Containment zone: the Klinnsman / Donovan fault line

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by DHC1, Dec 2, 2018.

  1. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We don't have a 1 to 1 comparison because Jurgen jumped the gun on the cuts. It was silly to cut before one friendly.
     
  2. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    That is your opinion. My opinion is that it was a gutsy decision that paid off. Selecting the team early gave him more time to get the 23 he selected prepared for the world cup. Again, the team he selected was cohesive and fought for each other.
     
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  3. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    You dont seem to have any understanding of team dynamics.

    It was distracting to people like you. Davis was horrible but we got the result we needed. Portugal needed to win by four and Ghana needed to win by one to match our goal differential. The former was unlikely and the latter is interesting. According to people here it was obvious that the team that tied Ghana. If that was true, them beating Portugal was very unlikely. If it wasnt, please stop acting like us beating them wasnt a huge accomplishment.
     
  4. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It’s not just about the fact that they didn’t get along. If Donovan is undermining him with the media or his teammates then it makes it harder for him to coach them. He had a decision to make and made it. Like it or not he achevied a very favorable result without LD in a group that no one expected us to get out of, LD playing or not.
     
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  5. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    In part thanks to Klinsmann Donovan had the ideal departure: he played a last tournament where he dominated like no other American field player has ever dominated in another tournament, went out without losing in the World Cup since he wasn't there, had an amazing last season with the Galaxy where everybody was watching & he was petty enough to make the guys who went to Brazil look useless game after game, and managed a perfect hat-trick in the play-offs.

    The only thing missing were scoring against Ecuador and having stats in the final against the Revs, but otherwise it was an amazing ending to his career. Very fun to watch. I think that was the peak for MLS viewership too.
     
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  6. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    It is fitting that he went out dominating a small regional tournament that he never had before and showing that he could turn it off as much as on in a lower tier league.

    Of course, it didnt end there. He was little help in his return to the Galaxy and went for a money grab down in Mexico where he didnt really even play.

    Do you think he was jealous of Jones being a Champions League player because he clearly wasnt? Is that why you denigrate CP or just that he is already more talented than LD ever was?

    I was always pretty indifferent to LD. I appreciated his good moments and annoyed when he decided to not show up. It is his fans like you that disgust me. LD could have been something special but he chose the easy way out. No problem with that. It the folks around here that pump him up to be something he wasnt, ignore all of his shortcomings and criticize other players. Here is a so call "low IQ" player... of course there are mistakes, but nothing resembling the criticism you and these other guys pile on.

     
  7. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What's the evidence of Landon undermining?

    I saw Landon working like a mule to get Klinsman the only thing he ever won. The usage was crazy for a player of his age and experience.
     
  8. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You seem emotional about this. I was never a big personal fan of Landon. As a sports fan, I am only as loyal as my options. We simply didn't have better options on the field at the time. No amount of imaginary dissent by Landon makes the variety platter of old, injured, slow, immature Landon replacements better soccer players.

    A player I really do like is Jozy. If Weah and Sargent push him aside, such is life.

    The problem is that Landon wasn't beat on the field, he was eliminated by a bad manager.
     
  9. schrutebuck

    schrutebuck Member+

    Jul 26, 2007
    Yep. With the exception of Pulisic, Donovan is only US star helped by the fiasco of a 2018 cycle.

    Donovan avoided having to bail out the U.S. again and again as he got older in the 2018 cycle, and Klinsmann allowed him to escape the fate of Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, and DaMarcus Beasley, who unfortunately have fingerprints on the 2 biggest US Soccer failures of the 2000s. The same failed locker room leadership in May 2014 led the team all the way until October 2017.

    And Donovan had already achieved the impossible in winning a trophy for Jurgen Klinsmann.
     
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  10. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    And Donovan will be remembered as the guy who qualified us for Brazil with his goal and his assist, too.

    Frankly, things ended for him as if it were scripted for a direct to DVD movie.
     
  11. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We need a 30 for 30!
     
  12. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Would 100% tune in for that one.

    Don’t think Donovan would like it tho. Paints him as very very petty. While he had every right to be upset, petty isn’t a good look on anyone. While LDs omission more than likely has some pettiness from JK involved he can still come off and justify it with the results he got in the tournament. Would be very very interested to see what some of the players that were there thought, saw.
     
  13. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It’s not about what he’s saying to the media. It’s about what he’s saying to his teammates. If he’s consistently questioning the coaches tactics in practice that’s all it takes. He questioned them all tournament and blamed the coach not the players for why we lost. Some of that is obviously him being petty and I understand why but if you don’t think the two of them were being petty to each other before that then idk what to say. Either way there are several legitimate reasons why JK left LD our if the side. Doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not.
     
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  14. schrutebuck

    schrutebuck Member+

    Jul 26, 2007
    Very smart by Donovan to focus on the real problem. I have no problems with how Donovan handled 2014 at all.

    I do think his decision in 2018 was poor, and he could have handled it more smartly. One irony, however, is that US Soccer screwed Donovan over for a second straight World Cup, because Klinsmann and Arena directing the US to disaster forced Fox Sports to slash its World Cup coverage, which cost Donovan his job as the third man in the lead commentary team.

    I've generally thought that this financial hit is what prompted Donovan to do his 6 month return in 2018 for Club Leon. If the US qualified for 2018, then Donovan's commercials for the tournament would have gone in a different direction too.
     
  15. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Here’s the place to lob in JK talk so.....

    The Nagbe/ATL demands makes me re-think the “discussions” between JK and DN in the beginning of the Hex.

