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Gulati acknowledges achievement despite humbling USMNT loss

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Tuesday night’s 4-0 loss against Argentina hurt all parties involved within the U.S. Men’s National Team, but U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati still believes the side accomplished a great deal this summer despite the defeat.

“I was feeling a lot better about it three or four hours ago, but it’s a strange feeling right now as we’ve gotten to the semifinals, which is an accomplishment,” Gulati said following the defeat. “But then it’s not an easy loss today.”

The U.S. battled back after an opening day loss to Colombia by rattling off three consecutive wins at the Copa America Centenario against Costa Rica, Paraguay and Ecuador.

As Gulati noted after the Argentina match, though, the three remaining semifinalists that joined the U.S. are currently ranked no. 1, 3 and 5 in the latest FIFA World Rankings, while the Americans sit 31st.

While rankings don’t necessarily predict outcomes of matches, Argentina’s talent proved to be too much for the U.S., which is something Gulati noted.

“We got outplayed badly by a very good team and when they scored so early it kind of changed everything,” Gulati continued. “At every position, this was an incredible team.”

Combined losses from in the knockout rounds from Mexico and the USMNT have raised questions over the inferiority of CONCACAF in comparison to CONMEBOL. El Tri was publicly blasted over their 7-0 quarterfinals defeat against Chile, before the U.S. suffered their ill-fated loss to La Albiceleste on Tuesday.

While drastically lopsided score lines could easily draw a barrier between the two soccer federations, Gulati remained confident after CONCACAF’s progress, citing their most recent World Cup success.

“Based on those two scores you could say that, but yet three [CONCACAF] teams get through to the second round of the World Cup two years ago,” Gulati said of the difference between the federations. “CONMEBOL is great on the field, even without Brazil in the second round. They’ve got some terrific soccer teams.”

Comments

  1. Soccer is not organic in the US as it is elsewhere in the world. Until it becomes so, we will have difficulty attracting the top athletes in the States to kick a ball instead of picking a baseball bat, or basketball, or football.

    All MLS clubs need to do more to reach kids interested in the sport, but with limited access to it.

    It was so easy to see throughout the tournament how far behind the USMNT team is technically, as well as possessing soccery savy. It is not even close.

    Yet, the USSF, MLS and college soccer continue to do things different from the rest world. Until all of the aforementioned wakeup, USMNT will be medicore in the pecking order of soccer

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  2. The US made a ton of unforced errors, but no one else in the world has Messi either. Other good players don’t think of his flick on assist much less pull it off. No one else buries that particular free kick. There’s your 2-0 hole. Just last fall, Argentina lost to Ecuador at home and drew Paraguay 0-0 in WCQ without Messi. We just beat both of those teams. Argentina obviously has more talent all around, but Messi is the reason the gulf is as large as it is. Join the crowd in that regard.

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    • In all the discussion I think Messi’s free kick has been overlooked. Even for Messi that was outstanding. I have seen him hit similar, but usually from closer in. He makes such a huge difference because you just can’t press him because of his combination of quickness, skill, vision, and passing ability. About the only time he can be stopped is if he dribbles into a crowd in the middle.

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    • Socceroo, I love Roberto Martinez. Best analysis there is on breaking down a game. Why would he want this job.
      If the job entails total control like JK has, it has to go to an American coach. No one other than an American who has been in the trenches of our wacky soccer system will ever understand how to get us to a higher level

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  3. I never expected to beat Argentina however I also didnt expect to be run off the field like we were either. Klinsmann has had 6 years I think to develop a program and a team that is more that 12 deep and in that sense has failed. When Klinsmann was hired, I expected that he would develop the players HERE and build a better team. Instead, he has beat the bushes for passport that couldnt get a look by their real country. This is not what I expected and while it’s worked to a point…. I dont think it is the reason he was hired. He continues to make bad decisions on rosters and that will never improve. For example, did he really think Wondo was going to work? If so it shows a total lack of judgement because I think everybody that follows this team knew it wouldnt. Beckerman? Zusi??

