The End of an American Dream: US Soccer part ways with Jurgen Klinsmann
Sean O'Conor
Jurgen Klinsmann was sacked on Monday as national team manager and technical director of the USA, after five years at the helm.
Sunil Gulati, FIFA Council Member and chief of the US Soccer Federation, must have had his reasons beyond what he called "the form and growth of the team", but there is also a tinge of sadness that the experiment with one of football's more interesting thinkers has come to an abrupt end.
That said, if there were a good time to fire a national team boss it is now at the start of a long international break until March of next year.
If sackings are 90% of the time due to poor results, then Gulati had his excuse ready-made: The USA had just suffered two painful defeats - 2-1 at home to Mexico and a calamitous 4-0 away to Costa Rica, losses which left them bottom and pointless in the CONCACAF final qualifying group for Russia 2018.
Their previous game, a tepid 1-1 friendly draw at home to lowly New Zealand, cannot have helped assuage the doubts of Klinsmann's employers either, but it is still hard to think those games alone sealed the German's fate.
Despite their two opening losses, it is still hard to believe that the US was in danger of not qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1986.
There were eight games left to make up the points and with three and a half places on offer, the CONCACAF group still offered ample opportunity to make it to the finals.
Losing away to Costa Rica is in a way no disgrace given Los Ticos were impressive quarter-finalists in Brazil, although the Mexico defeat was less excusable.
It seems on reflection that US Soccer acted in the heat of the moment in firing Klinsmann but equally had been entertaining the thought for some time and perhaps even looking for the opportunity to wield the axe.
Despite a 2014 World Cup which was considered broadly successful, at least in animating millions of Americans like no tournament had done before, since then the USA have been stuttering and not showing signs of obvious improvement.
Their Brazilian adventure, where US travelling fans outnumbered all other visitors, was exciting given the US scored first and last-minute goals and Tim Howard put in an outstanding display in keeping Belgium at bay for so long, but the side still only registered one win in four and exited in the second round.
At the 2015 Gold Cup, Klinsmann's team were less impressive - narrow wins over Haiti and Honduras and a draw with Panama, before thrashing Cuba, losing 2-1 to Jamaica in the semi-finals and then on penalties to Panama in the third-place play-off.
To be fair there were friendly wins over Germany and the Netherlands that year but friendlies are soon forgotten.
Then last summer the US went out in the semi-finals of the Copa America Centenario, losing heavily 4-0 to Argentina, although they had beaten Costa Rica, Ecuador and Paraguay en route. Colombia also beat them to third place.
One trophy - the 2013 Gold Cup and a 56% overall win ratio is not appalling but not a sign of much improvement either.
Their 2-1 home loss to Mexico in Columbus might have been a sweet irony coming only three days after the Mexican-baiting Donald Trump had won the election, but it was a genuine shock given the US had won the previous four World Cup home qualifiers against their southern neighbours 2-0 in Ohio.
US Soccer is an ambitious association which knows it has huge untapped potential - more registered players than any other nation for starters. And in Klinsmann they thought they had the man to kick-start a revolution.
The Americans' run to the 2002 quarter-finals in Korea and unlucky 1-0 loss to Germany remains their best achievement in the modern era (a semi-final in 1930 has long been forgotten) but also raised expectations perhaps too high.
In the three World Cups since then they have failed to get beyond the Round of 16.
Appointing such a playing legend who had not only won the World Cup as a player but also guided Germany to the semi-final as manager in 2006 had seemed to rubber-stamp the serious of US Soccer's desire to be up there competing with the best.
Now in retrospect the doubts the federation had about him in 2006 when talks with the German led to Bob Bradley being appointed instead have resurfaced. Did they tire less of inconsistent competitive results than of Klinsmann's need to be listened to and for his ideas to be entertained?
Although never confirmed, it was strongly suspected the federation were lukewarm at best at Klinsmann's demands ten years ago to overhaul the organisation's coaching structure and in particular its youth development.
