A profile of the ideal guy would be someone who has experience with CONCACAF qualifiers, a defender/midfielder, someone who wasn’t a pain in his teammates’ backsides, and has some credibility with players at this level.
Boca has no managerial experience, he’s a great guy but no experience at all.
He’s technical director of the Atlanta expansion team, so he does have a little management experience (unless you meant manager like coach, and then you’re right). But, this isn’t a club position, and you can find examples of former players taking on national teams as a first coaching job and doing well. JK for instance. He had no experience before taking the reigns in Germany, where he knew the team and its players, and he did well that World Cup. But he bombed out at Bayern because he wasn’t ready for a club. And he’s been questionable with USMNT, where he seems intent on trying to turn us into what he knows instead of dealing with the development of American soccer from a position of knowledge and experience with American soccer.
You lost ALL credibility when you said Boca. Oh…but he’s technical director for non-existent team. Are you serious???? Dolo barely has 1 season as an assistant level and you want to give him the reins to your flagship??? Stop typing!
It’s the national team, as in an all-star team. It’s hardly a ‘flagship.’
Paul.
If you keep focusing on CONCACAF then all you will do is dominate CONCACAF which the US already does and has done for years.
You are trying to fix something that ain’t broke.
One lousy Gold Cup, which the US has had before ( 2009, 2011) , doesn’t change the fact that the US already is dominant in CONCACAF, and is very likely to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
The idea of hiring JK was to get the US further in the World Cup.
How Boca, a complete rookie is supposed to do that doesn’t make any sense.
You cite JK’s own experience as a rookie manager but you fail to mention that he had a slightly better player pool to draw from that Boca will.
It’s always about the players.
You would be giving Boca a team that has to be almost completely rebuilt for 2018 and he has no experience doing that.
Club managers build teams. National team coaches pick rosters from a player pool and give those players a simplistic tactical approach.
One more point. No coach is likely to get our ‘all-stars’ further in the World Cup. What might do that (I’m optimistic it will) is when our player pool becomes more skilled, deeper, etc. – basically maintains the same trajectory we’ve seen over the past few decades. In other words, the immediate future of USMNT is being built by pro clubs, and the less immediate future of USMNT is being built by our youth clubs.
What we need running the squad is someone the players respect, someone who won’t out-think himself, and preferable someone with USMNT experience in qualifiers and World Cup games.
Paul,
You already had that with Arena and with Bradley and both times, by the end of their tenures, they were massively unpopular and happily run out of town by people like what you see now on SBI.
Under the present circumstances swapping out JK for Boca is a prescription for mediocrity.
Right, we did. They weren’t the problem. Neither is JK, for the most part (though it does bug me that we still don’t know who our starting defenders are). We’re becoming more competitive every decade as the game grows and we produce more competitive players.
Making anything out of the Brazil friendly is silly. Since April 2015, the US also had friendly road wins against Germany and the Netherlands, and home wins against Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala. Those are strong results — as far as friendlies can be used as a vague measuring stick, most managers around the world would be happy with similar results. The Gold Cup was poor, and losing to Mexico would be tough, especially since Klinsmann has never lost to Mexico. But if you are going for fire your current manager, you need to be pretty sure that a replacement offers some reason to think he would do better. Is Pep or Jose available? Will the US magically respond to a MLS manager? The fact is Klinsmann has done enough to survive a couple of bad games. His job will be — and should be– on the line only if the US loses to Mexico and World Cup qualifying starts poorly.
Pep or Jose? Noooo. Wrong skill set. We don’t need a club coach.
My reference was to coaches with well-established records of success. I actually Jose would do well with the US given his preferred style (and you think Klinsmann is controversial?). Anyway, who are these solo-international team specialists that you have in mind?
This is the correct answer.
Revenge is sweet.
LD isn’t really calling for Klinsmann to be fired. He is saying you can’t go on and on about creating this environment of pressure and then be under none yourself. Klinsmann appears to get to set the bar for himself, often lowering it because us dumb Americans don’t understand the game. Now that we are being out played by world powers like Panama and Jamaica
According to JK the performance against Jamaica was fine and the only reason USMNT fans don’t agree is because they’re too dumb.
