Excuses fine for now, but Klinsmann must fix “Jekyll and Hyde” USMNT

Boston, MA — The United States Men’s National Team are safely through to the quarter finals where they will face Cuba this evening at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD.

The USMNT has hardly been consistent for the first three games but all-in-all it was a team in cruise control playing opponents it didn’t really need to get out of first gear for. Cuba in the quarter finals won’t pose much more of a test so expect Jurgen Klinsmann to name a fourth-straight different lineup this evening.

Despite not ever really needing to play well, Klinsmann and his men have come under a lot of criticism as of late and its understandable when you look back on the performances. Players like Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley have underwhelmed — Altidore, though probably due to fitness, has been sent home to Toronto — leaving Clint Dempsey to shoulder the lions share of the attacking responsibility.

“A win is a win” many supporters of Klinsmann cry. It’s true — especially in tournaments — that 3 points the ugly way is nothing to be scoffed at when you’re playing teams whose main goal is to “scalp” the USMNT in a sense. But while these teams play “up” to the occasion, should USMNT fans be asking for more from their team?

You see a win really isn’t a win. Not always. Not ever, actually. You have to look at the how, and the why — something many USMNT fans simply aren’t doing.

USMNT played well against pretty much full-strength Germany and Netherlands sides in the lead up to this tournament, recording their 7th and 8th wins in just over 30 attempts on European soil. Klinsmann had a game plan, the team played “up” to the occasion of playing two of the best teams in the world, and USMNT shocked pretty much everybody in the footballing world.

USMNT fans should demand that USMNT maintain this level of performance. No USMNT aren’t going to win the 2018 World Cup if they play they way they did vs Germany and Netherlands in exhibition games, but recent performances against higher-ranked opposition bodes well for them.

They took a very highly-rated Belgium side (thanks to 16 saves from Tim Howard that saved an awful defenses blushes) all the way to extra time, they should have beaten Portugal, and after losing to Germany in the final group game they came back to beat them in a friendly.

USMNT right now are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and have fans asking: We know they can play at this level, why can’t they maintain it?

Constant rotation to the side doesn’t help, for sure, but Klinsmann has to bleed in new talent in preparation for the World Cup in 2018 and the 2017 Confederations Cup. Bleeding in new talent doesn’t mean that the product on the field has to suffer, though.

Ultimately, it’s an attitude problem.

Jurgen Klinsmann — despite all criticisms — has the toughest job in world soccer. Klinsmann is the coach of a national side that could have one of the biggest national pools of talent in the world; the USMNT has essentially unlimited potential in how good it could be.

The problem Klinsmann has is that for every game USMNT go to Europe with a chip on their shoulder ready to play — and beat — the best in the world, he has six games against teams that have a collective ELO average ranking of about 90.

In short: It’s harder to “jack yourself up” to play Cuba at 200% when you know you can almost show up and win regardless, than it is to do the same for a game versus Germany in Germany. That’s the tough part for USMNT’s mercurial German leader — keeping up performances against the teams who are much, much worse than USMNT.

Nobody is accusing players whom love playing for their country of “not taking it seriously,” but when you can take an inch as a professional soccer player playing 40-50 games a year, you could be forgiven for taking it.

The best teams in the world, however, don’t.

Nobody really buys the argument that what you do against top-level European teams does’t work vs CONCACAF. Yes CONCACAF can be more physical, but that’s more or less because the quality of teams USMNT are playing need to foul them to keep up, to break up their rhythm, to compete with them.

USMNT are better, and should be able to cope a lot better than they currently are.

Klinsmann cannot help who USMNT play, they are victims of their confederation, but he somehow has to stop USMNT playing down to teams in the CONCACAF region so that they can dominate on the world stage.

There have been musings recently of a switch to CONEMBOL for USMNT and how they might fare in it. It’s not something fans should expect to see happen, but next years Copa America should prove to be a good yard-stick of where USMNT is really at ability wise. CONMEBOL has some of the highest ranked teams in the world in it, and USMNT will have to play every game at 200% to make a realistic run at winning the centenary competition, hosted in the US.

All Jurgen Klinsmann needs to figure out now are which players he plans on taking, and stick with them so that they gel. USMNT fans expect to win the Gold Cup — most even consider it a formality — so Klinsmann’s excuses of European based players and US based players being at different points fitness wise, and how they are giving younger players experience are fine… for now.

Poor performances will not be tolerated in June of next year, and neither will Klinsmann’s excuses.

The USMNT plays Cuba at 5pm ET at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD this afternoon in the Gold Cup Quarter Finals.

TV: Fox Sports 1, Unimas.

Follow Scott Nicholls on Twitter: @scottnicholls