    I dont know what it will take to send Klinsmann packing but he has failed to do what he was hired to do and Sunil should do something NOW

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      • The problem is not who to replace Wondo with but why was he picked in the first place? Just as in the WC, Klinsmann did not have a plan B. When Jozy went down, we had no replacement. Same thing with Wood this time. Klinsmann leaves Donovan home and takes Wondo? Does Wondo have pictures of JK or something? Hopefully this is the last time he gets called but somehow, I doubt it

  4. 2002-2010 World Cups USNT had some amazing beautiful game with anti-American refs. At 2014, USNT looked like USNT from Italy 1990. Also, repeating same coach cycle after cycle hasn’t worked for USSF.

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  5. Well, we’re better than we were. A Bob Bradley team lost every game last time and had a -6 GD in 2009 all be it with a younger squad. We’ve advanced out of the group the past two WCs. We won our group in 2010 although barely with a stoppage time goal and we made it out of a group in 2014 that no one else in the world gave us much of chance in. We played amazing defense against Belgium and almost stole the game but a missed Wondo tap in cost us the same a Torsten Frings handball did in 2002. And we nearly won the 2009 Confederations Cup too.

    So we are better than we were, but where to go from here. How to we beat the Belgiums and Argentinas of the world in a knockout match. Looking at our player pool and the clubs they play for most knowledgeable soccer minds around the world would never expect us to make it out of a WC group with our level of talent. Yet we do well because of the team spirit and never say die attitude were are know for as Americans.

    In every country we can’t beat Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, etc. if you wander into any park in any town or on any street you see children playing pick up soccer. In the US for a kid to play as often and at a competitive level he needs to develop he must have parents who can pay league fees and travel expense. This limits who can play to the upper middle class which narrows our potential player pool right off the bat to a much small percentage of our population.

    In addition to the pay to play youth model we have significantly lower coaching standards compared to the teams we are trying to catch up to. I know several co workers who are the coach of their kids soccer team all be it at an U10 level these co workers never played and don’t even know the rules of the game. They lay out cones and have the kids run thru cones without dribbling a ball. My wife’s family is from Brazil, when I tell them that most American kids go to soccer practice and run around cones instead of dribble a ball at seven or eight years old they say no wonder you can’t compete. Brazilians literally put small soccer balls in the cribs with baby boys.

    The Development Academy seems to be doing better at developing kids than the old ODP program but kids still have to pay in most cases. MLS academies are just getting started really and now have second teams playing in the third division. As MLS expands and reaches more cities more kids can play without cost to their parents if they’re good enough to make the team. However if the academy coaches are a bunch of long ball over the top English/Scottish types then our kids aren’t learning to play the right way. It will take time for these fruits to develop through to the national team though. Of course our top prospects should go to European academies if they can but without a connection to a European country it usually means the family must move there as well a big commitment to make for youth soccer.

    So how can speed this up a bit. I would recommend that the USSF stop pretending that SUM Marketing isn’t pocketing money for profit when that money could be going to advance youth soccer. The money that SUM Marketing making off of the major club teams coming here every summer to play friendlies as well as teams like Mexico and Brazil who play in the US for pay days who are represented when they are in the US by SUM Marketing, that money needs to be going back into youth soccer not someone’s bank account. Even small sums like 10-20 million invested in soccer fields and infrastructure where kids could play unstructured uncoached soccer would be huge.

    We could use this money instead to build soccer fields in major cities for kids to play pick up soccer. We could subsidize local leagues so the poorest kids would have to pay less. We could subsidize the cost of coaching seminars.

    Essentially I think we need kids to play more often in less structured environments ie pick up games. While at the same time providing them better education and knowledge to increase their soccer IQ within the more structured environments instead of the win at all costs method that most academies are run with. Basically, we need more soccer fields and better youth coaches.