Landon is a lobbyist now for #BringBackBruce
Fire Klinsmann, hire Bielsa.
That line always cracks me up. Bielsa is known for being a super control freak who expects total perfection and commitment from his players. He’d blow a gasket as soon as he sees the level of technical skills he’d be working with.
Start from youth level.
Donovan is 100%.
USA should held much higher standards.
He’s right.
Miguel Herrera is available. Ha ha!
US will lose…badly…and JK is gone….Vermes is ready to take over….
LD is a wimp but he is rite…here…
lol Vermes….he’s kinda right, but the timing of his comment doesnt really help. I would take this comment serious if it were Bradley, Howard, Jones, Guzan etc.
Why would Vermes want this job? His position at Sporting KC is great, USMNT coach is a no win situation.
JK dropped LD because of petty personal issues, you see it with other players too and it has hurt performance of the team. Gold Cup performance was absolutely pathetic, if the US loses to Mexico JK should be fired.
Klinsmann was hired to help US soccer be more in line with the rest of the world. Unfortunately for him the rest of the world would fire their coaches after the string of results he’s had. Live by the sword……
Have family in Spain. Their Spanish friends are even talking about how bad Klinsman is.
Uh oh, SBI has been invaded by trolls.
Don’t see the problem here, I feel he should be accountable. With the USMNT in such little competitions, we cannot start dismissing the Gold Cup and Concacaf Cup or that sets a precedent. If we dismiss these loses (potential loses) then that mentality settles in. We should strive to win every game and if we do not we should go back and see what went wrong. I think after this summer if we lose this game, its fair to say the coach “went wrong” and approach WCQ witth a new coach.
LD is 100% right that JK should be held to the same standard, but the timing is not great for his former teammates who are getting ready for this game.
And besides, Gulati said months ago that JK’s job is safe regardless of the outcome on October 10. So it would have been preferable for LD to pass on this question until Sunday morning.
Ahhh, so petty. Come on, Donovan. You are better than that.
Whatever – he is not a player anymore. No one can really stop him from speaking his mind.
This is why he never left MLS
See this is why I have problems with Donovan. So weak.
JK should only be fired if we failed to qualify for the WC or flopped in Russia
nobody cares about this match.
That’s just not true. Plenty of people care. And they should.
Nobody cares about this match? You can credibly argue the Confederations Cup doesn’t mean much, but bottom line is it is better to go than not go, and the simple fact is this is a competitive match between us and our biggest rivals – I suspect that some people will care quite a bit.
I care about this match. To me, anything other than winning the Gold Cup is a disappointment, and this match is a chance to make up for it. But after losing to Jamaica, Panama, then getting blown out by Brazil, this match takes on even greater importance. If they can’t beat Mexico in a meaningful game after all that, Klinsmann needs to go. I don’t know if he got overconfident with his abilities as coach, if he lost the players’ attention after four years, or what, but that is a real failure. So, yeah, I care about this match.
I’m the first to admit I don’t care about this match that much and I think the Confederations Cup is a pointless FIFA moneygrab. But at some point the results matter? And not results in meaningless friendlies – results in games that count. Decent results in Brazil, terrible results and awful performances this summer. How long does he get?
Fire him if he loses Saturday and the new guy can be in place for the qualifying games in November.
You don’t “care about this match”? But you are a supporter of the USMNT, correct?
Which matches do you care about? Just the WC and qualifying? I ask because to me these are the most important matches that we play aside from the World Cup and its qualifiers.
The importance of this match is being way over hyped. Being in the Confed Cup is not a make-or-break proposition for performance in ’18. Consider that some players who we expect to see in ’18 will have played ’14 WC, ’15 Gold Cup, 16′ Copa America, and potentially ’17 Confed Cup. There is the risk burning out guys who never get more than a week or two off. Especially those in their 30s.
Exactly. This match is a Concacaf money grab and the winner gets a spot in a FIFA money grab. These are pointless tournaments. Before this cycle, the winner of this summer’s Gold Cup would have gone to the confederations cup and that would’ve been fine with me. The only reason it was changed was so Concacaf could get the proceeds from a 90k crown for US-Mexico.
I care about the world cup, which obviously includes qualifying and the gold cup, our continental championship. I’d like us to win our other games too but those are the priorities.
