ESPN Carlisle Article: "Has the U.S. men's national team lost its fight?"

I think that the article said basically what we all already knew... A bad set of circumstances coupled with a tired team who lacked fight led to the disaster we all thought and hoped would never happen.

 

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

The article hammers Klinsmann and the German Americans hard and rightly so, but we already knew all of that, we have been getting that story ever since he was replaced. What we have not really heard and this article pussy foots around with it, is what happened once the faction of domestic veterans got their way and they were given their coach and the team was purged of all the "uncommitted" "bad apples" and the American way was restored?

"There was no question that Bruce came in to be the anti-Jurgen, do everything opposite of Jurgen," the former U.S. international player said.

"I actually thought Arena did a great job of eradicating players that weren't bought in [to the team]," U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard said. "He did a great job of coming in from day one, speaking to people he knew to get a pulse of the team."

Granted, chemistry is a vague term that often gets thrown out to explain why a team might be underperforming. But Howard was direct with his definition.

"Chemistry for me is about commitment," he said. "It's not about personalities. I think when people think about team chemistry, it's like one big powwow and everyone loves each other and hangs out. Chemistry is having one direct message from the manager -- 'This is the style we're going to play. This is what I expect of you as a player' -- and then going out and performing every single day."

So Bruce did what he was brought in to do according to the players he built the team around from that point forward.This is where the quotes are actually telling:

"When we were in Trinidad, we needed better fighters. We didn't necessarily need better players," said one former U.S. international who asked not to be identified. "That's what we've lost. We've lost how to fight, how to battle to get results."

Tab Ramos, former U.S. assistant and current U-20 manager, echoed that sentiment. "After having been with U.S. Soccer after 30 years, it's disappointing to me that it seems that we've lost the fight for the last three or four years," he said.

This was a critical piece, given that at the 2014 World Cup, the U.S. was the 13th-oldest team out of 32 teams in the tournament. Without enough new players coming through, the old guard wasn't being challenged for places, leading to an aging team. A few players, such as 19-year-old midfielder Christian Pulisic, did break through, but overall, there weren't enough prospects doing the same.

"Complacency is the worst thing you can possibly ever have if you want to reach the highest level of competition," the former U.S. international player said. "What you need is younger players coming through to force older players to keep their edge. When there was nobody pushing Jozy and nobody pushing Michael and nobody pushing Clint and nobody pushing Tim [Howard], it doesn't work."

"There was complacency," he said. "You could see the way we were going about things. We had a game plan, and we didn't really stick to that game plan. We were losing easy balls in the middle of the field when we wanted to attack them out wide and that stuff. So it felt like maybe there was a little bit of complacency, a little bit of arrogance about our style that we just needed to get out there and get the job done."

Seems pretty clear to me: Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore and Tim Howard were old, not pushed for their spots, became complacent and did not have enough American fighting spirit.

 

I've been as critical of Bradley as anyone on here. He's obviously well past his prime, undeserving of a field position much less the armband. However, he's not the reason the USMNT didn't qualify. The coaching strategy that somehow believed Bradley and the core of worn out vets could compete with younger, improved CONCACAF teams was flawed from the beginning. This failed strategy by JK was shockingly endorsed by Arena.

Bradley and crew continued to under-perform, but remained fixtures in the lineup, often going the full 90min. A few wrinkles were attempted, notably Pulisic and Nagbe, but the core of under-performing vets essentially remained. Remained in place until the bitter end. Thankfully neither JK or Arena survived.

 

No, 2010, when Bradley finally heard everyone screaming bloody murder about the lineup about what, 25-30 mins into the game, he made that key sub. Arena should have been as proactive about his own error against T&T.

 

There are two ways to look at the old guard question.

1. One hand says that there weren't younger guys coming in and pushing them.
2. The other hand says the young guys weren't given a shot by the coaches. You can't push the older vets if you don't get called in.

 

That part struck me too.

You're an avid cyclist. So you're probably aware of the phenomenon of overtraining. I would hope that the US training staff has a sophisticated set of procedures to test for overtraining and advise the coach which players are not fit due to overtraining.

If Bruce meant the staff just gave him a vague thumbs up on the players, that doesn't alleviate Bruce's fault. If they ran the batter of tests for overtraining and gave an affirmative, scientific OK, it's more complicated.

 

Here's the thing, T&T also played a few days early so they could have been tired too. Now the real issue is, they were playing in T&T with temps in the high 80s and equally high humidity. The field was going to be heavy.

By mid October, our players who, at least domestically, can handle these conditions in mid-summer are no longer regularly acclimated to them (and a reminder, we played in hot Orlando a few days earlier). The lineup that day:
Pulisic & Wood - playing in Germany, body is not ready for it.
Yedlin at Newcastle - no way acclimated to these conditions
Jozy, Bradley, Nagbe, Ariola (to a lesser extent), Besler - North America, while it can have hot spots is overall cooling
Gonzo and Villafana - don't have the humidity that makes this easy to adjust

All that said, even with assuming that players can recover, we had the advantage of depth over T&T. Use it as appropriate so that it gives you an edge.

