The Bradley to Klinsmann transition is complete. (r)

Not sure I get Lloyd's comment, but if it's directed at me, I guess guilty as charged. When folks like to say stuff like "We'd have never seen a performance like this under BB," it gets me fired up. Sorry.

Call me human.

Completely understandable. There is nothing wrong with admitting that you find it difficult to temper your emotions when it comes to family members. You'd have to be freakishly robotic not to.

I think the Scotland result was one sort of test; Brazil will be another. As I said previously, we're likely to encounter a team of Scotland's quality in the World Cup. We'll probably encounter two or so of them in the Hex (and at least one or two of the remaining Hex teams will be inferior). Putting aside away qualifiers, which tend to be a whole different beast, I think this result gives some encouraging indication that a set-up like this could allow us to boss the midfield and still generate attacks against these types of teams. Of course we'd need more data points to see if this type of approach is repeatable against teams of similar quality but differing styles and tactical setups, and perhaps greater motivation.

Brazil will be another test. I'm not entirely sure how strong an U-23 Brazil squad is (oftentimes it's not clear until a couple years later when most of the players we lined up against are now starting for elite clubs or the full national team), but I imagine you wouldn't want to use the exact same type of approach against them. But that doesn't necessarily preclude such an approach from being useful against many of the other quality opponents we're likely to face this cycle.

What I'd be most curious to see is whether an approach like that could work against teams of roughly our quality, since we're likely to face at least one such side in the World Cup (potentially even in the knockout stage as it so happened to be the case in 2002 and 2010) and during qualifying. Unfortunately, I don't think this "summer tournament" includes such a side, so we're probably going to have to wait and see with that.

I also remember him going out of the 2001 match with a jacked up face, often unavailable for some qualifiers due to club commitments and/or injuries, getting ejected in Costa Rica and being rather pedestrian in the Mexico leg of 2005. If we could only jut remember all of those handful of games were he lived up to the billing (when available), you'd almost forget he was a dime a dozen holding mid for any European country and not America's #10 Shirt for Life

I posted this in the Klinsmann coaching thread also...

For me it's not about the result or scoreline - as impressive as that was. It's that I saw feats of individual skill and precise combination play that I didn't think our players were capable of because I hadn't seen it executed before.

I don't know how it is that Jurgen has the team playing precise passes to the proper foot of the recipient which enable an acceleration rather than a deceleration of the next play. How the wide ball to Donovan zips cleanly to his forward foot so he can easily play his next pass without slowing down - when (regardless of the passer) that ball used to bounce slowly to his backfoot, putting him under pressure. I don't know how Bocanegra got the ability to pass to feet much more confidently. I don't know how Torres went from rather aimless supporting movements and passes to dynamic slashing, incisive ones. I'm sure Bob coached these things too as any coach would - but something has happened at the individual and group play levels that are translating very positively at the team level.

And [dumb and dumber voice impression]...I like it alot.[/dumb and dumber voice impression]

You know what is most interesting about this (bolded by me), is that it will be extremely difficult for any manager - until we have a revolution in player talent - to beat Bob's list of achievements.

What more can JK do beyond this:
- Gold Cup winners
- Qualified #1 in region for WC
- Broke Spain's (considered among the greatest teams ever) unbeaten run, in a tournament knock out game
- Runner up in Confed Cup, giving Brazil all they could handle in the final
- WC Group winners, advancing to knock-out phase

So realistically, Klinsmann has to accomplish the above as a baseline for success. But I'm not sure we can reasonably expect any more than that either. This means that his success, beyond that, will be the public's perception that the program is moving forward. For example, a win at Azteca would be awesome, but realistically we won't need it to achieve our goals . . . . which is how I see this Scotland game.

Actually, I see this Scotland game as the net result of (-) Danny Williams and (+) Landon Donovan.

Well we had that in the Costa Rica game and got beat 0-1.

Donovan was obviously class, but i don't think we beat Scotland 5-1 because he played instead of Williams. First, we beat Italy with Williams (I know, he was probably the weak link, but still). But too many other lineup changes, too many other brilliant performances (Jones, Bradley, Torres) to narrow it down to just Donovan.

Completely agree.

Its about what happened in the game... not the result.

We are starting to finally see a team that isn't affraid of keeping possession, passing it around, and playing a more touch and go style.

Even vs. Italy we saw it, and they had our backs against a wall for most of the match.

Not at you.

You are not knocking BB to make JK look good, or vice versa. See, for example, the statement you quoted.

To elaborate: It seems many people here can not praise a coach without disparaging another. Same with players. If you like Dempsey, it is not necessary to knock Donovan. If you like Jones, it is not necessary to knock Bradley. If you like Klinsi, it is not necessary to knock BB.

It's like Highlander around here... There can be only one!

This post is outstanding while the one you responded to sucks donkey balls.