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    • Why do Americans continue to believe that the difference between the USA and other countries lies in training methods? People have been saying this for over 40 years. If I had a dime for every time I have read that just letting kids kick the ball around in the park would lead to WC success, I would be rich.
      First, the USSF and other soccer folks in the USA have spent an immense pile of money plus time and effort importing what they think are the best training methods. Many coaches may not use them, but the knowledge is available here in the USA. And it is not as if Americans don’t know anything about training athletes.
      Second, consider that across most of the world, soccer attracts many of the most promising athletes (remembering that athletic ability has many dimensions) while in the USA, soccer has to compete with three or four other sports. Consider as well that those other sports all pay far more than most American professional soccer players can hope to earn.
      Third, consider that if the USA had the same ratio of population to professional soccer clubs as the United Kingdom it would have more than 400 professional clubs plus another 1000 or so semi-professional clubs.
      Fourth, consider that it takes a huge pool of potential professional players to produce just one professional player. Only five percent of the 16 year olds tied to English professional clubs are playing any sort of professional soccer when they are 21. Less than one percent of the 12 year olds tied to Bundesliga clubs become Bundesliga players.
      In short the soccer industry in the USA is just too small to produce world class players and teams. It does not attract enough good athletes and it does not pay them enough.

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      • You hinted at the real problem at the end – in the states it ressembles an “industry” and in the rest of the world people live breath eat drink it. It is in their water, so to speak. Like when a child learns to speak a language, age 3 or whatever, and all the nuances of that language become deeply ingrained to the point they never lose it and everyone there has it. The public learns the language of football this way too.

        In France right now my two year old, who is incidentally learning to speak, recently said to me in a perfectly matter of fact way “il y a du foot partout” or, soccer is everywhere. Of course we have the Euros but the atmosphere is similar any time of year when there is a big match going on. I don’t know if he’ll ever play the game but that doesn’t matter, I think in a way the general public’s awareness and savvy raises the overall level. Then the cream rises to the top. Even people who don’t like the sport here, understand it perfectly, can read it quickly. My wife would rather watch American tv reruns than soccer but can still pick out within seconds whether a match, or a player, is a quality one or not. Don’t mean to bring up details of my personal life other than to say some cultures have a terribly high standard and it is a common shared understanding among the people. I think in the US we are beginning to love the game in masses, but as a culture are very far from understanding it, drinking it up. And the USSF can pour all the money it wants, it won’t change a culture overnight.

        As for the Copa match, we played scared. I think that was no thanks to the media which for a week spoke only of how great the opponent was. Because the game was stateside, there was no ignoring this cacophony of pessimism – even the players were affected I think. We are obviously short on talent, but it also appears we get bit by the fear bug. I will support Klinsmann to the end but even I was surprised that he – an all-time great, cold-blooded striker – couldn’t efface this specter of inevitability and doubt inside the locker room.

    • Joe, most of your points are on the mark particularly about too many English coaches, the importance of the inner city and USSF pretending. Inferior coaching at the youth level is one of our top problems. The golden years for development (10-15) are devoid of good coaching and a good plan/vision. The academy is better than ODP. However, if we are depending on the academy to close the gap we will be disappointed. The coaching and the environments just are not good enough to develop the top 5-10% . Very few MLS academies are good enough either. Why? they do not pay well enough to attract the best coaches.

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      • And the academies don’t make money when a player is transferred to a big club. Going against FIFA rules, MLS takes the transfer fee for itself. Academies have had to appeal to FIFA to try to put a stop to this.

        Great post by Joe Dirt above – not enough kids playing pickup soccer + pay for play, poor coaching, broken/inadequate development teams, and a domestic league that doesn’t play young players = not enough international quality players, and 0 elite players.

        At this rate it will take decades to fix. How does Gulati keep his job??

    • Joe Dirt pretty much said it.

      One could also come to the conclusion that we’ll never, as a culture, understand the sport well enough to be the best at it. But that we improve and hold onto our status a tough opponent to play against. No shame in that.

