Fabian Johnson will not take part in the U.S. Men’s National Team’s upcoming friendly with Costa Rica.
Head coach Jurgen Klinsmann revealed Monday that he has dismissed Johnson from the team ahead of Tuesday’s friendly. Klinsmann’s frustrations stem from Johnson removing himself in the 111th minute of Saturday’s CONCACAF Cup clash with Mexico despite not dealing with an injury.
“I had a very severe word with Fabian Johnson, and I sent him home today,” Klinsmann said. “He can rethink his approach about his team.”
Johnson’s dismissal leaves the USMNT roster with just 20 players, six of which are listed as defenders, ahead of Tuesday’s friendly with Costa Rica.
The 27-year-old fullback has made 40 appearances for the USMNT.
What do you think of the Johnson dismissal? What do you expect the fallout to be going forward?
Share your thoughts below.
Why doesn’t JK send Jozy/lazy Altidore home? That is the one guy that should definitely be sent home packing. A totally lazy worthless striker!!!
Just reported on ESPNFC, Monchengladbach is reporting that Johnson returned to the club injured. Either he did a few extra laps after the game or Klinsmann is throwing his players under the bus for no reason.
Your logic doesn’t quite work the way I read it, though I agree whatever it is that JK is doing seems very hard to defend.
As for the logic part– it’s hard to read much into this on a standalone basis. Meaning — I were ‘Gladbach, I’d report the exact same thing too, regardless of if there is any truth at all. It’s their job to support their player — why undermine him (even if he should turn out to be wrong) for the sake of supporting a guy in JK that they have no reason to give a sh*t about? This is an easy chance to support their player that costs them nothing. If he actually starts missing minutes due to whatever this is, then maybe there’s a more definitive case (the club statement said Johnson may still feature on Saturday vs. Eintracht Frankfurt)
All we know is he has received “treatment” which could be a scan or a lollipop or chemotherapy for all we know.
I’m not calling anybody a liar here– only saying that this is not exactly “case closed” based on this vague information. All I know is it’s really dumb that this somehow became a key takeaway from this game. Most of us there only vaguely noticed, and it certainly didn’t affect the outcome. I was actually surprised FJ was on the field still…. I don’t know if he was hurt, invisible, taking a prolonged cigarette break, whatever. A pretty anonymous performance throughout, and very little changed after he came off either–except for the part where Paul Aguilar grew 9 inches and threw a ninja star through my soul.