    Just sayin’
     
  16. schrutebuck

    schrutebuck Member+

    Jul 26, 2007
    I'd say Nagbe has a clear cut case to win a raise in MLS. He came into Atlanta and immediately made a difference. How many midfielders in MLS have started for two league champions in the last 5-6 seasons?

    The bigger issue for Nagbe is that MLS doesn't necessarily translate to the U.S. We'll see if Berhalter wants to go in a different direction.
     
  17. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    The idea Donovan was needed for us to qualify is as silly as him being genius.

    He should be remembered for everything he did and didnt do. He should be remembered for 50+ goals and assists, average MLS teams he led, and his two stints at Everton. He also helped a poor league who desperately needed help.

    He should also be remembered for an underachieving player who avoid challenging situations and melted in some big situations. He failed miserably in Germany three times. He may have had the worst game ever played in the Champions League. He hid on the field all the time, but that night against Liverpool was astonishing. It made his game against Ghana in 2006 look pretty good.

    He also made people think MLS was an acceptable place for american players to spend their careers. He could have been transformational for our players and lead a wave of kids going to Europe, but instead we had to wait 15 years for Cristian Pulisic.
     
  18. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    He was eliminated for decisions he made.
     
  19. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Lol, no. Nothing he did was smart. It was petty and done to be petty. He wasn’t trying to do anything insightful. The team did well. Yes we got embarrassed by Belgium. But we were in position to win at the end of the game against a vastly superior side. Tactically playing compact in the middle and letting our width come from our backs was a smart decison. Jozy and AJs injuries didn’t help. LD was petty and not pointing at JK for any reason other than he was left out of the side. Look I was completely against his renewal for a second term and thought it was foolish to give it pre WC at that. Don’t get revisionist with LDs comments tho.
     
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  20. schrutebuck

    schrutebuck Member+

    Jul 26, 2007
    I remember things a little differently. It was great for Tim Howard, as he had to set a Guinness world record for number of saves in a match. It's why I've always felt more sorry for Wondolowski than angry at him.

    Interesting that you mention Johannsson - it would have been great to know that Aron Johannsson was carrying an injury heading into the World Cup! We could have replaced him with a true champion, a locker room leader, a Grown Ass Man. Or we would have replaced him with the best US soccer player of all time.

    The only way Donovan's comments aren't acceptable is if you think US Soccer shouldn't aspire to be a world power. The ultimate irony is that guys like Donovan had to deal with this in their entire career, while Jurgen Klinsmann demands accountability and then whimpers at the slightest hint of criticism.
     
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  21. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Landon wasn't anywhere as vocal or nasty as any other big league American athlete would be in his position.
     
  22. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You are not sounding like an objective observer here.

    Germany was pretty embarrassing too.

    Blowing the lead against Portugal in the 95th was kind of embarrassing.

    Playing MB every minute was pretty bad too.

    There was a lot of room for criticism.
     
  23. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    What a guy...

    More than a month after being cut from the United States men’s national team in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup, Landon Donovan keeps casting his long shadow over the team.

    His ouster from the United States was controversial and largely inexplicable and remains both of those things now. The relationship between head coach Jurgen Klinsmann and American soccer’s golden boy has always been complicated. But the German manager has seemed to be vindicated in making this strange choice by the unexpected success the USA has had here in Brazil in getting out of the Group of Death with a series of scrappy results.

    In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, however, Donovan was quoted as saying he had rooted against the USA right after his May 21 ostracizing from the team. "I’ll be completely honest," he told LA Times reporter Bill Plaschke. "Watching them play [in their first of three World Cup tune-up game against] Azerbaijan, inside, part of me was thinking, I hope the game doesn’t go very well today."

    "In my heart of hearts," Donovan continued, "I thought, if we get a 1-0 win and the team doesn’t perform well, that would feel good."

    The quote was typical Donovan: Disarmingly open and honest yet also crafted in a careful and cunning way. The spurned lover seeks revenge. But then, inevitably, he reports an epiphany that makes him look like the good guy after all, like the bigger person. "Then the next day I woke up and said to myself, that’s a really crappy way to feel," Donovan told the LATimes. "That’s a bad way to live your life, it doesn’t help me, it doesn’t help the team, it doesn’t help the energy that the team needs."

    From a disgruntled former employee, which is what Donovan ultimately is, these sentiments aren’t terribly surprising, of course. They are striking to have come out of the mouth of a professional athlete, however. Especially when you consider that his role with that team could not yet be over.

    He had practically said, between the lines, that his motivational issues — one of the things creating the friction between himself and Klinsmann — made his long-term picture cloudy. It seemed for all the world like this would be his last World Cup anyway.

    By admitting so openly in such a public form, which he knew would carry his messages out to the very edges of the American soccer world, that he isn’t so enamored with the national team and its fortunes anymore, seems tantamount to Donovan abdicating any future role on the team.

    Or it’s just Landon being Landon, a player too honest for his own good, who says things that not everybody would like to hear, which may well be the reason he isn’t on the team right now in the first place. And might never be again.

    https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/st...nst-united-states-after-world-cup-snub-062914
     
  24. 50/50 Ball

    50/50 Ball Member+

    Sep 6, 2006
    USA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #149 50/50 Ball, Feb 10, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
    Why is Landon supposed to be a quiet sufferer? Jurgen loudly talked crap. He's the one who asked for public harrasment.

    Edit: You guys must be Buddhist or something.I am not so good a person.

    I would have gone on sustained and vitriolic public campaign against Jurgen. I would have talked about him so much he might have wanted to fight.
     
  25. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    To use your words, “you seem emotional about this”.
     
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