Bradley wasn't fired because he only made the round of 16 (in fact that is why he was kept on). He was fired because he got embarrassed by El Tri in the only important Gold Cup of the last cycle.
It was more than that. I give full credit to Bob for figuring out a way to get the most out of our best players in 2009 and 2010 (Bradley, Dempsey, Donovan.) That was a terrific achievement by him. But as we transitioned, the team just started to gasp for air. It wasn't just the Mexico game, we'd been playing like crap for a while. Coach's personalities sometimes can wear on a team. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe Bradley made some bad decisions in trying to move the team forward. Maybe it was just random bad luck. But it wasn't just the one match. (One thing I remember about that game is that when we were up 2-0, I was laughing like hell because in truth, Mexico was kicking our asses, we just got lucky and finished twice. Over the next hour of the match, their superiority came through.)
Not disagreeing with anything you said. I think Juergen has been a fine coach for the US. But, that doesn't preclude him from criticism. Or, from a fan making a critical statement. Us being critical of the coach is as important as us supporting him. If we aren't critical the team/organization can become stagnant and content with it's position. I've seen plenty of teams that got lost in the wilderness for long periods of time because criticism was met with anger or indifference. The Green Bay Packers of the 80's are a prime example of this. Two consecutive head coaches who were hall of fame players from the glory years. Both beyond reproach. It took a complete organizational change to undo the damage.
When reading a Paul Gardner piece the trick is to find his signature line hidden in all the filler. In this case it's this one: "Must be someone who is going to give the Hispanic players a fair shake (something Klinsmann badly failed to do)." See, it's fun!
The thing is... hispanic players did get a fair shake. They just weren't good enough! Herculez Gomez, Edgar Castillo, Joe Corona, Michael Orozco and Jose Torres played more than their fair share of games in a US jersey. None of those players have shown anything in spurts, while early in the cycle Klinsmann didn't even call up Michael Bradley early in the cycle. The Hispanic players had opportunities to shine, (so did Robbie Rogers and Brek Shea) ...and they didn't shine.
How many of these absurd threads do we need???? Klinsmann is going nowhere. All we're hearing in the non-hysterical, non-biased, non-ignorant press....................is that Klinsmann and the USSF have already started preparations for and planning for the upcoming cycle geared at initially the 2015 Gold Cup and 2016 Copa America. If we flame out at one or both tournaments, we can re-visit this subject. The whole "hispanic players didn't get a fair shake" meme is just lazy research. Basically garbage. We've been getting that message from Paul Gardner for 20 years now. He's just a tired, grumpy old man with nothing remotely productive to say.
I never realized while watching and re-watching and re-watching that play, Wondo was being marked by none other than Vincent Kompany.
Yeah, if I'm remembering correctly, no one was too optimistic going into the Gold Cup and things just got worse. We only won 1 friendly, against South Africa 1-0, out of 8 in between the World Cup and the Gold Cup. We had only scored more than 1 goal once in all of those, in a draw against Poland 2-2. The one friendly we played in the week leading up to the Gold Cup, we got thrashed 4-0 by Spain. Then we lost in the group stages for the first time ever. And Panama led for most of the game too, it wasn't like they stole it from us at the very end. I think after that game was when it started looking very realistic that Bradley may be fired. We followed that up with only beating Guadeloupe by a goal. And the whole time we're barely scraping by the group stages, Mexico looks completely unstoppable, wrecking Costa Rica 4-1 and El Salvador 5-0. So even before the final, nothing looked very good for us. The Mexico game was just more confirmation that we needed a change, rather than the sole reason to make a change.
Can't agree with any of this. First the US has reached the group of 8 once. We are not a top 8 team in the world period. So firing a coach because he doesn't over achieve is just silly. 2nd Bradley was not fired directly after the World Cup. He was let go because Sunil thought there was a better option. If JK isn't available and interested my guess is Bradley is our manager in 2014. 3rd: I am not sure the 2010 and 14 teams were that different. 2014 had Jermaine Jones, Fabian Johnson, and didn't have Rico, or Bornstien (okay Jonathan actually did okay but had to stick that in there). 2010 had a better Dempsey, a better Bradley (at least at the cup) and Donovan (no matter where you stand 2010 Donovan was better than 2014, so this stands even if he is brought). It's not a slam dunk but there is a genuine argument that '10 was as good as '14.
If vindication comes dressed up as structural incoherence and shoddy preparation then, yes, JK is Vindicated in a Blazer of Glory.
It's not that. We know we are no the best at everything or even the majority of "things" but we expect nothing but excellence and that is cultural. Americans are by nature very competitive and naive to prolonged disappointment. This "failure" at the WCC cycle after cycle is a type of prolonged disappointment. I also think some of this is just coming from people who were waiting for us to bust out of the world cup to unload their anti-klinsmann rants. They are either part of the USSoccer structure and got passed over for a promotion or were fired OR had a friend who experienced the same OR they are hero worshiping Donovan-can0-do-no-wrong types who did not like how he was removed from the National team in what should have been his ride off into the sunset at Brazil 2014. This is definitely NOT coming from a US should be the best at everything. We SHOULD be competitive in everything and you can't really argue that.
