A good topic. Though some would wish to malign an individual for taking on the national team manager role for the USA, there is no doubting now that it is a high profile coaching position. Folks, the future of this game is in North America. Won't be next year or the year thereafter. But in ten years time, barring something globally cataclysmic, not only will the US/Canada leagues be on far stronger footing, the USA and Canada will be always featuring at FIFA events -- at all levels for males.
So Klinsmann, ever the self-promoter, knows just what he's doing. He really has no credentials yet of managing a club side and needs to stay busy, stay in the media's view. Why not managing the USA's national team side? Keeps him right where he wants to be: In the limelight, on the cusp. Ready to spring should an offer like Spurs, Ajax, QPR, or a top Bundesliga side manifest itself.
As to the crux of this piece, the points are all right there as delineated by the author. There is not yet at all satisfaction with Klinsmann's performances, particularly his verbal press conference idiocies after the USA-Brazil friendly.
The real dissatisfaction lies with this: He's brought no new players into the side -- though he has every easy opportunity to do so. As pointed out, Antigua and Barbuda are hardly worth a whisker of thought, Guatemala is a perrenial underperforming lot, and Jaimaica defeats itself by routine indiscipline. Thus, US fans were seeing this as the ideal time to weed out those over 28 years of age and bring in new blood.
That has not happened. Klinsmann plays the very same players that former coach Bob Bradley featured -- and got better results with. Only exception is Fabian Johnson, a truly good player who was too young (and German) to be considered for Bob Bradley's tenure.
USA fans are very concerned that the core USA squad is too aged, and this concern cannot be refuted. So there is real bewilderment as to why Klinsmann didn't cull out the old and integrate the young. Can't he spot and promote talent?
Klinsmann failed to exert anything positive which would have / should have seen the USA's U23 squad qualify for the Olympics in one month's time. This, as most fans accurately see it, was a colossal failure as the Olympics is a tournament where a male USA squad could indeed make a splash.
Getting the USA to Brazil 2014 is relatively simple in the very easy setup CONCACAF has for the FIFA World Cup guaranteed 3 slots (with a possible 4th). The USA will be in Brazil. The problem is: What is Klinsmann bringing to the table? So far, next to nothing. And he ALWAYS commands & demands a salary as if he thinks he's in the same elite cadre of the world's top 20 managers. He's hardly worth much at all.
Pretty soon he'll be found out.
