U.S. National Team Part VII

[John Price]

Shouldn't he be fired by now

 

[bleedblue1223]

Between Jurgen and lack of transition to a younger core, whether it's a Jurgen issue or a talent issue, the US is in trouble.

 

[kabidjan18]

The good news is although they lost the qualifying process is ridiculous. Mexico... Mexico won two hex games in 2014 and still qualified.

Not even close to over. Wahl said if they won 3-0 next game they would already be 4th place.

The "if" factor to that is of course that they are down Jermaine Jones and Timothy Chandler due to accumulation, and will perhaps still be down Tim Howard too. If Honduras manage to draw somehow and then they lose to Panama on the road then worries begin to be legitimated.

 

[Gecklund]

Klinnsmann needs to leave. You can't get rid of the players so something needs to change and Jurgen out is probably the easiest way to go. I don't care who replaces him as long as it's someone that keeps the players accountable and plays them in their natural positions.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Sounds like Arena would be the guy if the impossible happened and Jurgen is fired, his contract is up w/LA as well.

The Galaxy fan in me would be devastated to lose him...but I have a million times more faith in one of Bruce Arena's dead skin cells being more competent than Klinsmann.

 

[sjsharks92]

I didn't watch the game last night so forgive me if I'm misspeaking, but why doesn't Deandre Yedlin play more? It seems his speed on the outside be it at LB or RB or on the wings would be a huge threat for the team.

If the youth movement is to make any real progress, guys like Green, Yedlin, Wood, Pulisic, Miazga, Morris need to be given every opportunity to succeed.

 

[Burner Account]

The Galaxy fan in me would be devastated to lose him...but I have a million times more faith in one of Bruce Arena's dead skin cells being more competent than Klinsmann.

Bruce Arena and his Wambachian stance on dual nationals?

 

[njdevsfn95]

No, two after 2-0, one more after 3-0, none of them were CCV.

I was following on Twitter and must have missed it. Thanks.

I didn't watch the game last night so forgive me if I'm misspeaking, but why doesn't Deandre Yedlin play more? It seems his speed on the outside be it at LB or RB or on the wings would be a huge threat for the team.

Yedlin has won over many Newcastle supporters. Personally I think what I am about to say is overblown BUT he did play for Sunderland (loan from Spurs) last year...so it speaks volumes about what he has meant and how he has performed. Many Newcastle supporters are very happy to have him.

Granted Newcastle is in the Championship but if the MLS did just fine last night for Costa Rica, the Championship could do just fine for the USMNT.

 

[kabidjan18]

People keep calling Costa Rica an MLS side. Of the 14 players who saw the pitch yesterday they had 4 Costa Rican league players, 4 MLS players, 2 Liga Nos, 2 La Liga, 1 Brazil Serie A, 1 Swiss Super League. That's like saying the Bundesliga team did terrible because the US plays 4 Bundesliga players. The two guys they usually have who were missing due to injury play in the Danish Superligaen and the Scottish Premiership.

There's also this amazing narrative which goes Costa Rica knocked out the European giants with a primarily MLS team. Amazing because of how wildly untrue it is. One player started each game, Gonzalez. Another player started one game, Miller, due to accumulation but never played the rest of the tournament. The last player, Francis, never played. So of the 55 starts among 14 players, only 6 starts were by the 2 MLS players, of the 70 caps among 18 players, still only 6 appearances were made by the 2 MLS players. The Norwegian Tippeligaen played a larger role than the MLS did...

 

[Cassano]

IMO you fire JK when he fails to qualify. He's done so much for the NT and his teams always overachieve in major tournaments.

 

[njdevsfn95]

I didn't call CR a "MLS side" because of a belief they had a lot of MLS players but simply pointing out how the league the players come from doesn't always matter.

 

[kingsboy11]

imo you fire jk when he fails to qualify. He's done so much for the nt and his teams always overachieve in major tournaments.

You're right, he's breaking records left and right.

 

[Ugmo]

IMO you fire JK when he fails to qualify. He's done so much for the NT and his teams always overachieve in major tournaments.

Dunno about this. His team won the 2013 Gold Cup convincingly, won 1 game at the 2014 World Cup, completely screwed the pooch at the 2015 Gold Cup and finished with a losing record at Copa America on our own home soil (not even managing to get a shot off against Argentina IIRC). Not to mention the Confederation's Cup qualification debacle which is 100 percent his fault.

There have been a few highs under Klinsmann, but the lows have been abysmal. He should have been fired long ago and would have been if America actually had the soccer culture he's always going on about.

 

[Cassano]

Dunno about this. His team won the 2013 Gold Cup convincingly, won 1 game at the 2014 World Cup, completely screwed the pooch at the 2015 Gold Cup and finished with a losing record at Copa America on our own home soil (not even managing to get a shot off against Argentina IIRC). Not to mention the Confederation's Cup qualification debacle which is 100 percent his fault.

There have been a few highs under Klinsmann, but the lows have been abysmal. He should have been fired long ago and would have been if America actually had the soccer culture he's always going on about.

2014 he advanced in a group despite having the least amount of talent. And they should've beat Belgium.

Gold Cup was bad, agreed.

2016 - Argentina ran through everyone that tournament (until that final and awful Rojo red card), no shame in getting destroyed by arguably the best national team in the world at the time. Besides, I did not expect USMNT to get out of their group in that tournament anyways (Columbia, Paraguay).