 

I am German - and I`ve been following the USMNT as my 2nd team since 1990. I must admit that I didn`t see all of the games played during Klinsmann`s reign and I also didn`t follow every report in the soccer media, but since that Brian Strauss article came out in 2013 I knew that something was seriously wrong with the team.
It was as if certain players wanted to get rid of Klinsmann and at the same time get rid of a number of German-American players. I can imagine that in particular someone like Jermaine Jones - whom I`ve followed since his days as a striker for Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2nd Bundesliga - will react in a very negative way if you question his allegiance or that of other German-born players.

 

Anyone questioning Jones's commitment to the cause needs their head examined. I've rarely seen a more committed athlete. All the patriotic mumbo jumbo is garbage, players need to show commitment and fight on the field for whatever reasons that motivate them personally. A guy like Jones should have been around if for no other reason than to let everyone else know what level of effort was required. He never stepped on the field for the US without giving everything.

 

1st - Jones gave it his all whenever he wore the shirt. Doesn't mean his all was always his best or allowed others to be their best, but he was 100% every time

2nd - as for the 'other Germans' on the team. They were American. We don't question their 'Americanism.' We question their effort every game. If every one (not really fair to say 'every') of them played as hard as Jones, every game, there wouldn't be factions.

3rd - And not for 'every' there were questions of a few dual nationals being called in if only because they were trained in Germany rather than 'earning' the call up.

4th - You are German, I assume you are familiar with JK's one season at Bayern Munich. Were there not player problems there that sound familiar with the complaints of American players?

 

Sometimes, you need an Alan Gordon, Hedjuk, Conor Casey, Brian Ching, etc in Concacaf games. You don't bring them to the WC, but you need these players because the way they play disrupts other Concacaf teams.

The "pitch" at that stadium was cut high and the ground was saturated by water. The play that led to the 4-0 win against Panama was not going to work. Nagbe and Arriola were not going to be helpful.

Bruce Arena failed to see this. Sure, a lot of other things also went wrong, but there is no point trying to be win "with style" in Concacaf away games. There will always be something that hinders with the style of play. There is a reason why away qualifying goals always seem like some sort of scrap / deflection with bodies flying. It's Concacaf and sometimes having Alan Gordon go up for a ball to head across goal while taking out two defenders is what you need.

 

You forgot Cobi Jones.

 

Remember in 2009 when we went to South Africa and took the game TO Spain and beat them, then went up 2-0 on Brazil in a cup final? With a young Bradley, Davies, Altidore, and an in-prime Donovan and others?

What I remember about those games isn't the quality we displayed, as much as it was this genuine feeling that we could hang with them because we had a group of guys that were hungry and pissed off for greatness. It was just that feeling of knowing that we were the David and everyone else was Goliath, but we didn't give a **** and we were still going in for blood every game.

I don't know what happened in the last decade, I wasn't in the camps, but that was lost somewhere along the line. Go back and watch how we played against big teams in Copa America. Watch how scared we look to even be on the same field as Argentina. Watch that final against Mexico a few years ago as we slugged around the field.

I 1000% buy into the notion that our core group of guys stopped being hungry enough in the NT.

The good news is that this next generation is pissed off for greatness, and they've got all of us right behind them, believing in them, and they feel that. I remember seeing Josh Sargent lose the ball the other night, then immediately go to ground to win it back, then give it to his teammate. This was in a FRIENDLY against Bolivia. I immediately thought back in my mind to remembering Jozy Altidore losing the ball on the road against T&T and watching from my couch in horror and he threw his arms up and proceeded to WALK around the field. The contrast is so obvious, but if that generation wants to save any face as they finish out their primes (Bradley, Altidore, Johnson, etc.) then they need to wake tf up because there are quite a few u23 players in our NT who are hungry and are gunning for them. They either need to learn how to fight again or stay away from our NT.

 

What happens in a group isn't always "two-sided". When Klinsmann presses upon the Americans that they stink because they don't challenge themselves and only players who challenge themselves and are constantly looking to get into a CL team are any good, you introduce the kind of dog-eat-dog mentality of Klinsmann's playing days in the wrong group of people. I.o.w., the two "groups" may have been totally fine with each other until Klinsmann started in on his personal philosophy.

Once this thing gets started it's hard to stop.

On ETR they were recently discussing the current team and they said look at Hyndman, he followed Klinsmann's advice and got out of the Championship, only to now find that he is on the outs whereas he could have stayed with Fullham and developed nicely with good prospects of starting in the prem next year.

Klinsmann had a "fishbowl" view of the soccer universe. Unfortunately, Berhalter suffers from myopia as well. People better gird themselves if he gets picked for next manager which now looks likely. I thought Klinsmann was good for one cycle after which we all needed a shower and a new leader.

 

he even slapped a guy in the face once which got him dq'd for the Argentina CA game. Talk about committed. Wow.

 

I feel Zimmerman may be perfect for this. Very few CONCACAF players are going to better and willing in the air than him. Be nice to have set plays be a player again. Not sure if those kids from the other night are ready yet for a CONCACAF slog but when they're ready they had a lot of size we haven't seen a lot of lately.

