The USA menââ¬â¢s soccer team is always the focus of attention for American soccer fans. In the lead-up to this summerââ¬â¢s World Cup, which begins Thursday in Brazil, that attention has converged on head coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
Klinsmann is the German who was sometimes accused of being ââ¬Åtoo Americanâ⬠while coaching in his home country and is now sometimes accused of being ââ¬Åtoo Europeanâ⬠while coaching in the United States. He has created controversy virtually since the first day he took charge of the U.S. squad. And it was Klinsmann who rocked the soccer establishment by announcing that Landon Donovan, Americaââ¬â¢s best-ever player, would not be part of the 2014 World Cup squad.
Throughout his tenure, U.S. soccer fans have been left to wonder: Is he genius or madman? ÃSavior or failure? Or maybe a little bit of both?
Klinsmann was hired in the summer of 2011, and since then heââ¬â¢s been accused of making important decisions on a whim, of focusing too much on fitness and too little on tactics and of having a bias toward players who were raised abroad. An article in the Sporting News, published in early 2013, painted a picture of him that suggested that he is little more than a crazed dictator, issuing ever-changing edicts from on high, while his confused team scrambles to put together decent performances.
Yet the U.S. qualified for the World Cup, and did so by dominating the final round of qualifying. The Americans won last summerââ¬â¢s CONCACAF Gold Cup, while playing what was often described as their ââ¬ÅB squad.â⬠They beat Mexico in Mexico for the first time. They beat Italy for the first time. They even beat Germany to touch off a 13-game winning streak, the longest in American Ãhistory.
That success earned Klinsmann a contract extension, and heââ¬â¢s set to coach the U.S. at least through the end of the 2018 World Cup. Yet many fans are ready to judge his tenure not on his past three years but on the next few weeks. Should the United States crash out of the World Cup before the knockout stage, the coachââ¬â¢s critics will claim vindication.
Storm brewing
With this as kindling, itââ¬â¢s no surprise that his abrupt announcement of the U.S. squad for the World Cup touched off such a firestorm. Donovan, who some thought might be in the teamââ¬â¢s starting lineup, was instead left at home. The snub prompted former national team coach Bruce Arena to sarcastically tell reporters, ââ¬ÅIf there are 23 better players than Landon, then we have a chance to win the World Cup.ââ¬
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Julian Green was selected, despite having played a grand total of two minutes for Bayern Munich, his club team, and 21 minutes for the U.S. national team. The squad also includes 24-year-old Timmy Chandler, who turned down invitations to join the national team several times in the past four years and hadnââ¬â¢t featured at all for the U.S. for more than 15 months.
That both Green and Chandler are half-German and half-American, and were raised in Germany, does not escape those who lambaste Klinsmann for a perceived bias toward players who were raised outside of the United States. More than a quarter of the World Cup squad has a similar non-American pedigree, including a majority of the teamââ¬â¢s 25-and-under Ãplayers.
Where do they stand?
An ever-changing squad has been a regular feature of Klinsmannââ¬â¢s tenure. The coach used 37 different players during World Cup qualifying, and even now he has yet to settle on a first-choice team. Even the teamââ¬â¢s tactics seem in flux; after playing a 4-2-3-1 formation during most of World Cup qualifying, Klinsmann has switched to a more traditional 4-4-2 formation during the teamââ¬â¢s World Cup warm-up matches.
His team is also unable to lean on experience, which is where the Donovan decision looms particularly large. Only six players on the team have previously been on a World Cup roster, while four have played fewer than 10 international games at the senior level. In the United Statesââ¬â¢ recent tuneup against Turkey, only four American starters were holdovers from 2010ââ¬â¢s World Cup squad.
The four â⬔ forwards Jozy Altidore (21 international goals) and Clint Dempsey (36, the teamââ¬â¢s leading scorer in Donovanââ¬â¢s absence), do-everything midfielder Michael Bradley and stalwart goalkeeper Tim Howard â⬔ will be at the core of the United Statesââ¬â¢ chances in this World Cup.
Not that the U.S. has an easy road once it arrives in Brazil. The team is placed in the so-called ââ¬ÅGroup of Deathâ⬠this summer, a group that includes Germany and Portugal, the second- and third-ranked teams in the world. On top of those two powerhouses, the group includes Ghana, a team that defeated the U.S. in the past two World Cups.
Winning any of the three group games will be an achievement. Getting the results needed to finish in the top two of the group and move to the knockout round, the generally accepted bar for U.S. World Cup success, will require an exceptional performance. Klinsmann has said that it is ââ¬Ånot possibleâ⬠for the Americans to think about lifting the trophy in Brazil and seems focused only on making it past the group stage.
For the coach, any success, however small, would serve as a final vindication of his methods and plans, and set the United States on course for further improvement. Failure, though, would serve only to amplify the critics and accentuate the perceived chaos in the national team.
Given Klinsmannââ¬â¢s time so far in charge of the U.S. squad, perhaps continued upheaval is the only thing of which American fans can be certain.