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  6. Jonny good tournament? I can buy that. Our future is what I am worried about. Most of the really smart soccer guys I have been fortunate enough to be around use these 4-5 criteria for judging yourself as a soccer nation:1) Full team international results
    2) Number of players playing with top clubs or players on the horizon getting ready to play with top clubs 3) Developmental system/Vision for developing players 4) Quality of domestic league. For the US you can add interest level of the casual fan as criteria #5 because (for us) that is important.
    I think JK as manager over 5 years has been slightly above average. But criteria #3 falls squarely on his shoulders as Technical Director and this is where we have failed. With the current system for developing players we will continue to do ok in criteria #1. We will always qualify for the World Cup and somehow fight our way to the second round. If we keep our current developmental system with criteria #2 we will stay behind true soccer nations. For me, before I leave this earth, I would love to see us have a pool of 15 or more young kids that we developed that we are excited about. Then, we start to become a soccer nation. A better developmental system also improves our domestic league.
    We have to decide if we want to take this seriously or not. Look at every country that has a plan and takes it serious, they succeed.

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    • Hey man, I never claimed we were a soccer nation. I agree with your assessment of the landscape as a whole. I was more focused on the team and the play on the field going forward in qualifying. Compared to what I was feeling at the beginning of the year, we have progressed and are looking like we should be secure in getting through the Hex.

      As for the future of US Soccer, I see the change coming slowly, too slowly for we old farts who have been waiting too long now, but it is coming. The young players right now are pretty exciting, and by young I mean not playing on the full team (other than Pulisic), but we are still a generation away from having the transcendent players all over the field. Donovan was like the canary in the coal mine, a warning that more is coming, but the warning sign is not of imminent danger but ones down the road. I remember the guys who played for us 20 years ago, and see the guys we have now, so 20 years from now we should be pretty solid.

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    • About 9 to 12 months ago a poster here provided us with a list of major changes that have been made to the structure of youth soccer in this country in the previous year or two. Many of us found it rather impressive and significant. Unfortunately I didn’t save it, but it was cut and pasted from another soccer outlet. If you can find it, perhaps your concern about the youth development system in this country can be somewhat lessened.

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  7. The most important thing that came out of the tournament is that we now have our backline set. Brooks and Cam work very well together and should get better as the year goes on. Yedlin will learn and get better as well. FJ was not stellar, and I am a fan of Besler at LB, but that is no longer a position of concern. My biggest hope is that the youth can take over in the midfield, as we have plenty of hard workers but no difference makers right now., which is another reason to move FJ forward. Wood looks great and should supplant Altidore, I hope he and Morris can combine well because I like their tandem.

    I think there were many more positives than negatives, but a few would be Bradley continuing to not show up in big games or be put in a position that makes him shrink. I though FJ looked mostly uninterested most of the time, and his play showed that. I think that had to do with him not liking being a back. Otherwise mostly a great tournament that should give us loads of confidence going into the rest of qualifying.

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  8. Do people realize that our talent level isn’t there yet, our team now can’t compete with these guys. The ones coming through that I mentioned in a previous post are the ones that can take us further and challenge the top teams because they are playing those type of players throughout Europe now at a young age and are technically gifted like none we have seen in this country before. It takes time and I feel rather good about the future, yes it was a bad loss but it happens. Be realistic about expectations

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  9. Just feels like we still aren’t actually building anything. I suppose Yedlin, Wood and Brooks were positives form this tournament going forward. Other then that I don’t know.

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  10. In my view, we are still a generation away (at min) from really being able to compete with a team like that. This should not come as a terrible surprise, and few could deny that we didn’t have one player who would’ve made the Argentina bench.

    Yes, the performance was bad, but it shouldn’t leave a nasty scar for the future. Argentina is the standard we are chasing, and we won’t get there until we have a really top pipeline of technically proficient players to choose from. This needs to remain the focus, and it can’t be done in a day or even 2-3 years.