As Brian Clough said of being rejected for England manager in the late 1970s when he was at the height of his powers:
"I think they were afraid I was going to run the FA from top to bottom - and that is exactly what I would have done!"
But Klinsmann's status as one of the best strikers of the modern era and his residence in California since as far back as 1998 meant the rumours of him being offered a role with the American game never went away either.
For a self-confessed Ameriphile who talked of quitting football at the age of 28 and backpacking around the States, it was no surprise when the much-travelled striker married an American and relocated stateside after he retired following the 1998 World Cup finals.
Attempts to lure Klinsmann to Major League Soccer failed but he kept his toe in the water with a soccer consultancy business in California. Sooner or later, he had to get involved with American soccer, it was widely felt.
It was no surprise then that the call 'Your adopted country needs you' came again following Bob Bradley's dismissal after the 2011 Gold Cup loss to Mexico, and this time US Soccer acquiesced to the German's demands for control that went beyond just being the man who picks the national team, although he was not officially made technical director as well until two years later.
Shortly after his initial appointment I watched the US play a friendly in Belgium and noticed how much in awe of their new man American soccer officials were. When I asked one of them how the new union was working out, he replied to me that everyone was listening intently to Mr. Klinsmann. I could not say I was surprised.
The Stuttgart-born striker had previously brought his new training ideas in the form of American fitness experts to the German national team in the run-up to the 2006 World Cup.
Eyebrows were raised but the results then arrived to silence the doubters. Philipp Lahm however, slated Klinsmann in his autobiography for concentrating on fitness at the expense of tactics while coaching him at Bayern Munich.
This has led other doubters of the German's abilities to believe it was his assistant at the Deutscher Fussball Bund, Joachim Low, who was the true brains behind the operation, with the proof that he went on to win the World Cup alone in 2014.
Klinsmann found it hard to impose a new style on the American players he had available so his big idea, if there was one, turned into persuading the USSF of the need to bypass MLS as much as possible and trawl the Bundesliga and elsewhere instead for players eligible to represent the USA.
He also urged aspiring young Americans to go east, across the Atlantic.
"The more players we can get playing over there," he insisted, "the better it will be."
Blunt as ever, he went on to criticise Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey for moving from European clubs to MLS ones, bemoaning the inferior competition they would face in exchange for a bigger wage packet.
"It's just reality. It's just being honest," Klinsmann protested, but his words drew a stinging response from MLS' chief executive Don Garber who called the German's comments "patently untrue", "very, very detrimental" and "personally infuriating."
This approach inevitably created friction with a domestic league which has been growing steadily in recent years. Since Klinsmann was appointed manager, five new football-specific stadia have opened in the US and the league has grown from 16 to 21 teams.
National team coaches are accustomed to visiting domestic club grounds every Saturday to see potential players in action, rather than watching foreign-born players overseas.
Klinsmann avoided criticising domestic football when challenged on the topic and used the afterglow of the US' showing at the 2014 World Cup to defend his sourcing of players from across the globe.
That month also allowed him to neutralise the stick he had received for his risky dropping of the best American player of recent years, Landon Donovan on the eve of the tournament.
Although Donovan was waning in his powers and had taken a sabbatical from football, his creativity and understanding with the rest of the squad would still have been an asset in Brazil and his axing remained controversial.
Klinsmann was certainly right to lament the hitherto shallow pool of domestic American talent, the elephant in the room when it comes to assessing the USA's soccer status, although arguably wrong in not persevering while striving to improve it as well.
A national team surely is just that, so when countries bend the rules of that definition, whether Italy with their Argentine oriundi, Portugal with Eusebio or Ireland with Tony Cascarino, eyebrows are understandably raised.
The German presence in the squad in Brazil seemed to have pulled it off when Berlin-born John Brooks scored the winner in their first match against Ghana and Frankfurt-born Jermaine Jones opened the scoring in their next match against Portugal.
