Klinsman..."the picture on me is incomplete"

let me put it a different way:

3 of the players who JK helped the most - in terms of helping their careers progress - were absent from this latest round of qualifying. the significant thing to me isnt whetther they woudlve made it where they are without jk - i think all 3 are further along in their careers b/c of him - its that 3 of his biggest successes were absent.

that wood is right back at training after the 2 matches does little to ease my initial thought to perhpas connect the jk success stories to their absences from the last games. not saying he stayed out of the matches as a protest of loyalty to JK....just that him getting right back to training doesnt exactly make me wanna forget the original thought either.

 

Oh please. We had the World Cup champion and the Euro champion in our group, along with our archrival.

 

Last night was a serious step back in time to 1990s college soccer tactics. It worked, but it was ugly. Klinsmann had us playing modern soccer.

 

and losing 4-0 to Costa Rica.

 

I will give you the fact that last night was far from pretty, In fact it was ugly, however I can't see how you can say we were playing "modern" soccer under Klinsmann.

 

hahahaha, OK Juergen! Modern soccer?

 

Ghana was a mess coming into the cup. Players almost didn't play over pay disputes.

Portugal had an injured Ronaldo. Pepe was red carded vs Germany and couldn't play against us. And they were pretty gutted by a 4-0 thrashing from Germany in that first game. A score that would prove significant.

Germany coasted in our game. We showed nothing. Nothing. If they had wanted to they probably could have run up a score like they did against Brazil. And that would have changed the goal differential that we needed to break the second place tie w/ Portugal.

On paper at the time of the draw, yes. By the time our group started play it was NOT a group of death.

 

Did you actually watch the tournament and see how it played out? Because that group was far more difficult on paper after the draw than it played out. We played a Ghana team starting to fall apart internally and a busted-ass Portugal with a half crocked Ronaldo.

Germany beat us with one hand behind their backs (we had 9% possession after like 30 minutes in the 1st half) and had Ghana unscrewed themselves we would have been KO'd after being on target to qualify after 2 games before Mr. Modern Soccer completely screwed up stoppage time against POR.

 

I've resigned myself to the fact that every away CONCACAf qualifier form here out will look like a 1990s college soccer game no matter how good we become.

 

Bingo!

 

Kyle Martino's first podcast has a lot of information on Klinsmann vs Arena.

Pretty much matches my view. Interest in some of Klinsmann's methods. Recognition of his skill identifying talent. Appalled at his player management. Relief that Arena is aboard now.

https://audioboom.com/channel/that-s-a-dive-with-kyle-martino
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/thats-a-dive-with-kyle-martino/id1217624465?mt=2

 

Well, when you throw your vets under the bus on a regular basis, create an unstable locker room, leave home obvious starting 11 players during the world cup, and have a giant ego to feed the obvious route is to patch the holes with starry eyed youth and buy respect with minutes. While he found us a few gems (Wood, Morris, and Yedlin) he also crapped out on a few and left some players in the cold during their prime.
There is room for debate with Pulisic as to whether JK's inclusion of him in the USMNT brought chances at Dortmund, I would lean towards Pulisic creating his own chances at club.
Final point being that JK is a giant ass hat

 

I think you confuse "modern" with "new age". One is where you create team specific strategies, defined roles and tactics, drill and practise with given team in mind, and execute plan on game day with plan B, C, and D in your back pocket.
I believe you meant to say, "Klinsmann had us playing new age soccer" where you prepare for games through guided meditation, visualisation, and your pre game training and tactics formulations consist of phrases like "make stuff happen" and "go out there and get nasty".

 

lol . . .

Modern soccer?

Historic losses due to tragically inept leadership?

1. Our 2015 Gold Cup semifinal loss to Jamaica was the first to a Caribbean team on home soil since 1969.

2. The March loss to Guatemala was the first defeat at the hands of Los Chapines since 1988.

3. The United States loss to Mexico on November 11 was our first home World Cup qualifying loss to this rival since 1972.

4. Our 4-0 loss to Costa Rica four days later was the worst shutout loss in qualifying in more than three decades.

The spirited 6-0 thrashing of Honduras was as fun a match to watch as I have seen in years. The 1-1 draw down in Panama was a street fight we needed a point out of to have a chance for qualifying. This was following an 0-2 record in the Hex with a last place start.

If you are holding up style points as some sort of weird barometer barometer, you have a bad memory of the abysmal results above, the recent Gold Cup performance where we were outshot (modern soccer?) by each of our opponents, save Cuba. Or the Copa America semi-final, where we failed to get a shot off (off???) on our home soil.

I'm not sure which matches you watched, but the suggestion of proactive soccer was an undelivered pipe dream.

 

Away qualifiers sucked under Arena, sucked under Bradley, sucked under Jurgen, and lo and behold they are going to suck again under Arena.

Travel on short rest, heat and humidity, crappy fields, crappy referees, and a hostile fan base...

Lead to a US approach to defend first, conserve energy, and snag a goal or two on the counter or a set piece. Only problem is our opponent typically looks to do the same (defend first and counter)...

So you get 90 minutes of boring, punctuated by a few seconds of goal-scoring chances when someone makes a mistake. It's a slog, and goalkeeping can turn a game.

All that said, for pure entertainment value, I'd take 90s college soccer in a heartbeat.

 

Away games in WCQs are always laborious affairs for top teams in any region.

France tied Belarus 0-0 away, for example. And Australia had to work hard to get a point in Thailand(!).

Home turf weighs a lot. Not only in C-CAF.

 

I'm not saying this to defend Klinsmann, it's just, you do realize that the flight time to Rio from Kansas City (middle of U.S.) to Rio is slightly longer than Lisbon to Rio, right?

And, that the Southern Hemisphere is "the other side of the world" from the Northern, same as Western / Eastern?

 

The advantage was not travel time/distances, but the fact that historically, European teams do not perform as well in World Cups outside of Europe. The US historically has more success in World Cups held outside of Europe.

 

Why the hell should MLS listen to a failed consultant for one of its worst team?

 

Yeah, I think the only specific idea Herzog mentions is that MLS shouldn't sign so many older DPs, which may or may not be good advice, but it's hardly the cutting-edge insight of some visionary.

 

Good article. Herzog came across as a real mensch, not bitter and neither bashing MLS nor slavishly backing JK.

In the way of a JK criticism of MLS, Herzog did give the example of MLS's bringing in too many aging, high-priced Euro-based players.

 

Average DP age is like 27. That's a lazy-assed analysis.

 

When did JK make the criticism? Think.

The average age of a DP was 34 in 2008. That average has come down to 28 this season. The league has moved in the direction of JK's thinking. No one is claiming JK offered genius-level insight.

https://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2017/03/02/mls-designated-players-changes-retirement-league