USA don't have great players that play significant roles on European teams. Their issue is talent. They can bring in Jogi, Conte or any other coach from a NT and they'll get similar results more or less.

 

[Halladay]

2014 he advanced in a group despite having the least amount of talent. And they should've beat Belgium.

Gold Cup was bad, agreed.

2016 - Argentina ran through everyone that tournament (until that final and awful Rojo red card), no shame in getting destroyed by arguably the best national team in the world at the time. Besides, I did not expect USMNT to get out of their group in that tournament anyways (Columbia, Paraguay).

USA don't have great players that play significant roles on European teams. Their issue is talent. They can bring in Jogi, Conte or any other coach from a NT and they'll get similar results more or less.

Their issue when they get to the World Cup is talent, not in CONCACAF. The fact of the matter is the players have quit on him, and when that happens it is time to get rid of the coach (happens in every sport). Not sure they qualify with him as the manager.

 

[kabidjan18]

Their issue when they get to the World Cup is talent, not in CONCACAF.

Spot on.

USMNT generally overperforms against talented rosters and underperforms against less talented rosters. A lot of this has to do of course with being in a transition between old stars and newer talent, and really talented teams have a hard time with cohesiveness in international play because of how little time they get to spend together. When you don't have options, ironically when you're forced to play the same players you complain about all the time, the players begin to gel. Costa Rica's starting 11 was an average of 29.8 years old. The Costa Rican 14 have a combined 120 caps more than the American 14, that's on average 11 games per player, that's a lot more time together. Meanwhile, the England side that beat Scotland had an adjusted 107 caps less than the American side, so maybe 10 games a player. Obviously this isn't always the case. There's a point where pure skill outwits cohesiveness, but with this Cost Rica team you have a golden generation (Ruiz, Borges, Bolanos, Azofiefa, formerly Diaz) on the last leg of it's journey, top to bottom an extremely old team, that in a few years won't be relevant because they'll lack both talent and chemistry, while the US is in that transition spot between phasing out players that will not be relevant in 2 years and introducing players who need to be cohesive in 2 years.

 

[Ugmo]

Klinsmann still not fired. Come on Sunil, get your finger out.

 

[Ugmo]

2014 he advanced in a group despite having the least amount of talent. And they should've beat Belgium.

They got badly outplayed by everyone except for one half against Portugal and were incredibly lucky to advance. Belgium would have been a massacre but for an inhuman performance by Tim Howard. I lot of people (me included) would argue that Klinsmann's decisions made it more difficult for us to succeed in Brazil and that we did so (such that it was) despite him, not because of him.

2016 - Argentina ran through everyone that tournament (until that final and awful Rojo red card), no shame in getting destroyed by arguably the best national team in the world at the time. Besides, I did not expect USMNT to get out of their group in that tournament anyways (Columbia, Paraguay).

This is true, there is no shame in getting beaten, or even destroyed by Argentina. There is shame in fielding a scared, old, play-it-safe lineup that didn't even manage to get a single shot off on goal.

USA don't have great players that play significant roles on European teams. Their issue is talent. They can bring in Jogi, Conte or any other coach from a NT and they'll get similar results more or less.

As others have said, this has nothing to do with that. People aren't complaining because Klinsmann isn't able to compete with Argentina and Germany consistently (although he was specifically hired to make progress in that area). People are complaining because now even the crappy teams in our crappy region seem like a challenge for us. He's had some highlights, but far more and far lower lowlights, and we've made zero progress during his tenure. When you hire a guy to elevate the program and he instead somehow manages to make it worse, it's time for him to go (and any serious soccer nation would have fired him long ago).

 

[hockeykicker]

is usa in trouble of not qualifying or is it way too early to think that?

 

[bleedblue1223]

is usa in trouble of not qualifying or is it way too early to think that?

Still way too early, but they are in the hole.

 

[Savant]

is usa in trouble of not qualifying or is it way too early to think that?

Costa Rica, Mexico and USA are the three best teams in the group. In a vacuum. Losing two games is bad but in context it's not catastrophic. They do have work to do though.

 

[NJDevs26]

Klinsmann as a coach is bad enough, but Klinsmann as the technical director and czar of US Soccer is a disaster. Whatever you want to say about Klinsmann's tenure as a coach, they've gone backwards in every metric even besides the national team with failing to qualify for the Olympics and other U- tournaments and not developing the younger players, especially the younger homegrown (re: non dual-national) players.

And honestly Klinsmann might be out already (after the Gold Cup or the Copa America at the latest) if John Brooks doesn't score against Ghana.

 

[Moncherry]

2014 he advanced in a group despite having the least amount of talent. And they should've beat Belgium.

Uh, what? USA making it to extra-time was miraculous. Belgium completely dominated that game.

 

[Brock Anton]

Yeah, Wondo only had the chance to win that because of Howard. Take his performance away and Belgium wins that match like 4-0.

 

[Brock Anton]

**** this guy, seriously.

“I’m not afraid,” Klinsmann said. “What you need to do is stick to the facts. Soccer is emotional, and a lot of people make conclusions without knowing anything about the inside of the team or the sport. I still believe we will get the points we need to qualify, and I am even confident we could win the group.”

He added: “The fact is, we lost two games. There is a lot of talk from people who don’t understand soccer or the team.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/sports/jurgen-klinsmann-national-team.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1