Altidore said it was ‘difficult’ to adapt to the new tactical line up
Photo: Tino Arana
New blood smooths over continued tactical bewilderment for Klinsmann’s Yanks
by Robert Burns
It couldn’t have started any brighter. It couldn’t have finished much worse.
Wait, that’s not true. It was much worse in Dublin last November when Juergen Klinsmann’s USA team got hammered 4-1.
After that debacle, it was time to put 2014 into the storage bin and look ahead to a fresh start. But instead of displaying a short memory and putting the past behind them, the U.S. once again started strong and ultimately capitulated in the final half hour to the tune of a 3-2 loss in Rancagua, Chile.
If Bob Bradley was often panned for his team’s slow starts and gutsy finishes, Klinsmann’s reincarnation of the team is its mirror opposite. His post World Cup period has predominantly been marked by promising beginnings and high hopes, only to be replaced late in matches by sagging shoulders and exasperating sighs.
Luckily for the German coach, he has a somewhat plausible excuse for his team’s late collapse against Jorge Sampaoli’s feisty Chileans – fitness. Or, better said a distinct lack of it. With few opportunities for many in the squad to play 90 minutes since the end of the MLS season last fall, or for others to get any game time while warming benches in Europe, it became painfully clear in the last half hour that dead legs couldn’t keep pace.
Of course there was more to it than just heavy legs. It was also a trying exercise on the football brain for the players as Klinsmann once again decided to bust out a new formation – this time a classic 3-5-2. After the match, U.S. forward
Jozy Altidore (who put the Americans up 2-1 in the first half) said it was “difficult” for the team to make the transition.
One could easily call that the understatement of the year, but it wouldn’t be totally fair. There were certainly some positives, but most came in the form of new blood like Steve Birnbaum and Gyasi Zardes fitting in rather seamlessly.
But that had little to do with a dramatic change in tactics and style. To understand Klinsmann and his coaching philosophies (which, let’s face it, no one truly does), one must perhaps look at his playing career and the managers along the way that influenced him. Is it not reasonable to assume that a man who played not only at the absolute highest level internationally, but also in the Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A and the Premier League, could be piecing together an amalgamation of styles?
The list of heavy-handed, yet often brilliant managers that Klinsmann served under is about as subtle as a Jermaine Jones tackle after giving up possession in the area. There are names such as Arie Haan, Giovanni Trapattoni, Arsene Wenger, Gerry Francis and Otto Rehhagel. It’s hard not to imagine taking a little bit from each of them and trying to find your own path. But let’s face it – not every great player turns into a great tactician.
Klinsmann seems to be putting together a jigsaw puzzle by grabbing each piece and seeing if it fits, instead of using informed judgments to make logical conclusions for what goes where.
Take the back line from the Chile match as an example. Klinsmann has constantly beaten the ‘play it out from the back’ drum since he took over three years ago, but with Sampaoli’s energetic forwards pressing every step of the way, goalkeeper Nick Rimando was more often than not forced to simply boot the ball into the midfield. It was difficult enough for the U.S. to play it out of deep positions with a back four against any quality foe (which Chile most certainly is), and now he just cut off one more outlet. So what’s it going to be?
It’s no wonder that Jermaine Jones is Klinsmann’s new BFF – they share very similar tendencies of an almost bipolar nature when it comes to football. Jones did a decent job at times anchoring a back three and providing a composed figure to link up with the midfield, but his ultimate desire to get forward and show his value in the midfield often lead to some
stunningly dangerous giveaways and a complete disconnect with Matt Besler on the first of Chile’s three scores.
Which is the way forward? Will it take an even longer stretch of futility before Klinsmann decides that continuity is indeed the best policy?
Or will he be stubborn and simply do things the way he’s been backed to do by Sunil Gulati?
Only one man has the answer, and he has a World Cup medal to give him the confidence in whatever that answer may be. To end on a more positive note, if there’s ever a time to get the bad results and experimentation out of the way, this is it. CONCACAF enjoys (or is hurt by, depending on how you look at it) a grace period after each World Cup that allows its teams to ease into serious competition often up to a year later. With no meaningful games until this summer’s Gold Cup, it’s a time for a bit of the mad alchemist trying to conjure up gold from lead.
But the U.S. fan base and media isn’t what it used to be – those days are very much over. Social media, 24 hour sports news and the unlimited blogosphere has given them an unparalleled voice to shout out, loud and clear, that results are still what ultimately determines if a coach deserves the opportunity to continue holding a job.
Is there pressure on Klinsmann? Not if you think he could lose his job for losing a string of friendlies. That’s not going to happen. It’s easy to forget that when it really mattered, in 2013, the German boss delivered the USA’s best ever calendar year in terms of victories, and last summer, by hook or by crook, got us into the last 16 in Brazil.
But with each negative result, the questions grow more intense. The second-guessing becomes louder. The luster of having a big name coach slowly gives way to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it might be time to let an American coach once again handle the American player.
And if Klinsmann wants to quiet those doubts, it will take a sparkling performance against an ideal opponent like Panama on February 8 in Carson to swing public opinion back in his favor.
Well, at least until the next experiment. He hasn’t used a false 9 yet, has he?
Also See:
Gonzalez’s Second-Half Brace Pushes Chile Past USMNT
