Klinsi rejection: the real reason according to ESPN espanol this morning

Heh?

Rovers are 2 points above relegation with 23 games to go.

Even the 5. place is within reach , being 9 points back.

Almost every team is playing for something until the last 2 rounds of the season.

 

You're talking theory. As a practical matter, when Nelsen returns and replaces Ooijer, and as Nonda and McCarthy learn to play together, Rovers will improve, but not enough to qualify for Europe through league position.

 

This is very ot so I won’t spread it out.

Let me just say that teams with better players (on paper) than Blackburn have been relegated and teams with worse players(on paper) have reached Europe.

 

Its playoffs are meaningless as well but MLS needs to sell tickets and it sells tickets by emphasizing certain stars (of which there are few and far in between), so not having them for six weeks subverts its marketing, etc.

Having said that, insofar as the Copa Ameica goes, Brazil and Argentina can send their "B" teams and still have half-a-dozen of top Euros augmented by its up-n-coming home based stars. Mexico usually sends a decent squad and there's no reason to half-ass the tournament, considering that normal US practice of home scheduling the CONCACAF cupcakes.

In any case, if a coach isn't in charge of whom he selects, he isn't in charge period. I don't blame Klinsmann for saying "no mas".

 

OK, maybe bashing was too strong. Uninformed whining.

 

Didn't read all 7 pages, but maybe this is about the tight schedules on Gold Cup and Copa America?

You know all Euro players need to have a summer break, so they can only do one of them, not both. USSF wants all for Gold Cup because that is their championship for Fed. But Klinsy, an Euro guy, just says "screw it, I want my best players for Copa". We all know Copa is more prestigious from a coach's point of view, but we also know that USSF has to put Gold Cup up high, and MLS never really want to participate Copa, so a deal of limited numbers of players from every clubs, etc.

 

Klinsi, wanted to take the USMNT to the next level and treat it like in the next level. USSF want it still to be treated as a hopeless CONCACAF third world team.
I have seen governments falling for less than this, where's the g-damned pride?

 

You're talking about soccer in the United States, not Brazil.

 

Ok so let me get this straight. Klinsi backed out of the job b/c USSF &/or MLS won't let him pick the players he wants for upcoming tourneys (GC and CA)??
Is this really the situation?

What big time international coach would agree to this? So the coach is suppose to sit back and let the USSF and/or MLS tell him which players from the pool he can choose from. This is utterly and total crap. The coach should get the players he wants (stars or not; in season or not) so he can evaluate them personally and see how they work with the team, period. This is awesome PR for the fed. I'm sure coaches will be lining up to fight a bunch of red-tape crap just to get the players he wants on the field. Yeah I understand part of that comes with the job, but the coach needs the backing of the fed. to put the team together. Again what coach would step into this situation where the USSF doesn't appear to trust the coach or is going to try and make decisions for him.

Do we need the ghost of Herb Brooks (God rest his soul) to come and smack some people around for us.

Also, so what if the GC (or CA) isn't the biggest and best tourney around. If the coach wants certain players, well then by God he should get them. The US could use more cohesion/chemistry within the team of "star" players or first stringers (see WC '06). The more games the better. Other countries probably can afford to send b or c squads, b/c their first team has already played more together. We haven't even gotten together since WC '06. I would like to see some of the young talent here and abroad get their chance to prove themselves on the US squad, but that again is the coaches choice and USSF should again have his back and trust his instincts.

Well that's enough of my ranting. I'm prolly way way off base and I hope I am b/c I want the best coach the USSF can find then I want them to go to bat for him.

 

Do you have any evidence for this assertion?

 

FIFA requires that ALL players be made availble, by their clubs, for ANY FIFA sanctioned tournament involving national teams....sometimes, in the interests of harmony and national team coaches wanting to stay in good graces with club managers, they don't bring in all the top players every time....seems that JK wanted to be the one (backed by FIFA rules) who made that call....not SG or the USSAF.

 

Does FIFA require that all players be made available if a team decides to accept an invite as a guest team in another confederation's tournament?

 

Having the USSF and/or MLS tell him which players he could and couldn't pick for next summer's tournaments is only the beginning.

Once that precedent is set, where does it end?

Either the coach has control over player selection, or he doesn't.

And to make this situation even more absurd, if Bradley isn't the full USMNT coach in 2008, he (recently deposed) will then have to fight with MLS for players to go to China and also negotiate with his successor. No hard feelings, though.

 

absolutely

 

Actually, Klinsmann's the one who could have taken a page out of Herb's book. Get the job first, and then lay down the law with the Federation. That's what Herb did (if we can believe the story as told in "Miracle").

What the heck would USSF have done? Fired him after 6 months for ruffling a few MLS feathers? To me it looked like Klinsmann didn't want the job that much. Certainly not as much as Herb wanted his job.

 

Haven't read the whole thread (so forgive me if this is repetitive) but I think the premise is absurd.

