Thank you, Jurgen. And good bye. Time to Move on from...

[Karl]

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Thank you, Jurgen. And good bye. Time to Move on from the Sterile Klinsmann Interlude.
By Paul Gardner

Buried under the tumult and clamor of the USA's performance against Belgium -- most of it focused on goalkeeper Tim Howard’s remarkable performance -- are some uncomfortable truths for the American game.

The fact that Howard had a great game should surprise no one. The USA has always had good goalkeepers. Beyond that record-setting stat of 16 saves, questions bristle. A record number of saves must also mean something like a record number of shots by the opposing team. Fact. As the BBC’s Ben Smith put it, Howard’s “teammates were simply outclassed.”


http://www.socceramerica.com/article...move-on-f.html

[HL]

Everyone 'ave an axe to grine....

[Lazie]

Foolishness! The writer's issue is because Klinsmann carried players of German descent? Well, without those 'German' players where would Team USA end up? John Brooks scored the winner against Ghana, Jones scored the go ahead goal against Portugal and Green scored against Belgium.

Oh wait .... all these players were picked ahead of Landon Donovan, the face of US soccer. The team had a good showing at the world cup and can work to improve on that. Some of these jokers need to chill.

[Jangle]

The writer is a clown. It's people like him who does not understand the variety of factors that goes into making an elite football team, that makes the rest of the world not respect America's soccer. The USA has the world's biggest waggonist fan-base, and that applies to all of their sports. There is no real passion in their support. Soccer still has a far way to go to be considered an "American" sport.

[Don1]

Solid, reasonable perspective.... devoid of the silly propaganda one finds in most US media people follow like lemmings

A dose of reality many will find uncomfortable

[Jawge]

What you guys don't know there is a cabal in US soccer. They have held the game in the US in darkness to the benefit of their own pockets. Now Klinsman came and want to change things so that you can see real footballers playing for a the US. The cabal says war! Don't be fooled this fiefdom is strong and well entrenched. They have their operatives in the media to subtly steer America in their desired direction. Why do you think the US is packed with players that literally cannot play? How many Brasilian, Arg, Mexican, African and West Indians kids that are here (US) with crazy technical ability that can't even go near the team.

Wake up from the matrix.

[Karl]

Foolishness! The writer's issue is because Klinsmann carried players of German descent? Well, without those 'German' players where would Team USA end up? John Brooks scored the winner against Ghana, Jones scored the go ahead goal against Portugal and Green scored against Belgium.

Oh wait .... all these players were picked ahead of Landon Donovan, the face of US soccer. The team had a good showing at the world cup and can work to improve on that. Some of these jokers need to chill.

Good one!
...do you really think the guy who wrote was serious?

[Karl]

Solid, reasonable perspective.... devoid of the silly propaganda one finds in most US media people follow like lemmings

A dose of reality many will find uncomfortable

Don1? Don1?

[Karl]

Thank you, Jurgen. And good bye. Time to Move on from the Sterile Klinsmann Interlude.
by Paul Gardner, July 2nd, 2014 8:33AM


By Paul Gardner

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Buried under the tumult and clamor of the USA's performance against Belgium -- most of it focused on goalkeeper Tim Howard’s remarkable performance -- are some uncomfortable truths for the American game.

The fact that Howard had a great game should surprise no one. The USA has always had good goalkeepers. Beyond that record-setting stat of 16 saves, questions bristle.

A record number of saves must also mean something like a record number of shots by the opposing team. Fact. As the BBC’s Ben Smith put it, Howard’s “teammates were simply outclassed.”

Fact!

Stats that show a goalkeeper as your MVP are great for the goalkeeper. But they invariably mean that you’re not that good a team.

Using your logic on Goalkeeper as your MVP not good for the team!
Say Neuer of Germany was not good for his team?

...and since Neuer was the MVP for Germany v Algeria that translates into Germany not that good a team?

...and when you ask the reader to question the level of quality of Klinsmann's TEAM USA which set of TEAMs should the reader make that comparison? Ghana? Portugal? ...and Germany that whipped us one zero?

How many TEAMs in the World are as competent as this USA TEAM?

