I like Alvarado, but I've noticed among those who don't like him, there are many demanding Gonzo in his place. Both are of Mexican descent. The "xenophobia" & "nativism" narrative seems almost forced. Down this road, we may fail to qualify for Russia and people will be calling anyone asking for JK's ouster a "xenophobe." We're going down a very bad road, guys.
Oh please. In the last several posts on the previous page of this thread, you have A poster bashing Klinsmann for purported favoritism towards foreign-born players An attempt to graft Alvarado into that group as "not foreign-born but is a dual national playing abroad." Another poster dismissing the excellent contingent of Anglo-Jamaican dual nationals as a "bunch of British mercenaries" and then another poster agreeing with the characterization and adding the claim that they're no good. If you're not getting the xenophobic tone of that, you're not paying much attention.
Hey, look. The Klinsmann-bashers have discovered a new rhetorical strategy ... 1. Post xenophobic crap. 2. Post more xenophobic crap until someone points it out. 3. Whine about how others are objecting to their xenophobia.
Seriously? More like wondering why it is he's being given the extreme benefit of the doubt by Klinsmann over MLS-based players. It has less to do with his dual citizenship than where he happens to be playing, IMO.
You're ********ing precious. Never mind that of all the foreign born/based players in the squad only a few have been mentioned, two of whom are inexperienced and showing it, and the other who basically quit the team for awhile and hasn't shown he's that worthy of repeated call ups since he's been back.
You're the one who brought up Alvarado's dual citizenship, pal. In any case, between Wondo, Davis, Gordon, Beckerman, and Evans, there are plenty of players who have beaten out competition under Klinsmann and also pass whatever purity test you and the other xenophobes care to apply.
Remember when crying was a thing for USMNT fans? JK's lack of sentimentality shat all over some really good crying possibilities.
Instead of persisting in your childish "your argument" bullcrap, why not address the actual topic at hand? Do you believe that Klinsmann shows favoritism towards players who are (a) foreign-born? (b) foreign-raised? (c) dual nationals? (d) foreign-based? (e) mercenaries? (f) any other sub-category of citizen that you and your fellow bashers have been putting forward and then trying to blame others for?
I think Klinsmann shows favoritism to players that he rates, which is something that the does rather idiosyncratically, sometimes with insight, and at other times he gets it wrong. It also would seem that he has a tendency to rate "soldiers" over "thinkers," those who "drink the kool-aid," and either don't question him, or are too grateful to question him. Further, I believe that this is getting to be a real problem. As for the other crap, well, it shows pretty well where your head is at. I'm not surprised at all. And you're apparently not as observant of other posters as you think you are. P.S. I've never been a Klinsmann basher. I've always been a Klinsmann skeptic, and I've gladly given him his due when he's proven worthy. Until this past year, as poor and occasionally horrible as his mistakes were, his better decisions were still in the majority, and the results were still there, if only just. It's just that at this point, after one full cycle, he's proven himself to be the wrong man to continue to coach us. The results are no longer there. We're in our worst state in well over a decade, the worst really since Arena took over for Sampson. He should not have this job anymore, and we would be much better off with someone more competent to lead at this point. Further, it's quite obvious that if he were anyone other than Jürgen Klinsmann, he would've been fired already.
Jamaica's 2013 squad was a decent team, a hex team, and nothing more (good enough to get to the hex, not good enough to have hoped to do more than squeeze into 4th place on GD and, ultimately, only able to secure 6th place). That team was beaten handily at home by the USA in the latter stages of the Hex (2-0). The team that beat the USA in the 2015 GC Semis is significantly better than that 2013 squad, so it is reasonable to suspect that the handy victory at home (2-0) obtained against that 2013 team would be substantially more difficult to obtain today. I don't think "British Mercenaries" is an apt description. All of the players are Jamaicans (people with actual historical and blood links to the island), and, unlike most actual mercenaries, they're not getting much in return for their service (unlike the USA, Jamaica cannot offer them substantial remuneration for their service nor can it provide highly lucrative sponsorship opportunities for further compensation). As for their not being particularly good, well, that's debatable. There's no Raheem Sterling in that group, but there are two solid EPL players (one of whom is a team captain) involved and several more who are either among the best at what they do in the English second tier or young with enough upside and displayed quality to be considered certain future EPL players. This is not a bad group of players at all and had they all had any American ties as opposed to Jamaican ones I'm quite confident that more than one would have been featuring for the stars and stripes.