The Gold Cup is our continental champtionship. Clubs are REQUIRED to release players for national team duty for it. MLS is not a factor here at all.

Now, CA is another matter (I think: since is A CONTINENTAL CUP, but not OUR'S). Still, it's in the summer, Euro's should be available.

I just don't think this passes the smell test, smells lilke Sunil spin to me and CYA.

Please, you take 5 months to hire someone and you we still end up with an "interim" coach = pathetic. Seems to me the real problem is at USSF.

 

What smells like Sunil spin? Sunil has said specifically that authority regarding player selections played no part in Klinsmann's decision to walk away.

 

right on.

another reason it doesn't jive ... CERTAINLY the player selection issue would have been discussed ad naseum to this point. SG and USSF began their discussions with JK, presumably way back in the summer. Gulati announced that we were accepting the Copa America bid quite some time ago, as well.

there is NOTHING about player selection that should have come out of left field and sabotage the deal at the 11th hour. these are issues that would have come up in the initial talks way back in August ... not on December 7th.

this is asinine posturing by the USSF ... i don't buy it.

 

Folks...

1. MLS has always released players per FIFA regulations when the US NT coach has asked for them. There is ONE example of an instance where a coach (Hankinson) wouldn't release them earlier than the FIFA deadline.

2. There are PLENTY of examples where Arena did not call up a player in order to stay in good graces with the club manager or to avoid costing a player his starting job (this was especially true for Reyna, O'Brien and Keller).

3. There are even more examples where he did not call up his best team b/c he didn't want to test player's commitment. He allowed Friedel to have a honeymoon for instance. Or gave players like Reyna, Stewart, Keller or others breaks off.

4. I am unaware of a single instance since the creation of MLS where either the league or USSF has dictated to the NT coach which players he could or could not pick. I do know of a game where most of the players on the NT came from San Jose or DC United b/c those two teams were the only MLS sides not playing that weekend. But that was by Arena's choice--he deliberately tried to use mostly SJ and DCU players. Again, I know of NO INSTANCE where MLS or USSF picked players for the coach, told him what players he could or could not pick or placed restrictions on who he could pick.

Now, that doesn't mean the coach always gets to choose the players he wants. For instance, if Bradley (or Klinsmann) had told Keller to show up to both the GC and the Copa, I think Keller might have developed a hamstring injury that requires "treatment".

I don't get where people are suddenly assuming that Gulati was insisting that all rosters decisions had to go through him or MLS was going to prohibit players from being on the team. How I interpreted the ESPN report about player selection is that Klinsmann wanted USSF to guarantee players would be available. This would mean fighting other FAs and clubs if one of them said "well, if you call up Spector that might mean he'll lose his starting job--we can't have him go for the last month of the season and still rely on him." Or pressure players who didn't want to play in both tournaments this summer.

As for the arguments about which tournament takes precedence (GC or Copa), I think those are almost entirely philosophical in nature and of little practical value to this discussion. Here's why:
--other than Landon Donovan and possibly Clint Dempsey, I can't see another American player you'd feel you MUST have in both tournaments.
--Keller is clearly our top GK but no-way he'd be willing to play in both tournaments (if he'd even want to play). So you play Howard in the Copa and Reis in the GC (or Perkins or Guzan or someone else). There's no dropoff there.
--defensively, you're not going to get Bocanegra or Gooch for both tournaments. Past those two, there are a lot of guys (Boswell, Conrad, Robinson, Califf) who could be candidates but do you really have a group (besides Black Mouth and Gooch) are are a definitive "A" defense?
--midfield, elimination Donovan and then again, it's pretty much a grab bag. Play Convey at left mid in one tournament and DMB in the other.
--forwards, please...let someone emerge!
My point is that if I had to pick a definitive "A" team, I couldn't do it (especially with Convey and DMB both dealing with injuries, Keller might take himself out). This doesn't have to be a choice between "good team to this tournament, bad team to that tournament." Instead, we could actually field two teams that are pretty competitive with other with no overlap (except for Donovan and a few Euros who won't do 2 tournies anyway).

 

Yeah you're right. Not a totally accurate analogy. Regardless, someone needs to be smacked around: JK or USSF.
oh well.

OK I'm done venting. What's done is done (or not done). For better or worse; Bradley's our coach (for now) and my support is with the team.

 

I agree that player selection couldn't have been a real issue. If Klinsi asked USSF to guarantee that certain players would be available for Copa or Gold Cup, then that would just be silly, because there is no way to compel a player to leave his club and get on the pitch...

Perhaps, Klinsmann just didn't want the job or changed his mind for unspecified reasons... Has anyone considered the possibility that USSF didn't screw up and Klinsmann just decided he didn't want the job? Its not the most exciting theory, but its not a bad one...

 

Always the people with all the facts on Big Soccer. Never jumping to conclusions and overreacting.

 

I have to agree. Neither of these guys could be THAT stubborn...

 

Who cares what Brazil or Argentina does?

For more reasons than i care to recount, it's simply not relevant to what the USMNT needs to do.