While I pretty much agree with you on all of this, I do think it’s worth pointing out that the Confed Cup does represent an excellent opportunity to make a “last push” for a seed at the WC (obviously we are not in this position at the moment). Because the algorithm used by FIFA heavily weights competitive matches played recently, these results are very valuable if you can get them.
For example, had we qualified for the 2013 Confed Cup, we really might have been able to get into the top 8 with a respectable showing (i.e. semifinals). So there is some value here…. at least until they change the rules again.
This is a good point.
To see American’s toil on the world stage in competitive games against the best teams in the world is what national team soccer is all about. Qualifying for one of two tournaments every 4 years which give us that opportunity is a big deal.
Yeah good point. Last time the US was in the Confed cup it had monsters like Iraq, Egypt, New Zealand and South Africa. Can’t find that kind of competition anywhere.
Very good point… not to mention minnows like Spain, Italy, and Brazil, all of whom we played. Definitely worthless competition.
SMH
When are people going to realize its not the all the coach. We don’t have the talent. Would Pep be winning at Stuttgart and im not comparing JK to Pep. All I am saying is he is using what he has to work with. Talent is needed and the USA just doesn’t have enough of it. One of our two best players couldn’t get many minutes for Roma. Johnson is the only one playing for a good club right now. People need to stop and think. Maybe he took the job and thought he had better players to work with. Maybe his tactics and style of play isn’t the problem. He cant just pick players and make them have the skills they need to perform for him.
I care. A lot. So do many others.
Yeah I know. I was only speaking for myself. To me the game in November against St. Vincent is far far more important.
I care.
If we get blown out or allow El Tri to comeback like they did in 2011 when we led 2-0, I can see at least some logic to firing Klinsi. However, remember that we start WC qualifying in a month so if Sunil & Friends decide to can him, they better have a quality replacement or at least a quality interim coach.
But it is INEXCUSABLE that the “face” of US Soccer decided to float this BEFORE the game. There is no need to be pre-alarmist. If we lose, we’ll assess the situation, but he is undermining the team — mind you which has some of his supposed friends on it — because he had a sad that he was fat and out of shape because of his sabbatical. Donovan is a grown man acting like a spoiled child. Rooting for the US to fail is UN American. Screw you Donovan, I am so done with you.
He didn’t say he’s rooting for the US to fail. And he’s right – JK wants to create a pressurized atmosphere where your job is on the line if you don’t produce results. But he doesn’t want to hold himself to that standard. In countries where soccer is the #1 sport, a coach producing results like JK has in the past few months would be gone if he lost to Mexico.
agreed 100%….we don’t know the context of this interview but one can assume that he didn’t just come out and say this, he was mostly likely asked about the state of the US team and what a loss or win would mean for the team. He is in no way undermining the team, maybe the coach but i also get the sense that some of the players are not buying into anymore what JK is selling and Donovan probably knows this. People keep hollering that LD was fat and out of shape but again he was reported as being one of the fittest guys at the pre WC camp but we now know that no matter how in shape he was or could have been in he was never going to be on that team either way.
“we now know that no matter how in shape he was or could have been in he was never going to be on that team either way.”
Who is “we”?
Everyone observing the situation who isn’t a JK fanboy.
i’m not a JK fanboy but don’t think firing him after this game is needed.
lets not pull a Fox News and label people something just because they disagree with you.
couldn’t have said it better @slow…..it still amazes me the depths to which some choose to overlook the obvious.
Man oh man… LD needs to leave this line of argument to someone else.. Friedel, Lalas, Balboa… Sunil. Do I disagree with him? not necessarily (of course, who are we going to replace Klinsmann with?) but coming from him, this is totally sour grapes.
What a great pot shot though.
It’s a national team – replacing a coach is easy, or at least easier than replacing a club coach. All you need is someone the players will respect, who understands the varying processes and who understands the differences between sophisticated club tactics and the more generic tactics of an all-star team. What you don’t need is an incredibly experienced club coach, or someone who is likely to outsmart himself.
Of course any potential applicant would have to convince interviewers he is the right guy, but if the US position were to open, I’d sure like to see Boca be interviewed.
