http://www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol/2014/04/17/klinsmann-under-21-olympic-camp-usmnt-us-soccer hahahahahahahaha
https://www.theamericanoutlaws.com/articles/usa-is-not-missing-out-on-olympics-in-2016-u-23 hahahahahahahah
This is the most pessimistic I've felt about US soccer since I started following religiously back in 2002. Gold Cup, Guat L, failing to qualify for 2 straight Olympics. The promised progression of our MNT & youth improvement is nowhere to be seen. There has to be light at the end of the tunnel but I just don't see it. I just don't see us improving in the short-term & this Centanario has the potential to be when the sh!+ finally hits the fan
Last year was a long humiliation. This year shapes up to be a long and merciless humiliation. We are now told to be proud of being able to match what we could do 40 years ago.... .... Our "leadership" no longer pretends to care.
I think they should fire him before the hex starts. He is simply not a good manager. Doesn't pick the best players, doesn't have a stable system, not good at tactics or adjustments. There's not much to like about him apart from his positivity, which often borders on delusion/denial. He does not publicly take responsibility for results and obviously has an ego issue (see: the Donovan exclusion, which reeks of trying to prove a point).
Conrad's just a whiny lil B**ch that is still sore because Klinsmann didn't take him for the olympics.
I didn't realize it until Matt Doyle pointed it out, but Guatemala on Friday was the lowest-ranked opponent to beat the US in the entire history of the FIFA rankings. Another low for Klinsmann.
You ever think maybe there should be tunnel at the end of the light? Since the start of this millenium, we've advanced out of the group stage at the World Cup 3 out of 4 times, won a group with England in it, beat Mexico in a R16 match, ended Spain's 35 match unbeaten streak to reach the Confederations Cup final, and reached #4 in the World, all despite never having a team that was Top 30 in the world in talent! That's an incredible, incredible run! Russia has 3 times our talent level (seriously, a link I found had their players at the last World Cup worth 200MM EUR to our 63MM EUR), and they haven't made it out of the group stage once since the fall of the Soviet Union! If you keep setting unrealistic expectations for yourself you'll never be happy. Maybe Pulisic will develop into something special and I hope he does, but he could be the best player in the history of the United States by a mile, and there's still no way we could expect to duplicate the success we've enjoyed already over the next 15 years. We've been lucky, lucky fans to enjoy incredibly well-coached teams win tons of dramatic, exciting games they had no business winning, and there's really no need for frowny faces and "woe is me" acts at all.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/socce...usmnt-loses-to-guatemala-again-050453366.html There just isn't anything redeeming Klinsmann to justify the risk of missing the World Cup for the first time since 1986. In almost half a decade in charge, his much-hyped appointment – remember all the talk about him taking the team "to the next level"? – has brought only regression. Bob Bradley left behind a team that was often unexciting and seemed to have grown a tad stale, but it was tactically sound and could be relied on to deliver a baseline performance. Now, the senior U.S. team is arguably in a worse state than it has been in almost a decade. And at the 2006 World Cup, where the Americans finished last in their group, at least there was a foundation for the future, a core that would show well in South Africa four years later. There isn't even that now. The Klinsmann bubble is bursting. The novelty has worn off. All the promise was hollow and the doctrine void. An intellectually honest assessment of what he has accomplished turns up an off-year Gold Cup triumph in 2013 and a round-of-16 finish at the 2014 World Cup, where the U.S. survived the deathly group with Germany, Portugal and Ghana. But Klinsmann didn't get the U.S. out of that Group of Death. Luck did. The Americans were utterly dominated in three of their four games. They were outshot by an average of 11.5 times. They scored 1.15 goals per 90 minutes and conceded 1.38. They ranked 19th out of 32 teams in expected goals and 29th in expected goals against, according to StatHunting.com. Yet somehow they reached the last 16. The results flattered the performances. And it should probably be noted that Ghana imploded amid infighting and Portugal sleepwalked through the tournament.
Have to rep this for relatively sound reason and a unique angle. But this is the "Fire Klinsmann" thread. Think of the power and money and other resources he's had, and the shit he's pulled. Then consider how much of this "incredible, incredible run" was accomplished before Klinsmann took over: advanced out of the group stage at the World Cup 3 out of 4 times (Arena, Bradley, Klinsmann) won a group with England in it (Bradley) beat Mexico in a R16 match (Arena) ended Spain's 35 match unbeaten streak to reach the Confederations Cup final (Bradley) and reached #4 in the World (Bradley and/or Arena) Then think again about the power, money and resources we gave Klinsmann, and the shit we let him pull ...because his predecessors didn't meet expectations.
Despite a victory (That should be automatic), it's still Klinsi Raus for me. Use the Copa America Centenario to give Caleb Porter a shot. THAT GUY knows a bit about getting the most talent out of a depleted roster.
