Stanford University student Jordan Morris at the end of a driving run down the left hand side.
San Antonio, Texas — Last Wednesday the U.S. men’s national team celebrated another “Dos a Cero” win over Mexico. Jurgen Klinsmann’s side are now unbeaten in 6 games against Mexico, and their current win came during the German’s “experimental” period ahead of the 2015 Gold Cup.
Many lamented when Klinsmann opted to experiment for exhibition games against Denmark and Switzerland, giving up goals in the second half in both. The message was clear: you can experiment, but we want results.
Cue the “exhibition” game versus Mexico in San Antonio.
There was some controversy surrounding the match — the playing surface was beyond useless and Mexico even threatened to pull out the Monday before the game!
Ultimately the organizers reminded Miguel Herrera and Mexico of their responsibilities and the game went ahead as scheduled. The U.S. men’s national team won the game 2-0, creating another chapter in the “dos a cero” history books. The highlight of the game? Stanford University sophomore Jordan Morris scoring his first international goal with a well struck finish in the 49th minute.
Morris’ inclusion sparked controversy. Taylor Twellman actually asserted it as disrespectful to other professional players that he was included as an amateur. But the bold move paid off for Klinsmann.
Remember this quote? “I made it clear with Clint’s move back and (Bradley’s) move back that it’s going to be very difficult for them to keep that same level that they experienced at the places they were. It’s just reality.”
That quote ruffled a lot of feathers. It’s no secret that Klinsmann believes Major League Soccer isn’t quite up to snuff by his standards.
But we understand his stance on why he believes his players should take more chances and try and go to Europe to play, right? For example the thought is that if DeAndre Yedlin is able to push himself enough to get into the first team at Tottenham for a period, he will have had to push himself that much harder to make himself that much better.
The same can be said for Jonathan Brooks at Hertha Berlin. While Brooks is playing, Yedlin is not, and neither is Julian Green at Hamburg, but they’re being rewarded for trying to make themselves better than they are or could possibly have been.
This stance kind of rubs people the wrong way in America. This stance gets people riled up about the quality of soccer that is on display in their own country. Some people have even branded the coach of the USMNT a “Euro Snob” because of his views on the quality that players like Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey will play against in Major League Soccer.
“We look at their potential and their possible path ahead of them. We tell them where they need to improve.” There’s nothing in that quote from last Wednesday’s press conference that says that every player’s path has to lead to Europe.
Sure enough against Mexico the U.S. men’s national team not only had a player who was still in college on the field (Jordan Morris), they had a player who is playing in the NASL (Miguel Ibarra) as well.
When asked about Jordan Morris and why he was being given his chance, Klinsmann replied “Coaches try and foresee a little bit the path of a player and where he will go… It takes certain circumstances for this to happen, Clint not coming in it one and Wondo had some calf issues so you think well why not?!”
But it’s not all just through luck and injuries, Morris has performed well at every level he has represented the United States at, “he [Morris] went first to Boznia with the Olympic team, scored there, played very very well” said Klinsmann noting that USMNT staff “see that there’s a constant positive path there with him. Does he nee to mature? Does he need to be stronger? These are things that will come over time.”
Prost-Amerika asked Michael Bradley whether he thought that the fact the USMNT at one point in the game had a player from NCAA and one from NASL was encouraging to see how much talent that America is producing from all over it’s soccer landscape.
“It’s no secret that we have a unique landscape in our country in terms of the diversity, in terms of MLS and NASL and college soccer” said the captain. Bradley went on to say “at the end of the day you try to find your best players and you put them on the field in a way where it can be a real team — a team that can stand together on hard days.”
Klinsmann maintains that every young player is assessed individually as to what he may need in order to make himself a more complete player. In some cases, it seems, that means that the players should challenge themselves to be better.
Of the players playing against Mexico Gyasi Zardes, Kyle Beckerman, Omar Gonzalez, Nick Rimando, Jordan Morris, Miguel Ibarra, and Perry Kitchen had never spent any time playing outside of the US. Gonzalez did go on loan once to 1. FC Nürnberg, but injured his ACL in training before he ever played a game.
If you look at the players that Klinsmann is picking to be in his national team squads, they are players who are challenging themselves to be better. Is Klinsmann right to assert that all of his players would be better playing away from Major League Soccer? No. He even considers Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley “lynchpins” of his team, something he never called Landon Donovan.
“They need to grow quickly because the professional game, globally, starts at 18” said Klinsmann in the post match conference at San Antonio’s Alamodome. He’s right, players in European countries are on the docket to be a professional much more quickly than their US counterparts. Sometimes I wonder how much this hurts and hinders a players development — see Michael Owen and how burnt out he was by age 29.
But the fact that Ibarra and Morris played — and continue to impress in their USMNT showings — shows that Klinsmann is looking at players on an individual basis. It shows that he is not insisting that every single one of his national team players need to play abroad.
The win against Mexico didn’t just show the talent that the U.S. men’s national team has to offer in a few years, it shows that they are ready to contribute right now.
Best of all for the U.S. men’s national team is that it means progress is being made on its own soil.