Why would we interview someone like Bocanegra who’s never coached? I understand that you’d like someone with experience in the program… but why not Cherundolo, who’s actually working towards being a manager?
Dolo would be a solid applicant, as well.
Inexperienced national team coaches aren’t a new thing – even for established national programs like Germany and Argentina. It’s a different skill set than club coach, and arguably a simpler skill set that better correlates to player experience.
LD is entitled to his opinion and it is a reasonable one. Unfortunately for LD this will be seen as petty coming from him and will probably limit his coaching opportunities with USSoccer with any future head coach who is not named Bruce Arena. Seriously, who would want to work with a guy who has shown he is willing to undermine the guy in charge just to score a few payback points? Feuding publicly this way is a lose lose situation. Personally, I’m glad JK shook things up on the player, side otherwise we’d probably be watching some of these guys playing into their 40s. I just wish that the results were more clear cut one way or the other. Ultimately, JK has to deliver results or he should go.
again, i dont think this is sour grapes at all but if it is i think he’s entitled to it like you said. He’d be doing the exact same thing JK did to him, undermining the importance of having the best player a country has had at the biggest tournament for the sport because of ego and making some statement. If this is sour grapes it’s just as silly as what JK did but understandable. And, if we really look at things over the 3 years he’s been in charge he’s still using the “old heads” for friendlies and major tourneys so really where is the shakeup aside from pushing LD out of the program???
Seriously! Who would want to work with a guy who has shown he’s willing to undermine the team to score a few payback points?
…who are we going to replace Klinsmann with?
Carlos Queiroz, if he’s still available, would be an excellent choice.
He’s with Iran through 2018. Good coach, who has adapted to differing national approaches, so I don’t mean to suggest US Soccer should dismiss any interest on his part. But he would need a good assistant to help him navigate the tricky backwaters of CONCACAF.
We should maybe, arguably get off this inferiority complex our nation still seems to have toward this game and stop looking for a foreign savior.
Paul,
I don’t know about inferiority complex but the 2013 USSF Annual listed their assets at about 90+ million. What it is right now I don’t know but the point is compared to other soccer operations that is not a lot of money..
Salaries can be elusive but here is one early 2015 list. Make of it what you will but, given the going rate, it is unlikely the next manager will be some high priced foreign import:
.
Jürgen Klinsmann Annual: USD 2.621.740.00
Louis van Gaal Annual: USD 11.300.000.00
Manuel Pellegrini Annual: USD 5.876.000.00
José Mourinho Annual: USD 20.340.000.00
Pep Guardiola Annual: USD 17.176.000.00
Fabio Capello Annual: USD 10.170.000.00
Arsène Wenger Annual: USD 12.769.000.00
Roberto Mancini Annual: USD 5.424.000.00
Bob Bradley Annual: USD 420.000.00
Miguel Herrera Annual: USD 3.000.000.00
I’ve never understood why people think Queiroz is a good coach. The only success the guy has ever had as head coach was with Portugal’s youth teams more than 25 years ago. He’s a good assistant coach, but pretty mediocre to terrible when he’s in charge.
Blasphemy? Donovan you little sneak.
You flopped at Munich and JK held it against you. You took your sabbatical and he dropped you for the WC and now you are so jealous.
I cant wait until Dempsey breaks your NT scoring record.
So you’re saying JK was right to drop LD for Brazil because of the sabbatical and a personal grudge stemming from their time at Bayern?
He got dropped for publicly saying he couldn’t practice the day after playing. Huh? You say that publicly? Talk about a locker room divider. How about earning your spot at practice. He was an idiot.
The only locker room divider in the JK vs LD fiasco was Klinsmann. All the other leading players – Bradley, Howard, Dempsey, Altidore – were quite clear on how shocked they were at LD’s dismissal and how they had forged their intended WC 2014 identity as a unit together with LD.
Laughable. The greatest player in US history dropped for guys like Wondo and Davis. He was still a lot better than any of those guys. He got dropped because JK is a petty man.
I guess that depends on your sense of humour.
Wondo had a World Cup Camp that was off the charts, according to Landon.
Brad Davis was leading MLS in assists before he left for World Cup Camp.and the Dynamo wasn’t exactly blessed with gifted scorers.