Klinsmann is going nowhere. We'll see how he does in 2014 cycle, but he did enough to keep his job going forward.
He has a lot of tournaments ahead to show it. up to him. Yeah it wasnt just the final with mexico in 2011 that was the problem. that whole tournament was sour.
Costa Rica had England, Italy, and Uruguay (no Suarez) to get past. None of those teams are as good as Germany. Costa Rica had Greece in the Round of 16. We had Belgium. Understand? And yes, Paul Gardner is an idiot.
Is that supposed to be a picture of you or Paul Gardner? I'm confused. You should have selected a different crotchety old man .gif to make the point.
This is strange. None of those teams are better than Germany, I'll accept. But, we didn't play Germany 3 times in a row and we lost to them anyway. Are those three teams better or worse than Ghana, Portugal, and Germany? I like, and liked, our chance against Ghana and Portugal better than I do against Uruguay and Italy. England, I've long since accepted are just wired for failure.
You mean the Italy that consistently beats Germany in competitive matches? Listen, I know you want to make yourself feel better after that disappointing loss, but Group D was at least every bit as hard as ours. And it was the only group that didn't suffer embarrassing defensive collapses.
I don't. All three teams we faced played with spirit. Italy was totally ineffectual after completing their mission against England in Manaus. England was gutless outside of a few bright young players. Ghana , when we played them at least, were full of verve. Portugal when we faced them were depleted, but so were we. Germany was ruthless as usual. Our group was far more brutal.
JK showed his weakness as a tactician in this tournament, however, he is a hell of a recruiter. I don't think we would had a chance to get Green, Brooks or Johannsson without him. I hope one day he gets moved upstairs and continues to get young prospect from behind a desk and let a true coach work with our boys. You guys know he opened a facebook page? I asked a few tough questions, no replies yet.
I think it wasn't just the GC, I think some had to do with the round of 16 at the 2010 WC. He had some explaining to do for selecting Clark and not Edu, the selection of a hobbling Gooch for the England game. It showed that BB was stuck and we needed to go in a different direction.
There is disagreement and there are cluster%^#$ sessions that these types are having in certain threads around here. You are one of the more reasonable donovan +/klinsmann- types but some of these people are delusional. I want us to move forward, not backward. I am looking forward to YOUNG players getting a run out over the next 2-4 years. I never want to see a shooting gallery like what happened vs Belgium ever again. I never want our keeper to have to make a 16 save performance to give us a chance to go to a shoot-out ever again. I never want to see us throw away possession in the attacking third like that again. We got handled by KIDS. A team of KIDS bent us over a chair and went at us like a tramp in a vegas hotel room because of our WEAK midfield play and lack of depth. When we can get the TECHNICAL players that Klinsmann wants and we need then we can take it to opponents without worrying about the scoreboard reflecting our incompetency with the ball. We looked like a joke on the ball. Outside of the German American players, Yedlin, Dempsey, Grandpa Beasley and Howard we looked WEAK. Besler and Gonzalez were decent but not world class.
The big issue for me with Klinsmann was that we spent two years developing a style, if you can call it that, building a team that was eager to attack, and putting in players that thrived in that environment. The warm up games were final tinkering with the system which came to fruition in the Nigeria game. Everything looked Golden for the opener against Ghana. So what did JK do? He (IMHO) threw those two-plus years of work, of steadily improving attacking football, right out the window and reverted back to the 'defend, run fast, try hard' brand of soccer the world had come to know and despise in the previous six world cups. THAT is my ultimate issue with Klinsmann. I got over my upset with his roster decisions. I dealt with the constant tinkering with the lineup, especially the back four. With the Nigeria game, I thought we had finally firmed up The Plan and that was what we were going to see in the group stage. And we didn't. Other than the Portugal game, it was more of the same-old, same old. I would have been ecstatic to see us play the attacking style we had worked so hard on, even if it meant we got beat in close games. The USMNT would have made significant steps forward by trying our new aggressive style rather than regressing backwards with the 'let's not lose too bad' that I saw. My impression was that someone (read: JK) didn't quite know what to do with the tiger once he'd gotten it by the tail and the constant futzing around with the lineup, the formation, and everything else was indicative of that. I don't think he needs to go, but I do think that (like someone mentioned previously) there needs to be some outside, objective analysis of the last two years or so, feedback given, and changes made to improve the USMNT. Give him until the Gold Cup, or the Copa America even, and make a decision then whether to carry on or make a change. That's my opinion, anyway, and I could be wrong.