The USA, by now, should be well past the stage of relying on good goalkeeping. Evidently it is not -- to the point of setting a World Cup record for keeper-dependence.

The first sentence is nonsense statement. ...there is no need to suggest to the writer...yup! ...the writer...that there is no sane reason to not rely on a good goalkeeper. Such a suggestion...such an aim is ludicrous.

We can probe further. Jurgen Klinsmann’s team has departed this World Cup at the round-of-16 stage. Is that to be considered a triumph, or even an achievement? This is exactly what Bob Bradley’s team did last time around, in 2010. Come to that, Bruce Arena’s 2002 team got to the quarterfinals. So where is the progress?

If the competition in 2002 or 2010 was of same or similar quality then the writer would have had a point. Unfortunately for him, the quality football being played today is far superior to that played as recently as the last World Cup.

Look Usian Bolt and his fellow athletes have made running the 100M below the 9.90 sec. range into a stroll. Now entire football teams at the World Cup have players with top sprinters first 20 meters speed. It is a new era where the football athlete is 'light years' further along than players 4 years past. Check the stats on each player...number of passes, number of sprints, distance travelled, etc.? ...and there has been improvements to ball, physical capabilities and technical and tactical skills of players. It is in effect a 'new world'.

Possibly, it is to be found in the quality of the USA’s play. If the USA, under Klinsmann, has developed a style, if it can be seen to be playing consistently skillful, attacking soccer that would certainly be a huge plus. I don’t want to spend much time on this matter, because I regard it as patently obvious that the USA, under Klinsmann, has made no advance at all in either the caliber or the style of its play.

Guess you were not watching the matches in the context of opposition faced. ...and definitely you were not watching the development of the TEAM during the period when Klinsmann first took control up in 2011 until the last match.

In fact, Klinsmann has led U.S. soccer astray. His insistence on ignoring young American talent while he brings in primarily German players with little or no connection to the USA, his preference for Germans on his coaching staff, have moved American soccer away from the much richer ethnic diversity that is the country’s natural talent base. Are we supposed to believe this statement of Klinsmann’s? -- "We are doing everything we can in every corner of the country to find the talent.” So he brings in players from Germany, from Iceland, from Norway -- areas not hitherto known as corners of the USA.

Your eyes are open but you do not see!
Is Klinsmann only involved with the senior team?

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/sport...form-us-soccer

...and what of the insular view that comes straight out of Orwell's Animal Farm, some US citizens are better than some? It is the same rant that spews from the mouths of the skinheads, racists and others of their ilk.

Only one outcome can justify this gross distortion of American soccer -- in particular, the youth development area. That would be success. Clear, unarguable, success.

Well, the results are in, and they are poor.

The results are poor you say....tell that to all those teams that departed this World Cup at the end of the Group Stage...and the many others who never made it to the World Cup.

We shall have to wait a while longer, I suppose, for all the overwrought emotional posturing to die down. I’m referring to the USA’s terrific comeback at the end of the Belgium game. Praise indeed to the players -- but is there anything new here? Did Klinsmann invent the tremendous competitiveness of American athletes, their abiding desire to come through as winners?

That spirit has nothing to do with Klinsmann. It can be taken as a given in any American team, particularly when the U.S. flag is involved. Tiresome is not too strong a word to use when the praise starts pouring in about the great American fighting spirit. Not because that spirit does not exist, but because it is so heavily overemphasized. Are we to believe that the Germans don’t want to win? That the Argentines have no fighting spirit?

The Italians, the Spanish, the Uruguayans . . . all lacking cojones?

And what about the Costa Ricans? Their remarkable performance in this World Cup -- better by far, be it noted, than the USA’s -- puts everything that Klinsmann has been doing to shame.

We can start with this: Costa Rica, population approx 4.5 million. USA, population approx 317 million. In terms of the number of potential soccer players, in terms of the money and resources poured into youth development, it’s no contest. Then there’s the coach -- the USA’s foreign celebrity version flying his helicopter, using his dubious gurus, raking in headlines with his undoubted charisma; and for Costa Rica we can offer you Jorge Luis Pinto (also a foreigner, he’s Colombian not Costa Rican) with a successful but not spectacular 30-year coaching career.

