Jürgen Klinsmann Has Improved as the United States Men’s National Team Coach
Jürgen Klinsmann is improving as a coach in his tactics and player selection. His rosters still have a tendency to feature two or three of his favorite players who don’t deserve a call-up, but all coaches have their favorites. With a few exceptions, the rosters contain the right amount of players for every position. No longer is there a sense that the rosters and lineups don’t have the players needed to perform well.
Chris Wondolowski stood out as a poor selection to this recent roster because the roster already had four other talented center forwards, and his spot could have gone to Sebastian Lletget of the LA Galaxy who is needed to play with Christian Pulisic in the midfield or attack. Even with Sasha Kljestan on the roster to play the playmaker role, Lletget is too creative and effective to omit. His technical ability and impact on games stand out every game for the LA Galaxy regardless of the opponent.
The defense that Klinsmann is set to use in the upcoming friendlies is once again a strong defense, but the outside back selection was once again poor. You could argue that the United States doesn’t have many good outside backs, but that would be inaccurate. Eric Lichaj is a talented and experienced right back who defends well and can go forward. Andrew Farrell of the New England Revolution is as good or better than Lichaj, and Farrell plays center back or right back equally well. At left back, Robbie Rogers and Chris Tierney are strong options, and their play in MLS over several years has been impressive enough to make the argument that they aren’t ready for international play weak. Both players are also fast enough to perform well against competition like Mexico that is often better than MLS.
Klinsmann called Paul Arriola up again, and despite limited playing time with Tijuana, Arriola is an excellent attacking player who can play wide or centrally just like Pulisic. For this writer, Lletget is impressive enough that making an argument for him again is justified. With Pulisic, Arriola, and Lletget playing, the United States would be evolving into a more technical and fluid team that was playing skill soccer and not hustle soccer.
The United States under Klinsmann is now fielding lineups where the pieces fit together, and the only major criticism is of certain player selected. There is still a sense that Klinsmann thinks the national team is all about him, and he continues to think that nobody else in the United States really knows much about soccer except for him. The players produced by the United States are so much better now that it will be hard to continue insisting that he doesn’t have the players he needs.
While Klinsmann has drastically improved his tactics and roster selection, there are still too many quality MLS players who appear to be almost ignored by Klinsmann and the U.S. Soccer Federation.