There isn’t a crisis in American soccer right now, but there is a need for change on the U.S. Men’s National Team. Major League Soccer will gradually improve over time as the percentage of more technical and athletic players increases.
As head coach of the national team, Jürgen Klinsmann has spent some four years either omitting needed players from the roster or playing players out of position, and this has resulted in dull and ineffective soccer that doesn’t look anything like aggressive or proactive play.
Too often the lineups have been lacking enough technical or creative midfielders to link up the more defensive midfielders with the attack. While the United States doesn’t have any world-class attacking midfielders, it does have attacking midfielders that can improve the team’s passing and attacking play from where it’s at now.
The constant rotation of the same players in and out of the roster has never really corrected the problem of make-shift midfields and defenses. Clint Dempsey has done as well as he can without any real help on the roster except for Michael Bradley in the midfield, but Bradley is a defensive midfielder that Klinsmann has oddly been playing as an attacking midfielder for a year now.
Without Bradley anchoring the midfield, the rest of the midfield is mostly filled with different players played out of position, whether it be Mix Diskerud or Alejandro Bedoya as a defensive midfielder or Gyasi Zardes as a wing or outside midfielder.
At the bare minimum, Klinsmann should be using his best options at the correct positions rather than always fielding at least one player out of position. Even just one player used out of position can kill the chemistry and interplay of the other 10 players.
The best professional American soccer players are going to stand out and be noticed by the media, fans, and club coaches, so as a first step the United States needs a coach that at least fields a lineup that makes sense and then makes adjustments as new or different players distinguish themselves.
Most clubs and national teams make coaching changes when they feel new ideas are needed, and this make Klinsmann’s long-tenure as head coach unusual.
As technical director of U.S. Soccer, Klinsmann has made it clear that he believes that the problem with the national team is a lack of talent in the player pool, but this opinion only explains the lack of elite-level soccer from the men’s national team and not the lack of decent collective play on the national team.
It seems unlikely that Klinsmann will make fundamental changes to how he selects players to the national team and makes lineups, and this means that the person above Klinsmann, Sunil Gulati needs to remove Klinsmann from both of his positions (technical director and head coach).
There is a talent gap between the United States Men’s National Team and the top soccer nations, and there is even a big gap between Clint Dempsey and every other outfield player except for Michael Bradley.
Klinsmann’s bizarre rosters and tactics combined with his insistence on publically trashing his players and never taking any of the blame for results mean that Klinsmann must be replaced.
Replacing Klinsmann won’t make the U.S. Men’s National Team an elite team, but it can allow a new coach to come in and field tactically-sound lineups that can be improved as better players distinguish themselves.