This seemed like it deserved its own thread. Didn't see one. Is Howard edging toward something ugly? Is he just calling it straight? I think he's on to something that doesn't have to be about xenophobia but is very hard to talk about respectfully. Thoughts?
It's controversial because of his previous comments in 2011 about the trophy presentation needing to be in English instead of Spanish. That and the political commentary recently on immigration, not mentioning a name but it's obvious I think. He clarified what he meant. It will all be water under the bridge and will subside if the team starts to win again. He might be talking about Chandler or Green in 2014. That's my guess. And some in the fanbase don't have a high opinion of MLS. They might find it puzzling that dual nationals, most of who developed outside of the US system wouldn't be needed. Perceived that the player abroad is better than his MLS counterpart in most cases. Not always the case. But it is to some. Some call ups like Picault, Stanko, Green who might have justified his case by scoring but it was obvious the roster spot was to cap tie him. So not limited to the kids of American soldiers in Germany. Weird call ups during the Klinsmann era. Arena's comments too. I think Arena meant we can't rely on dual-nationals and foreign FA's to develop our players for us. Howard was trying to speak more on the commitment and desire, not questioning any dual-nationals love for the country or "American-ness." This is lost in the clickbait headlines and kneejerk social media world. Definitely agree the passion and traditional US mentality was missing from Klinsmann's teams.
I guess this is the article that inspired this thread: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-speaks-out-against-jurgen-klinsmann/96689094 Let the omnishambles begin.
How many diaspora Americans had gotten over 500 minutes of game time under Klinsmann? It's not as though the team had been swamped by this group.
And more from Howard after the USA Today interview. http://www.espnfc.com/united-states...ion-in-us-team-wasnt-just-from-dual-nationals
Hey, the proof is in the pudding. Let's see what a re-invigorated USMNT looks like. Maybe they can string some positive results together and help heal the divide a little. I am going to be fair and give the new setup a shot, not just because there is no other option but because I think this team can mean a little more this year than they usually do in the year before a WC. Get that spirit of 1776 in you Timmy. We ride. .
I think it's obvious to most regular observers that the team wasn't playing the characteristic US spirit and passion since the WC. I don't know if that's because certain players were just never very committed, or Klinsmann had lost the team and various guys checked out. I'm willing to give everyone (even you, Chandler) a one-time pass to see if players look more committed and organized under Arena. Either way, I don't think it has much to do with where guys where born/raised. Like Howard says, there are foreign-born guys like Jones and Brooks who would run through the proverbial wall for this team.
I forget exactly who it is on these boards, but there's one of the regulars that will want the use of this idiom corrected. Though BSlinger has used it the way it is usually said in AmE, the expression actually is: the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. In other words, just having good ingredients isn't enough: an apt use in this context. Carry on.
Dual nationals have been part of the usmnt pool for decades. It didn't start with Klinsmann. You'd think Howard would understand that since he's also been part of the usmnt player pool for decades.
With Howard saying that his comments weren't directed at dual nationals, I wanted to recheck the original quote to see if I was reading something that wasn't there. Seems pretty clear to me that his comments were directed at foreign-raised players: “I think it slips away because you bring in … Jurgen Klinsmann had a project to unearth talent around the world that had American roots. But having American roots doesn’t mean you are passionate about playing for that country.”
If he was saying that under Jürgen some players had lost passion and motivation....fine. I don't understand the need for the foreign born or MLS centric comments. That is not very helpful in my eyes, and a little ironically divisive.
Props to Howard for getting out in the open what has long been suspected. He also mentioned this in the context that Bruce Arena would assuredly put an end to this. I believe the problem was with Klinsi.
Have you got the explicit quotes to this last assertion? i think it might be a be a bit of a stretch, given the remarks he actually made .
Since the definition of this can vary, I'll just list the prominent dual-nationals and "diaspora" Americans of Klinsmann's era. 45 players played 500 minutes for him. Germany - Jones, Johnson, Brooks, Chandler, Williams; Green played 364 minutes. Scandinavia - Diskerud, Johannsson Peru - Morales Ireland - Parkhurst (he stated early in his career that he would have been willing to play for them, if the US never called him up) America/Mexico - Gonzalez, Orozco, Gomez, Castillo, Torres, Alvarado, Corona, Garza
http://sbisoccer.com/2017/01/howard-critical-of-klinsmanns-use-of-foreign-born-players “Jurgen Klinsmann had a project to unearth talent around the world that had American roots,” Howard said. “But having American roots doesn’t mean you are passionate about playing for that country. “I know there were players that came in that it didn’t matter as much to,” Howard said. “If you get enough of those players, one or two can get found out, but if you get enough of those players you lose sight of what you are all about. While it was a good idea in theory, it had its flaws. Bruce will 100% get that back.” Howard went on to state his belief that “80 percent” of the next World Cup roster will come from MLS. The goalkeeper says there has been ” this rhetoric that has been spewed out over the last couple of years” about players heading to Europe, something which he sees changing over the coming years.
I really don't think it's too much of a stretch to read an implication of foreign born players and yanks abroad from those comments. I mean he's back-tracking them. 80% MLS players means 18-19 out of 23. I'm no eurosnob but that's ridiculous.
I question the commitment of Chandler, Gonzalez, Bradley and Altidore from the last set of qualifiers.
Well, obviously there are different degrees to which they were relied on. In the infancy of the modern age of U.S. football, they were relied on pretty heavily because we were new to the sport and didn't have depth in the middle of the pool. In the middle years they were largely phased out. Then they started to be brought back into the fold toward the end of Bradley's tenure, and that carried into Jurgen's who set the federation back to pre-modern standards in terms of both that strategy and results. Foreign-Raised Players by WC Year: 1994 - 3 1998 - 5 (of course there was the Mason + Wagner experiments outside, Sampson was big into it) 2002 - 3 (only 1 really played, that was Earnie Stewart) 2006 - 0 2010 - 0 2014 - 7 2015 GC - 6 Fateful Camp - 8 It really went crazy, and backwards, in a way, although cutting them down to zero was probably an over-correction. A couple 2-3 to fill holes in the roster would probably be a good place to be. Right now maybe 4 should make an a-team squad. They'd be Brooks, Johnson, Jones, and maybe Green. Brooks as starting CB, Johnson as starting CB, Jones as backup CM, Green as a super-sub. But that number is influenced by Jurgen attempting so much to integrate foreign-raised players sometimes at the expense of more deserving American-raised ones. That amount would more normalize to 2-3 over time. Jones is on his last legs and Green could go in either direction where he's relied on more or less, depending upon what he does for Stuttgart and then the U.S. team. CCV could elevate his status soon, if the embarrassing performances at WC qualifiers didn't chase him away.
I actually thought Chandler looked better in the Mexico game than he has in years. I was surprised when Klinsmann subbed Yedlin in for him.
That's a pretty enormous indictment of Chandler, considering when we played the 352 for the bulk of the first half, almost every successful attack started because Chandler wasn't getting back or got burned, and then they got the chance ultimately because Gonzalez couldn't match up in space. That duo was a nightmare defensively. Defenders should be judged first by their defending.
I'm equally excited about Pulisic, Carter-Vickers, Zelalem, Perez, Roldan, Morris, Manneh, Horvath, Acosta.... Nothing to do with where they play or where they were born. Maybe some of the assumptions of the older players will leave with them in the next few years.
Which dual nationals that Klinsmann brought in would not have been given an opportunity under Arena and Bradley?