Landon’s tearing up of the Union ( hardly in Ghana, Portugal or Germany’s class) came AFTER he was cut, too little too late.
He was the best player in USMNT history but there is plenty of evidence that he wasn’t terribly motivated to do his best for JK and that his best wasn’t what it was.
I watched LD his whole career and, in short, if he wasn’t happy, he didn’t play well.
I wanted LD at Brazil but in the end once the shock wore off, it wasn’t that surprising a decision. LD gave JK so much ammo against his own cause that you have to wonder if he really wanted to go.
Davis did not work out and Wondo worked out well enough so that had he hit that goal vs Belgium, and he should have, everything would have been different.
No one will ever know exactly why JK made that decision but it’s not a unreasonable as you like to paint it.
JK hasn’t gotten the roster for the 2 tournaments he’s coached right and had the audacity to leave the US’ best player out of the WC. I dont blame LD for initially being bitter, who wouldn’t have but here i don’t sense the bitterness, he’s just stating the facts and what JK has been preaching. The irony is JK is a hypocrite at best and goes back on his word for certain players. You leave LD at home for the WC because you feel he is “behind other players in his position”(lmfao) and out of shape(although it was reported by several players that Landon was one thee fittest players at the camp) but yet bring an injured Johannsson to Brazil, who in turn got hurt again. And lastly, he brings an out of form and recovering from injury Altidore to the GC only to send him back to his club team after 2 games because he was pathetic. Jurgens fanboys can keep drinking the koolaid that he’ll make us this world power while the rest of us who can see through the bs will continue to hope for a coach that puts our best interest in front of his own
This thread should stop after this comment. Well said!!
Bitter much? Did Donovan date your sister or something…?
Slightly bitter, but I tend to agree…
Is he wrong though? I don’t think he is
yes, but since when is speaking the truth essential and important? Not when a farce of a coach has to save face and the guy who hired him…
What isn’t spoken about enough is that Gulati has to go along with JK. He pursued JK THREE times, without giving much consideration to anyone else. Bradley was an “interim” coach who happened to have delivered acceptable results and got US to GC win, top of the Hex and knockout WC round. Asa reward Gulati pursued JK once again, only to fail once more, until finally post GC 2011 debacle to have come to terms.
For Gulati to admit that spending an extravagant sum of money for a small budget outfit and conduct the narrowest possible coaching search three separate times, would call into question his competence-and consequentially, his job….
things have to go so bad to take both of them down-they are clearly ehaded there now and likely to with a loss on Saturday
Yeah Gulati is clearly incompetent at hiring people.
Wasn’t it just 6 months ago that the chicken littles on this site were saying Gulati was incompetent for his “mishandling” of the women’s coaching situation? Oops.
so who really runs things @ us soccer? gulati? flynn? whats the story? and who are they accountable to?
The USSF is a private, non-profit.
http://www.ussoccer.com/about/governance
Gulati is the President but he only has one vote and there are about 15 other votes on the USSF board. Note that Jeff Agoos is on the board.
So it’s not like he can do whatever he wants
And it means the USSF is probably going to be pretty conservative with JK.
If you follow the history , in reality BB was probably always keeping the seat warm for JK, which is one reason Bob was always on such a short leash.
They have as big an investment in JK, in terms of time and money as they have ever had in any manager.
All truth no lie
How dare we hold Klinsman to the same standards as he holds to the players. We are trying to become a real soccer nation. By doing so we must have Klinsman come hell or high water. #drinkthekoolaid
The USSF hired him with the understanding that he was going to do it his way and that he would be judged based on the outcome of the 2018 WC. So people can blame JK all they want, but any blame would have to go on Sunil for getting conned like Sam Hinkie (Philly 76ers GM). LD and his fans are still just butthurt. I award LD no points and may God have mercy on his soul
Are you JK kid? Get off the computer again son. Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!?!?!
i think Gulati shouldd hire LD as a temporary special advisor, pretty much to fire JK
He should be fired win or lose. He has had plenty of time to build a team that plays the attractive style he promised. He consistently plays players out of position, consistently calls in players that are not international quality and consistently calls in players that are out of form. The result has been a highly disjointed team that play inferior soccer compared to when he took the job.
So, yeah, can him.