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  11. The USMNT met expectations. I cannot be too disappointed with yesterday’s game, or our overall performance in the tournament. We beat the teams that we were supposed to beat, and lost to the teams who had far superior talent. Coaching strategies/player selections had nothing to do with getting blown out yesterday. Argentina’s soccer team is flat out better than the United States.

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    • I have seen a lot of soccer games and the way Argentina was playing last night was close to perfection. I think they would have beaten anyone last night. Only times i can recall a team passing that well have been Barcelona and the Arsenal team that went unbeaten. Another reminder, their top three attackers (one of whom didn’t even play) had a total of 109 goals between them in all competitions during their club seasons and they have someone who is likely the greatest player in history.

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  12. Victories against Costa Rica, Paraguay and Ecuador in a major tournament is a VERY GOOD achievement! Those are the teams you need to beat in major tournaments, and they are the kinds of teams that in the past we haven’t — as World Cup matches against Slovenia, Ghana, and Portugal showed.

    If the USMNT can defeat those types of teams consistently, then we can talk about being competitive with the Argentina’s and Germany’s of the world. So, really, being 3-for-3 against the teams that we need to beat? Yeah, it’s a good record. Regardless of how we played against elite competition in Colombia and Argentina.

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    • yes they are! the US should be very proud of how they handled the group stage games in this Copa America and the past two WC’s. Winning our first KO round game (outside of the Gold Cup’s) since 2009 was another huge step forward.

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  13. Okay, how many people predicted that the US would get to the finals? Anyone? Only those who are insane perhaps. How many thought we would make it to the semifinals? Certainly not I. How many thought we would win our group? Certainly not I. I figured that we might get lucky, finish second, and then get knocked out in the quarters by Brazil. By any realistic appraisal, the US did well. Depending on the outcome of the third place game, only two or three teams will have done better than the US in this tournament. How many would have thought that possible before the tournament started?

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    • Since someone would probably misinterpret my first sentence, let me clarify. Yes, I know we aren’t going to the final, but many people posting here write as if we should have gone, but were done in by bad player selections vs. Argentina. That is just crazy.

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      • Sorry Gary, I have read every post about this game and no one is saying we would have beaten them with other players or that we should have made it to the final if we played our game. What they are saying, and what you are not hearing, is that the player selections of Beckerman and Wondo doomed us to a style that gave us no chance. If we had put Nagbe and, at least in my opinion, Besler at LB and moved Fj up as well as Zardes up to forward, we would have been in a position to at least connect some passes and alleviate some pressure. The choice JK made did not allow us that chance. Yes, Argentina was better with more talent than we have, and the odds were always against us, but giving the team the best chance to win is what we are asking for. Most believe that is leaving Beckerman and Wondo on the bench.

        We will never know if different players would have made any difference, but it is not crazy to wonder what might have been if his lineup matched his rhetoric.

      • Yeah…….. no news flash. We are no nooooo where near the class of Argentina.
        Particularly w/ the suspensions of 3 key cogs up front, whoever we put out there, I knew it was highly highly likely we were going down to a motivated Argentina team that is clicking and i don’t mean in a 1-0 affair. Jonathan….. you pretty well summed it up-for all the lip service to not playing scared and going after it- JK put out a line-up that clearly said he felt otherwise- it was a tentative roster plucked straight from 2012 quite literally incapable of pressing high and holding the ball- let alone threatening a break or long balls. The roster we put out there were clearly intimidated, didn’t believe their own press and underperformed.

        Said it before- I don’t feel any less optimistic based on that game. The last month on the whole has been a positive.

        p.s.: JK…. now that this tourney is over- your job safe for the cycle…. please… turn the page on a few players and allow some new talent the opportunity to take the next step.

      • Well said my friend! Most bloggers here take things for granted and make Donald Trump’s type of idiotic comments as if it was so damn easy to compete Argentina at their best.