Many first-time or casual American soccer-watchers were probably not even aware their goals corers had been born and had grown up far from the homeland.
Klinsmann's final US squad for the defeat in Costa Rica included German-born Brooks, Jones, Timmy Chandler and Fabian Johnson, and a total of eight men plying their trade in their coach's country of birth.
Inevitably some tensions had arisen between the natives and the 'half-Americans' and the coach's shared nationality was an easy target for players disgruntled at being overlooked or looking for blame following a bad result.
In the penultimate match, the home loss to Mexico, the US had switched from a confused first half using a three-man defence to a more comfortable 4-4-2 in the second, an echo of many a manager's ill-fated experiment with a new formation.
Klinsmann criticised his central midfielders for losing one-on-one battles with the Mexicans, but one of them, Michael Bradley retorted on not having practised the new shape enough beforehand.
Changing formations and personnel for the 2014 World Cup was fine as the US impressed, but once the results went awry, the inevitable knives were drawn.
"He challenged everyone in the US Soccer community to think about things in new ways," said Gulati in his sacking statement, a line which leads one to think Klinsmann had always risked losing the dressing room once results started to dry up.
The former Inter and Monaco star comes across as charming and articulate in interviews but does have a temper too - just recall his shouting matches with Lothar Matthaus at Bayern or with Christian Gross at Spurs.
Having been such an agent of change with his forthright ideas, after five years it would have been surprising if he had not rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. Yet the parting still seems a sad end to a worthwhile experiment.
In one of his last pronouncements, Klinsmann spoke of the need for American players to feel the shame of a bad miss and pressure from supporters to perform, if the federation truly wanted the US to be "a top 15" football nation, which in his opinion must have been the most realistic aspiration.
Klinsmann took the USA as high as 14th in the FIFA World Rankings for 2013 but by the time he left office they were down in 28th spot, ironically the same place they were in when he took over in the summer of 2011.
If he was responsible for the USSF's overall performance, the picture looks less rosy. Their U-23 side failed to qualify for the last two Olympic Games and the U-17 side finished bottom of its group at its 2015 World Cup.
Only the U20 side showed promise, making the last eight of the World Cup last year.
Perhaps the pertinent question is could anyone have done any better?
"We remain confident we have quality players to help us advance to Russia", insisted US Soccer chief Sunil Gulati, but half those words ring hollow: The US should still qualify but in quality players they are painfully lacking.
In fact the US player pool is looking shallower than it has done for many years. Their front line against Costa Rica consisted of the little-known Bobby Wood, of Hamburg, and Jozy Altidore, who now plays in MLS for Toronto after 59 Premier League appearances for Hull & Sunderland but only two goals.
At 33 and plagued by injury, Clint Dempsey can no longer be their talisman and Landon Donovan retired from international duty two years ago. No one has yet to match the calibre of those two goal creators.
Their central midfield has two MLS players - Michael Bradley, another who failed to establish himself in Europe, at Aston Villa and Roma, and Jermaine Jones, who left the Bundesliga for Turkey and then the US league in 2014.
The managing pool is not much better - the only American managing in a major league is currently bottom of the Premier League.
The USA meanwhile, have reappointed Bruce Arena, who took them to the last eight of the 2002 World Cup, in the hope of recapturing those days of glory.
US Soccer now prefers a steady pair of hands to guide the national team safely to Russia rather than a man adamant on root and branch reform of their whole system.
Appointing Klinsmann as the country's technical director as well as head coach was highly unusual but also testament to the experience gap between him and his American employers.
As with his exit from managing Bayern in 2009, it was a difference of opinions with his employers which led to his removal.
He can now enjoy more family time, something he said he was looking forward to when his contract as German national team manager ended in 2006.
But given Klinsmann's passion for bringing his ideas to the table, as well as his aura as one of the best strikers in the world in the 1990s, it is unlikely that we have seen the last of him as a coach, technical director or general footballing guru.
© Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile.com
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