Pinto, with fewer players, less money, less resources, has done what Klinsmann has utterly failed to do -- he has produced a team of Costa Ricans, 14 of them playing for foreign clubs (not major clubs -- and there are no German-Costa Ricans on this side) that has played attractive, coherent, intelligent soccer. Watching the USA, one is often left wondering whether Klinsmann has even tried to do this.

I think you can argue that appointing Klinsmann -- a top world coach with considerable World Cup experience -- was worth a try. But he has comprehensively failed to deliver. This is a good moment to underline that the Belgium game -- the center of all the current shouting -- was a loss. Of its four games in the World Cup, the USA won only one. That is not success or progress. Klilnsmann should be dumped.

His replacement? Must be an American. Must be someone who is going to give the Hispanic players a fair shake (something Klinsmann badly failed to do). The obvious candidate here is Tab Ramos. Too young? Possibly. But a risk worth taking, I think, to put right the distortions that Klinsmann has so damagingly installed. Ramos has experience, he has shown, with the under-20s, that he has an eye for talent and he is admired for the high degree of professionalism that he applies to his coaching duties.

The time to make to change is right now. If ever that hackneyed phrase “we’ve decided to go in a new direction” truly applied, this is one such moment. The Klinsmann bandwagon is getting us nowhere.

1. Yes we will have to wait a little longer. The development of players needs improvement. Besides Tim Howard all the others lacked something on quality. Discovered by Klinsmann, the young ones - Yellin, Julian Green, John Brooks - it hoped will improve tremendously and be joined by other Klinsmann discoveries.

2. Look no more than the performance against Portugal for peeps at the type movement and passing that on occasions was evident...and think on our inventive set-piece worked beautifully in the waning minutes against Belgium where but for the final execution (kick) we would have taken the game to penalty-kicks for Klinsmann importance to our moving towards TOP OF THE WORLD quality. A region which hitherto appeared outside our reach.

3. Persons with little understanding of the revolution in how the game is played that has taken place in the last 10 years - the start of the Barcelona and Spain period of dominance - end up being ruled by ignorance.

4. Costa Rica - 4 million plus?
...so let's play the fool with the writer: What is the population of Florida? After all the USA coaches decades of work on soccer development is there a soccer team in the class of Costa Rica? How many quality players currently available to allow a sensible rationale for replacing any of our US Citizens footballers in our World cup squad and unwrinkled the distortion in the USA squad?

The article was posted as something to 'tickle' 'The Massive'! ...sure we are not satisfied with the quality of our play...and even when we have won the World Cup we shall not be satisfied as one can always get better! ...make improvements...progress!!!!

[Islandman]

Somewhat melodramatic (we know Klinsman isn't going anywhere) but the writer makes some points worth pondering.

Jawge is saying that good immigrant talent is being ignored. Well isn't that what the writer is saying too? The difference is that he blames Klinsman for not doing anything about it while Jawge and others believe that Klinsman is trying to change it but getting a fight. Which is right?

His insistence on ignoring young American talent while he brings in primarily German players with little or no connection to the USA,...his preference for Germans on his coaching staff, have moved American soccer away from the much richer ethnic diversity that is the country’s natural talent base. Are we supposed to believe this statement of Klinsmann’s? -- "We are doing everything we can in every corner of the country to find the talent.” So he brings in players from Germany, from Iceland, from Norway -- areas not hitherto known as corners of the USA.

I think it is too early to grade Klinsman's legacy. Let us see what he does for the development of the sport in the USA over the next few years.

[Don1]

Don1? Don1?

Grüße Karl. Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?

[HL]

Karl, how many times must I tell you to be more detailed in your analysis.

[Jangle]

Donovan was puzzled as to why the U.S. abandoned an attacking style of play that had worked for them in the past, a clear dig at his former coach.

"They were set up in a way that was opposite from what they've been the past couple years, which is opening up, passing, attacking – trying to do that. And the team's been successful that way. Why they decided to switch that in the World Cup, none of us will know. From a playing standpoint, I think the guys will probably be disappointed in the way things went."

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer...182621682.html

[Gamma]

but they played better and reached just as far as they did in 2010.....

[Jangle]

There's no vengeance like a scorned woman.