ASN: U.S. Males’s Soccer Took a Step within the Incorrect Course

The U.S. males’s nationwide workforce hasn’t misplaced in a Gold Cup semifinal since 2003—till Wednesday evening, when Jurgen Klinsmann’s males fell to a Jamaica workforce that appears to have the German coach’s quantity.

BY

Brooke Tunstall

Posted
July 22, 2015
11:10 PM

SHARE THIS STORY

ATLANTA—In sports activities, particularly on the highest degree, issues like successful video games and lifting trophies matter.

Sure, the USA’ 2-1 upset loss to Jamaica right here within the semifinals of the Gold Cup will be dismissed as simply as that, an upset, a one-off shock end result that may be a purpose why followers of underdogs watch sports activities.  

However in the end, wins are the gauge with which progress is measured. And for the U.S. males’s nationwide workforce and head coach Jurgen Klinsmann, crashing out of the Gold Cup earlier than the ultimate for the primary time since 2003 and dropping to a Caribbean workforce at house for the primary time since 1969 is the alternative of progress. 

Sure, the loss is only one sport. However we’re now 4 years into Klinsmann’s tenure as nationwide workforce coach and for all his phrases about bettering and enjoying proactively and extra possession-oriented soccer, we’re nonetheless seeing the identical issues from the U.S. that we’ve seen for 20 years. 

That’s not all on Klinsmann. However the bar of expectation has been set as Klinsmann has stated to evaluate the U.S. each on the way it performed and the outcomes. 

Nicely, it performed awful within the group stage of the Gold Cup. And it misplaced tonight. You’ll be able to’t say “as long as we win” after which pivot to “but we played well” when the outcomes don’t your method. 

A awful Gold Cup received Klinsmann’s predecessor, Bob Bradley, fired 4 years in the past. This isn’t to say that Klinsmann must be fired. The U.S. has executed some good issues on his watch. 

However the U.S. additionally did good issues on Bradley’s watch and Bruce Enviornment’s watch, and, hell even that of Steve Sampson and Bora Milutinovic. And none of them made the form of wage Klinsmann is drawing from U.S. Soccer, nor had the carte blanche Klinsmann has. And none of them had the depth of participant pool that the U.S. at the moment does. 

So at this level, it’s powerful to take a look at the place the U.S. is underneath 4 years of Klinsmann and say this is the place they’ve improved. As has been identified right here earlier than, there’s nothing Klinsmann has executed that his predecessors didn’t. 

Win the Gold Cup? Bora, Bruce, and Bradley all did that.

Win the group in World Cup qualifying? Finished.

Advance to the second spherical of the World Cup? Verify.

Get some good wins over conventional heavyweights? England, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Spain—all of them fell to the U.S. underneath earlier coaches. Even the tie in qualifying in Azteca, which the U.S. did two years in the past, was  achieved beforehand by the U.S.—underneath Sampson. Sampson!

None of these coaches misplaced to Jamaica and the U.S. has now misplaced to the Reggae Boyz twice underneath Klinsmann. 

It additionally must be identified that Klinsmann’s hand-picked option to information the U-23 nationwide workforce in Olympic qualifying, Caleb Porter, didn’t ship the U.S. to the 2012 Olympics and the U-17 nationwide workforce didn’t make that age group’s World Cup two years in the past. Klinsmann isn’t simply U.S. coach however technical director so outcomes like this are on his watch and a part of the metric by which he’s evaluated.

So the warmth is now on Klinsmann. And whereas his boss, the perpetually ducking Sunil Gulati—who refused to touch upon tonight’s loss identical to he ducked the U.S. Senate and identical to he’s failed to debate what he knew about FIFA and CONCACAF corruption—seemingly received’t fireplace the German over this 12 months’s Gold Cup outcomes. 

However the actuality is that if the U.S. slips up and falls in Olympic qualifying or fails to win the playoff with this 12 months’s Gold Cup champion for the spot within the 2017 Confederations Cup, or has any hiccups when World Cup qualifying begins, then Klinsmann can be underneath intense strain. 

Klinsmann comes throughout as perpetually upbeat and constructive when coping with the media however he additionally by no means admits that something is ever his fault. Ever. In some unspecified time in the future, that should change, particularly when the outcomes and the performances went the best way they did on this Gold Cup. 

As a result of the U.S. didn’t simply fail to progress at this 12 months’s event, they took a step backward.