      • it’s time for Beckerman & Wondo to retire from international ball. They don’t have teh skill set, plus it wil free up space for those coming up behind.

    • It’s not losing in the semis, dude. It’s losing like THAT in the semis. At a certain point, how good Argentina is becomes irrelevant. These are all professional players.

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      • Then I suggest that from now on Dc and Crystal Phallus should represent the USMNT and play for the country. We’ll never lose LIKE THAT ever!

    • Gary Page, we get it. You think that the USMNT sucks and we should always expect to lose against a good team. If we win then it’s a pleasant surprise, if we lose you were expecting it and won’t be disappointed. Definition of fairweather fan.

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      • Come on, Gary. When you misrepresent what other people have been saying so egregiously in your own post, you shouldn’t be surprised when someone else does such a bad hack job on you.

    • Gary, I respect your opinion and appreciate the comments you make here at SBI, despite the juvenile responses from a few. My personal view is quite skewed when it comes to us playing Argentina, as well, I am from Oregon and therefore have seen Darlington Nagbe play quite a bit, and I’ve come to admire him as a person and a player. Furthermore, when I was a teenager, Jurgen Klinsmann was my role model soccer player, and I spent a lot of time in Argentina. In fact, I played there weekly with friends and watched the 1990 WC final there, in which Klinsmann’s team defeated Maradona’s Argentina. Having said all this, I have supported Klinsmann’s decisions up to this point. However, the line up he put on the field against a veritable Argentina never had a chance to compete. No one has mentioned it, but we were utterly dominated in the second half vs Ecuador as well. We need more possession of the ball to advance in our style of play, and no one on the team is more apt at possession than Nagbe, and the facts are in all of the passing charts of the minutes he has logged with the Nats. Quite simply, he makes everyone around him on the field better.
      I see no excuse for the coaching staff: We had a chance to win over fans here in the US who are utterly embarrassed by Mexico’s display versus Chile. ANY amount of competitive play would have helped, but we had none, and I am embarrassed, because I remember the US teams of past all they way to the mid 80s, and how can we say we have progressed when we play like this?

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  14. I think this tournament shows exactly where we are as a program: ahead of most teams but still not ready to consistently compete with the classic super powers. Thats not a bad place to be in: I say we beat most teams in europe too; I’d position us somewhere above Mexico and below Croatia, just outside of the top 15 in the world.

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    • We are NOT above Mexico. At best we are even with them. Just below Croatia? Croatia beat Spain yesterday without Modric or Mandzucic
      We would lose to that team 70% of the time (a team that, btw, lost to Mexico last World Cup)
      In 6 years we should be top 10-15 for sure. This current iteration of US players is top 20-25. Who cares about beating Ecuador and praguay

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  15. What else was he going to say? If Gulati knew anything about soccer, he would apologize for launching the US on a thoroughly naive program — imaging that adopting the same tactics used by the really good teams would make the USA a really good team. Anyone who has watched Euro 2016 so far could tell Gulati that limited teams don’t follow the Klinsmann model. Instead, they play careful, conservative football with an emphasis on defense. They know that they will have to defend for long periods and pick a squad accordingly. They actually practice marking and positioning. And so on.

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    • What if you say it like this:

      ” We went 3-2 in the tourney with victories coming against Costa Rica, Paraguay and Ecuador!!!!”

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      • I do not think the US has ever finished an internatioal tourney with a winning record. If we lose on Saturday, we will be 3-3 and finish in fourth place, the same place we gor in the ’95 Copa but it would be a better result as it was done on foreign soil. When we finished seconf at the Confed cup our overall record was 2-0-3, but it was considered a great sucess as we finished second

        Should we loose on Saturday, you could not call this Copa a real success for the US in the context of what we have achieved before. We have barely just treaded water despite having a better playing pool than we ever have had.

        But I would think it would be a fitting denouement for Klinsmann’s career as USMNT coach

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