The mark of a very good manager, IMO, is getting the best out of what talent you have. Check mark for Klinsi there. Tactically he was pretty good as well, and I thought that was one of the major problems at Bayern and Germany according to his players then. The one thing that was clear in the Ghana game and Portugal game is that they played as a unit within on very clear tactic. Defensively they are clearly well drilled.
first off... for those who say they want us to play like spain....spain is going HOME. So shut up. second, we can not force our game plan onto most countries, therefore we have to adapt our tactics to them. So yes we did more of bunker and counter than most of us would like. But it worked. We went toe to toe with 3 top teams and we came out on top... yeah we advanced. We can take on Belgium. THEY should be worried about how they are going to score. They dominated in their group of South Korea, Algeria, and Russia. Let's compare: South Korea v Ghana; Algeria v Portugal; Russia v Germany. Who is the harder group? Belgium scored 4 goals in their group. how many did the US score, who can't hope to play against Belgium? 4!
Now, it's my turn to ask if you're kidding. Both Portugal and Ghana imploded. If this is news to you and you only watched the US games, then perhaps a little bit of reading up on this might help... Portugal http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/ed...784/ronaldo-helpless-as-portugal-pepe-implode Portugal's implosion gave the goal differential that we advanced by. It's hard to say we outplayed them when we drew 2-2, and both ended up on 4 pts in the group after beating Ghana 2-1. The difference was the implosion in that Germany game. Ghana http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/6/26/5845046/ghana-kevin-prince-boateng-sulley-muntari-sacked Ghana's implosion prevented them from winning today against Portugal to take advantage of the US losing, with their focus more on the money they were getting paid and not getting paid it, in fighting within the team, threatening the coaches. Two of their top 5 players sent off the team. I'm glad we got out of the group (and I've always said that it's possible). I'm just a realist. It came as the result of a bit of help from other teams within the group.
Lots of things resulted in our advancement though I will credit KJ (except the Brad Davis experiment, no more please wtf). We are in the next round, not that we couldn't do that before. My gripe is still that we lack the better team selection hence that bite, that counter, that without against tougher teams we will fall.
I like Klinsi and I think people who want him fired are insane. I also think the US (and Klinsmann) deserve mad props for making it out of the group of death. HOWEVER I will point out that for all this talk of a new era of attacking US soccer, the USMNT by and large played with the same bunkering tactic employed by Klinsmann's predecessor. I expect the same gameplan v Belgium. Maybe this is JK adapting his tactics to suit the (more highly skilled) opponents of teams like Portugal, Germany and Belgium. But it's worth pointing out nonetheless
Zero credibility? This coming from the guy who said we did NOT sneak through, when we advanced on goal differential after a loss... Premier USA is right. Our general performance against Ghana in 2006 and 2010 were on the whole better than the performance in 2014... we just got the necessary goal that we didn't in the others. In 2006 McBride's 2nd half header hits the post and Onyewu's header goes just over the bar. Their go-ahead goal was a real controversial (incorrect) penalty against us. Keep in mind we also went into that game without two of our key players Pope and Mastroeni. The game in 2010 was great back and forth affair, where we pressed them for the goal towards the end taking it to extra-time, but then they go an early goal in AET and we couldn't get it back In 2014 we got the early goal by Dempsey and then were dominated from like the 5th-10th minute all the way until after the 80th minute. Then we got that late head goal much against the run of play. You're lying if you felt we were more likely to get a 2nd goal in the end of that game than they were. Like he said, it's funny how it works out some times.
Why were we without a striker? You have 23 spots. 1 went down, now we don't have one? Seems like you're really just pointing out 3 reasons to criticize Klinsmann than providing reason not to.
I am not sure why a thread titled Thank You Klinsmann seems like an invitation to come and point out perceived faults or repeatedly air grievances? Why can't we have a celebratory thread? It really seems intended to wind folks up to me. Sad really. How dare anybody enjoy a great day in American Soccer.
Personally I'm not going to thank anyone other than our players whom still get paid to play in the WC, and our fans that made the trip to support our team. What I will say is that after the Portugal game I do believe we can go toe to toe with Belgium. The issue for me (if we now consider Gonzalez a lock at CB) is how Michael Bradley will play. Assuming we can avoid the big defensive gaffes, we will need him to get his pass completion percentage up. (I'm putting the mark around 90% for us to be successful). The closest he got was 87% against Portugal. The only midfielder who has consistently been worse at passing % is JJ.
Thanks Jürgen, for taking us as far as we have often gone, for bunkering about as well as we have ever bunkered, even though we lost. In short, thank you for not underachieving. Seriously, shouldn't this wait until we beat Belgium? It's not like we have dominated anybody. Bradley and Arena gave us pretty much the same thing.
vs Slovenia, Algeria and those scrubs from England. This team would have taken 9 points from that group.
I'm actually pretty excited. And although I guarantee the team is taking it one game at a time. I think we have the easiest path to the semis.
We did not get help from any team to move on. We moved on because we got BETTER results than the other 2 teams!
we cant really know that. its just silly to compare at all. bob did a great job with his squad. jurgen is doing a great job with his squad. enjoy it!
Donovan is NOT a striker, and our other target forwards were not good enough to bring because they are only prospects. WHO should have been brought instead...? Name someone or just shut up.
No knock to Bob. This is a better team, with better defense. If we defended well against Slovenia its an easy win. England is a toss up, ill give you that. You have to take in to account who I was quoting. Someone acting like this wasnt an applause worthy performance is mad. Ive been celebrating since 2pm