The #1 resource for a coach is players. It trumps the other resources by miles. This link had our players as 25th most valuable out of the 32 nations in the World Cup: http://www.ibtimes.com/world-cups-most-valuable-teams-players-market-value-1605034 The resources were poor. We really should fail to advance behind teams like Jamaica and Guatemala about as often as we advance ahead of teams like Portugal. The talent gaps are similar. It's just that whenever we have a big win over someone we have no business beating, it's written off as "par for the course" and when we lose to someone who's similarly behind us, we hear about how the sky is falling. This is exactly backwards. I'm saying you're being unduly harsh on Klinsmann because his predecessors exceeded expectations so much. We haven't had one team with enough talent that you could expect them to get out of group at the World Cup, but we just keep doing it year after year to the point that people don't even give any credit when we buck the odds again and have another unlikely success. This isn't just about Klinsmann, it's about the all-around ridiculous expectations for the program. I hear people saying things like "I've been watching US Soccer for ____ number of years, when will they finally turn the corner? Lots of countries with more talent and resources than us haven't touched the kind of success we get every 4 years once in the last 20 years. Instead of looking at it as why didn't Arena/Bradley/Klinsmann win every single match they were favored in ever, we should be saying how did they manage to win so many big matches never having a player that was Top 15 in the world at their position? The idea that our coaching has been anything, but absolutely top notch and the biggest strength of our team for the last 20 years is ludicrous. We've probably overperformed the talent of our players more consistently than anyone in the world over that time frame, and the idea that the same fans who wanted to get rid of a very successful Bob Bradley are now trying to throw out a very successful Jurgen Klinsmann for any random shitty coach from the 25th best league in the world is completely nonsensical.
I don't buy that. You're overestimating other countries' player pools. At any given time, there are only about 10 countries that have most of their players starting in the four big European leagues, and most of the players who are top 15 at their positions play for the same 5-6 countries. The talent level drops off very quickly after the top 10 teams or so. Once you get to the 16th-best team in the world, they're drawing players mostly from leagues no stronger than MLS. And if Klinsmann's overperforming expectations, how do you explain losing in CONCACAF? Some of the countries that are outplaying us in CONCACAF are fielding MLS benchwarmers.
If you don't have a top 15 player in the world at any position, you don't leave the closest you have to it, out of your world cup squad. There's also a difference between the odd upset win against superior opposition, the odd shock defeat against lower-rated opposition and missing out to Jamaica, Panama, Mexico and Guatemala in quick succession, with your only strong competitive performance since the World Cup coming against Cuba. I'd also like a coach and (separate) TD that don't crap all over the systems and programs they're supposed to be improving, the league they should be helping get the most out of and the players they have at their disposal.
Why did Ireland beat Germany in Euro qualifying? Why did Slovakia beat Spain? Upsets happen and over a small sample, you can say he's performing badly, sure. Since he's been hired though, he's got the best record in CONCACAF in competitive matches, and it's not really close. Here's the competitive records for teams that qualified for the hex last time out not including 3rd round WCQ matches for teams that needed those to qualify: Overall competitive records in CONCACAF (Gold Cup + World Cup Qualifiers + Confederations Cup playoff) United States 22-6-5 (2.18 points per match) Mexico: 17-10-5 (1.91 points per match) Costa Rica: 13-8-8 (1.62 points per match) Honduras: 11-7-10 (1.46 points per match) Panama: 10-15-7 (1.41 points per match) Jamaica: 8-8-10 (1.23 points per match) Now, granted this list uses the FIFA convention of taking the result after 90 minutes and not including extra time or penalties. If you were to include extra time and penalties, it would close a lot of the gap between the US and Mexico, but the US would still have the best record on the continent ahead of a team with much more talent all around the pitch. So basically, since Klinsmann was hired, the US has had the best competitive record in CONCACAF in addition to greatly surpassing expectations at the World Cup. What's the problem exactly?
Two years isn't exactly a small sample, is it? We've struggled against basically everyone since the World Cup. It's not occasional upsets, it's almost every game over 2 years. To find a 2-year record this bad, you have to go back to when we were fielding mostly college players. If Klinsmann is a good coach, then Bob Gansler and Steve Sampson must have been world-class coaches.
It's not really 2 years though. The first competitive game the US played after the World Cup was last July. This is March. That's 9 months where we have a record of 5-4-2. It's disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. If the US continues to play poorly throughout the Copa America and the rest of their WCQs this year then maybe you revisit it, but for now it looks like a blip on what's overall an extremely successful record.
I think you also need to look at how we played. That 5-4-2 record, already subpar for the US, actually flatters us considering the events on the field.
He was hired to improve our youth system. Since he's with us, the youth results have been below expected. He was hired to take us to the next level of play. The decent results we got were using the same old tactics: defending and scoring on a break or a set piece. a) If he's been hired but failed to deliver, he should be fired; b) If he failed to deliver due to a poor pool of players, then what is the point of hiring an expensive manager for it? He should have been hired as DT, then. Of course, with the bad results for our youth teams, even as a DT-only he should be gone by now. But if the pool sucks so bad, why hire such a manager, used to leading teams full of top players (and not exactly over-achieving with them), and with virtually no tactical expertise? It's dumb. Paying $10m for a manager when your player pool is supposedly poor, that's like buying leather interiors for your Yugo. Huge waste of time and money.
Does it really? It includes a 4 goal win, a 5 goal win, and a 6 goal win. And we're really only one win below "par" since no US coach has ever managed to win 60% of their games. Given that we overperformed so strongly the cycle before (won the hex by 4 points, 11 ahead of Mexico, won the Gold Cup, advanced from an extremely difficult group and then played Belgium even for 90 minutes), I don't see why people are making such a big deal out of it. Brazil's 4-4-2 in competitive matches since the World Cup. Shit happens.