Your tone on the last page was awfully shrill for a skeptic. Full credit to you for a generally more reasonable response in your most recent post, though. To the extent that the current US team -- which has 1 loss in its last 11 games -- is in any sort of crisis, I think it's due chiefly to a decline in our high-end talent, and in that I include Altidore's terrible Gold Cup form, which is hopefully just a temporary decline. The notion crashing out of GC is lower than the lows we had in 2012, 2011, 2009, 2006, 2001, or 2000 is subjective at best.
Well...to be fair, he didn't lie about his reasons for doing so (publicity)...he just didn't state them . SMH, that decision makes no sense whatsoever. Wasn't part of the reason for hiring JK that he would bring a bigger spotlight to the USMNT? Then why did he have to manufacture publicity in the way he did? Maybe you're not as big a deal as you think you are JK (though you did try to make the team all about you by cutting Landon in the way that you did, but people saw through it and saw the real you, instead).
Yet,if he could coach his way out of a paper bag,few would care about the lying and grandstanding. Some of the best American sporting managers are notorious for having horrid personae.
That's a good point to highlight, but at the same time, one of Klinsmann's strengths when he first came in is that he didn't have as many favorites/un-favorites as our previous coaches had. As he tries to assemble a post-Jones midfield, he needs to keep all of his options on the table.
They key for me, is he's able to let go. Look at Torres early on. He gave him all the chances in the world to prove himself, and he never quite could prove to be the level Klinsmann thought he was. He's shown that yes, he like all coaches has players he has faith in, but he's not afraid to cut the cord on them if they can't hang. Jozy is another recently. How many coaches in the past would send home their best striker for someone else? Not many...
There is a pattern of him seeing MLS players as rather discardable. 1. He approaches them for NT duty only after there is a clamor from everywhere, and when their in-form period is coming to an end; 2. He gives them a shot or two, and doesn't make them a consistent part of the pool. In general, players from European clubs or those who played there seem to have higher status. Those from MX come after, but get solid runs (like Garza) even when showing nothing great. MLS players come last, with some exceptions (Evans, Beckerman, Zusi, Wondo, Gonzalez). Guys like Kitchen, Trapp, Nguyen, Agudelo, etc. Taking for example Bunbury: the guy was getting integrated into the program by Bradley. Klinsmann just had two looks at him (2' vs. Venezuela, 15' vs. Panama), Teal played fine, even had an assist in those 17', then he failed with the rest of the team in the Olympic qualifiers, and since Klinsmann forgot about him. That's typical of his attitude to MLS guys. In a way, with so many of them called for a cameo, we could say he has expanded the pool faster than ever. But since it's just cameos and seldom happen when the guy is in form, it comes across as a waste of time. How many young guys we _really_ know, for the NT, at this point? New guys integrated since JK came onto the scene are far too few. Calling them up for a cameo, then forgetting about them... sorry, looks like going nowhere fast.
Duh. That goes without saying. (I seriously can't believe that people would even both repping that statement. THAT shows just how partisan this is.) What makes Klinsmann unusual is how idiosyncratic his favorites are. Those idiosyncracies are getting in the way at this point. Three more years of this is a bad thing.
I don't know if I really buy the argument that Klinsmann has a hierarchy based upon where the guys play. I think a bigger problem is that he did not respect the Gold Cup. Instead of going with a proven combo that actually knows each other, he continually tossed out a young, inexperienced center back duo that had no familiarity with each other, I'm guessing because he expects them to be playing in Russia. Maybe Alvarado and Brooks do have more upside that Besler and Gonzalez, but the latter pair is clearly better right now, and he should have been using that duo to actually try to win this tournament. He treated the Gold Cup as a bunch of friendlies, and that is a problem. I don't see Garza's opportunities as any sort of evidence of bias toward European and MX experience. That guy just happens to play a position that every country on the planet usually has trouble filling. We haven't had even one reliable, lockdown fullback since Cherundolo. Of course different guys are going to get looks out there.