I assume you are referring to the post Jeff quoted, and not his, because there was nothing wrong with his, he just misunderstood my point.

And I liked (and repped) both of these posts.

your previous post was awesome, but this one sucks donkey balls

This is why I'm believing that this game is something of an indicator. Not the 5-1 scoreline. That obviously won't happen every match. And not the way we were so consistently dangerous all through the match until we took our foot off the gas late. There are good days and bad days and this was definitely one of the very good days, aided by a lot of things being in our favor (a Scottish team playing in heat and taking it lightly with a major tactical flaw in their gameplan, playing us without a DM, while our team is getting hungry ready to play Brazil and two qualifiers, etc.).

But like you said, even in the Italy match, where they had much more possession and could push us back, even then, we were able to pick our spots to be able to play the ball out of the back with purpose, and when situations opened up and somebody made a good play, we could create real danger.

We won't be able to dictate the match for 90 minutes against the top teams yet. We will have to sit back a bit when we're the clear underdog. But we should be able to create and take our chances with a bit more purpose now, even against those teams, and not be afraid of the ball even when it's a team like Brazil or Italy or whoever. That's what I'm looking for against Brazil tomorrow. If we can do more-or-less what we did against Italy tomorrow, that's still a good sign, even if we end up losing 2-1 or something.

A lot went right Saturday night, but we made a lot of that "good luck" happen. Rather than getting too worked up (and thinking that we might actually deserve that #6 in the world ranking ), look at this game as a standard to which we will judge future matches. Many times this team has shown an ability to play at a higher level. The issue has always been doing that consistently. Well . . . two in a row now. Keep it going.

Is someone calling Klinsmann the great inspirer? Is anyone predicting the semis in the next World Cup? Because that was the line of crazytalk after the Mexico win.

What do you think the appropriate reaction is after a big win like this?

I'm a long time US Soccer fan. Beating teams like this doesn't happen that often. We have our share of disappointment. I think we can celebrate a good win where we played well without thinking we're on our way to toppling Spain.

While this is a fair point, it does make me wonder wtf I'm supposed to do with the 20,000 stars & stripes t-shirts I had made that all say, "USMNT May 2012: We're Gonna Topple Spain!"

Knew I shoulda waited until after the Brazil game to have those printed. Stupid, Grumpy, stupid.

Good post. Couldn't have said it better mytself. I think we'll have abetter showing vs. Brasil this time around than we did vs. them last time when Neymar showed the world what he could do at the NT level.

I think its fair to say that I have a short and selective memory when it comes to all the results in BB's era.

The point I'd [attempt to] stand by is that JK's ambition for our team is more "beautiful soccer" than what was contemplated during Bob's tenure.

Obviously, there are many reasons why this is an unfair comparison, primarily different player pools.

Furthermore, Bob, by-and-large, certainly did deliver results when it counted, something JK and his system have yet to have the opportunity to do.

That said, as a US soccer fan, I'm glad that we are trying to evolve our game a bit moreso now.

JK may prove to be overly ambitious, and maybe his era will ultimately led to setback. We shall see.

But I'm glad that we're rolling the dice a bit more now.

All of which is not a knock on what BB accomplished [which was a lot].

Nothing wrong with your copy. But on a stars and stripes design? Those never turn out well.

I was encouraged by the result but alot of what the U.S. did well against Scotland were things that U.S. teams have done well in the past. For example, the first scoring sequence started with Boyd and Torres applying high pressure deep in Scotland's portion of the field. U.S. teams under Arena often employed ball pressure high up the field and Bradley was a proponent of this as well. Also, throughout the match the U.S. looked dangerous on the counterattack. U.S. teams have generally been more dangerous against the run of play than when controlling possession. The 2009 Confederations Cup team was similarly dangerous on the break with Davies and Donovan providing most of the danger. The biggest change/improvement under Kinsmann thus far that was on display agianst Scotland was the ability to create danger in the final third. Bradley's U.S. teams often seemed to struggle to find that final killer pass or combination that would unlock a defense at the edge of the 18 yard box. Against Scotland there seemed to be no shortage of ideas among the U.S. players as to how to create chances around the 18. This may be the best evidence that Klinsmann and his staff are getting the tactics right because Bradley trotted out similar midfield lineups in the past and did not get results close to this one.

yes i was being facetious, but
a) we've played good stuff in just about every game under JK
b) we've been pretty bad in creating chances in the final third, especially on the wings
c) Donovan showed in one game what we've been clearly missing

and i firmly believe that without him, we would've maybe tied or eeked out a win. No way we would have put the whoopin on them that we did. no way. and that is with all those other guys having good games.

So in that sense, JK has the same task that BB had: get the best out of Dempsey, Donovan, Bradley, Altidore (and now Jones). Do that, lock down the d, and we'll win a lot of games.