 

We have to get to a sophisticated level where we deal with real world problems in a real way instead of pretending that idealism is a panacea. There's a difference between a 6'4" guy taking an economy ticket to fly all over the world with a back problem and taking the bus from Stuttgart to Ingolstadt with his doctor along for the ride. So much for Brooks. How about Johnson? HIs problems came, imo, when he was looking at playing in CL and it all became a lot to handle with a packed schedule and suddenly asked to fly to USA for meaningless games. There has to be good management of these problems not idealistic slogans shouted from the rooftops and posted on big soccer.

 

OK, or going from February in a Bavarian Forest and suddenly playing a day game San Pedro Sula. We can micro analyze the shit out of it, or we can say that we didn't get 100% all the time. I don't have a problem with either.

 

The single biggest issue was Arena's poor tactics in the last game - should have gone into T&T playing for a draw.

 

He adjusted really well though. When we went down 2-0, he started playing for the draw. It was a true master stroke.

 

As mentioned in my posts. He's one of many reasons we didn't qualify. Not the single reason, but one of them. There was terrible leadership of the team, that should be without question and if anyone's doubting it, all you need to do is look at the results. I view leadership as Sunil and the Fed, the coaching staff, and the captain.

There have been numerous references to bad chemistry and splits in the locker room, part of the captains job is to make sure this doesnt happen and if it does, to remedy the problems in house (no leaks), there were leaks AND the problems persisted. In addition to this is leadership on the field, and throughout the campaign.

The teams play was consistently inconsistent, the team was repeatedly down for some matches, up for others, repeatedly jaked it on the road, registering it's worst modern era performance ever on the road, they also for the first time ever, clearly quit in a game. You had players openly trashing the situation both during the campaign and afterwards. That won't happen if you have a situation under control. We didn't. Not at the coaching level, fed level, or Captain level.

Is it all his fault? Not remotely. Is it half his fault? Again, definitely not. Did he play a role in the failure? Absolutely. A well lead team doesnt perform, behave, or interact with the media in the fashion the team did.

He was not the man for the job and it's a shame he got it. When he lost his ---- with Wynalda, when he showed repeated instances of instability in the past, for me, he became a questionable option at best as Captain, now looking back, it's obvious he wasn't the right guy for the role.

And to be fair to him, maybe there wasn't a captain to be found amongst this whole mess. They certainly didn't play like they had a leader of any merit whatsoever.

 

And oddly enough, the same captain won an MLS Cup, the Canadian Cup, and took a long run into the Champions League in which he appeared to be playing at a different and more consistent level.

 

Yes, but the same applies to other players. And I sometimes had the impression that every time Jones and Bradley had a bad/mediocre game, Jones was more likely to be criticized.

Again, I agree. But it was not only the German-Americans who had terrible games during those matches, although obviously Chandler left a terrible impression for the USMNT.

Klinsmann is biased in favor of German football leagues. He also rates Bundesliga 2 higher the the Championship. IMO he tried to bring those players to the USMNT as soon as possible and hope for the best. And it didn`t always work out, but there was simply a gap between the likes of Bradley,Altidore and the Pulisic generation. When Schweinsteiger and Podolski made their first appearances for Germany under Völler, they were unknown quantities. But if you don`t have any quality options available you might as well gamble and call up unproven players.

Yes, as far as his tactics were concerned. But he also implemented a few things that were instrumental for Bayern going forward. IMO his main problem was that he chose the wrong assistant coach. He is not a good tactician - but neither were some of his predecessors at Bayern and the German NT.

 

bshredder already wrote an excellent article months ago on the development gap of 1990-1996 (1995 exempted for the most part), that 7 year era produced virtually no national team players of note whatsoever, and produced at a level at best 15-20% of what previous years had.

Were there players to be found that we never found? Definitely. Were there players ignored that should have been called up? Definitely. But that doesnt take away the fact that a critical problem for the program was the disaster in terms of development for that generation of players. It's totally inexplicable that at a time when we should have been producing more elite talents than ever before and more depth than ever before, the pipeline shut down almost completely for half a decade.

It makes no sense, and I point the finger exclusively at the fed and their idiotic development system during the nineties and the aughts for the failures because the players were there. I have no doubt of that whatsoever, we just fumbled them away from lack of identification and from focusing on the wrong ones, and from systemic stupidity.

 

Depends where you look. Come to BS its always Bradley's fault. Some press favored Bradley. Others favored Jones.

The real issue was it never changed, mainly JK's issue, Jones was injured most of Arena's time. They were always jammed into the same midfield never figuring how to play with one another. It wasn't Iniesta and Xavi.

The article even indicated that the two and JK were arguing. That, I never knew of.

Perhpas its what we are accustomed to. Before this group, we'd expect to see players give EVERYTHING they had on the field, even if it were a bad game. We didn't notice that until late with this group. However, when Chandler and/or Johnson checked out of a game it was noticable. Perhaps because we've seen their upside. We didn't get to see it with them that often.

We are not talking about Schwein or Podolski. Its like saying we gave Pulisic a chance six months early. We are talking about Julian Green or Morales.

The 'few things' he brought were things that most American teams consider commonplace. Its where he learned those few things.