What is wrong with the US Men's Soccer Team?

Well, if you measure depth of players, we are clearly getting better. If you measure the top tier of US players, I am not sure we are at all. We have more youth playing at European academies than in the past and a few of them are starting to break through, a few exciting prospects. Otherwise we have a couple of really good high quality club players (but not transcendent) and a bunch of good players in the domestic league. I do think Bradley, Altidore, etc. playing in MLS hurts us. I don't think the talent is better than it was in 2002 (again, the depth is but you only play 11 at a time, so depth is only somewhat important to a national side).

Klinsmann has been a disaster as a coach. We do not have a playing style, which his whole pitch was premised on us controlling the ball. His tactics are bewildering as he insists on playing people in roles and formations that they do not play at the club level. I honestly think he should go.

National teams are really never as cohesive as the best club teams, there is just no way for them to be. A good national team coach has to recognize that, implement a specific system that fits his players, and puts his players in the right places to succeed with limited practice time. I don't see Klinsmann doing that. I also think the players have tuned him out at this point.

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

Is it that the fans have too high of expectations and we just have to accept we are not a soccer powerhouse?

Pretty much

America's best athletes play other sports, as a result the USA team is not as good as 1) it could be and 2) other teams

get used to it

one arrogant German who thinks that the only guys that can play have some German connection. That is the bad old way of managing the U.S., accepting only those with a foreign connection. You do not develop young talent this way. This is a country of 300+ million with enormous #'s of youth soccer players, a high school and college and pro proving ground, and plenty of money. That is the recipe for a great soccer nation. There is one man, Jurgen Klinsmann, that has reversed all the trends with his narrowmindedness and favoritism.

One coach can't fix this.

We have never produced ONE world class player. The player pool is worse now. MLS is designed for mediocre parity, owned by one entity that cares nothing for development of our national team- they are businessmen, that's all.

And please- the problem is not lack of "best athletes".

If you truly care to understand this, follow 3four3 on twitter.

I think the US has produced several world class goal keepers.

Soccer is a potential ticket out of poverty for people all over the world. Sure, only a select a few really make it, but everyone strives to be that person. Soccer IS NOT a ticket out of poverty in the USA, because poor people don't play soccer. Poor kids play basketball and football, and bring the same mentality to that (it's a ticket out of poverty). The NFL minimum salary for a player with 0 years of experience is $450,000.

Smart, rich kids play soccer but also have a lot of other distractions that poor kids don't have.

Start paying soccer players $5-$10 million per year and maybe you'd get somewhere.

Many many things to discuss but I think that they indeed are still rag-tag in ways. What also troubles me is the number of the vets playing in North America. The best is in Europe. Maybe some of the individuals' quality has not gone down but as a whole MLS is not close to the European leagues. I'm sure they miss home and want to return stateside and still get paid similar wages for being the best in the league as well as get playing time instead of buried in the starting 23. I love all of the German Americans (possible ethical argument aside *cough* Abby Wambach); they are a big reason why the USMNT has better quality. I really hope the other younger players abroad flourish and bring more quality as well - Miazga, Pulisic, et al. Arguably the best team we have had in last ten to fifteen years was that Confed Cup team of 2009 - many current vets that were younger and playing in Europe and had that chip on their shoulders. Credit was due to Bob Bradley for that success but the way they took down Spain and scared Brazil (but flopped) was unreal.

Who is the best replacement for JK?

Arena? Caleb Porter? Jason Kreis?

Another problem of the US is they are SLOW. Routinely in CONCACAF games against "lesser" opponents they cant handle the speed of the wingers. So you have teams just essentially play "boot ball" and let their speedy wingers run onto the ball. Because the US is slow, this leads to chances for the opposition.

The more tactical teams that are fluid on the ball, ie Germany, Italy, etc will dominate in possession but the US *ALWAYS* has a chance in these games because of usually great goalkeeping and enough grit and fight and scrappiness in the midfield to be able to hang.

The US has no system under JK. They didnt have one under Bradley. Nor Arena. The difference with Arena and Bradley is they could recognize deficiencies in their own lineup/talent and would formulate a plan around that (ie vs Spain for Bradley or vs Czech Republic for Arena) JK either can't or won't recognize that. The game against Guatemala looked like they were just running around lost and not sure who was supposed to be where on the pitch.

Lots of good points about best athletes in other sports. And the US does have world class keepers and other players. But we don't have any world class strikers. And really only have 1 striker on the USMNT. You can't win if you can't score.

Also the club coaching is awful in the US. The country is too big to truly develop talent or implement a cohesive system or develop coaches. If we picked a single state and focused all US soccer efforts on developing players and coaches there we might have a chance. But that would never happen. For example, Imagine if all the US soccer players and top coaches were all from North Carolina. It would never fly. Yet that's why tiny countries such as Belgium can be among the top 5 in the world. Do you think they have the best athletes?

Soccer is the dumbest sport ever

Nobody cares

Stick with eharmony wrote:

Soccer is the dumbest sport ever

Nobody cares

Well, how many track fans are NASCAR fans? I mean, they both only make left hand turns, right?

I think there is still a cultural component to it. People in other countries live and breathe soccer. They grow up watching it and playing games constantly. Maybe it's different now than 10 years ago when I was still playing, but kids in the U.S. were't watching hours of soccer every week (I had to beg my parents to shell out extra on cable costs to buy the soccer channel), and the club system leaned toward tons of skill-building drills over just throwing a ball on the ground and playing ball. There's a certain intuitive understanding of the game that hasn't been hardwired into enough players. But again, maybe that's changing.

Stick with eharmony wrote:

Nobody cares

Yeah, the threads where you complain about your ineptitude with women or laud a sh*tty 80s band deserve far more attention.

peace out wrote:

America's best athletes play other sports, as a result the USA team is not as good as 1) it could be and 2) other teams

get used to it

This.

Imagine if the Lebron Jameses, the Currys, the Adrian Petersons, the Calvin Johnsons of the US grew up loving and playing soccer.

(I am not saying these particular guys would have made good soccer players...obviously a completely different skill set... but just imagine a US team with the skills of our current team, but the physical gifts of the best skill positions in the NBA and NFL. It would be carnage.)

thejeff wrote:

peace out wrote:

America's best athletes play other sports, as a result the USA team is not as good as 1) it could be and 2) other teams

get used to it

This.

Imagine if the Lebron Jameses, the Currys, the Adrian Petersons, the Calvin Johnsons of the US grew up loving and playing soccer.

(I am not saying these particular guys would have made good soccer players...obviously a completely different skill set... but just imagine a US team with the skills of our current team, but the physical gifts of the best skill positions in the NBA and NFL. It would be carnage.)

You don't understand soccer. Nobody in the NBA and almost nobody in the NFL has the physical gifts necessary to play.

Steph Curry looks fast compared to 6-10 guys...but he would be the slowest guy on the field for the USMNT.

There might be a few NFL players who could muster the endurance to exist as pure striker who does a lot of walking.

We are talking about drastically different sports here.

I would imagine Kobe would probably have been pretty good. I mean, he grew up playing the game in Italy, IIRC.

There are probably some football players out there, namely wide receivers, that would be fast. Whether or not this means they have any skills to play the game though is the difference.

USA wins tonight and is right back on pace for a spot in the Hex (final round of CONCACAF WC qualifying). This will save Klinsmann's job until a probable disastrous showing at Copa America this Summer...but then Sunil and the powers at US Soccer will say that the main goal is qualifying for the World Cup and Klinsmann has got us this far, blah blah blah.

Would the higher ups at US Soccer EVER consider firing JK before the Hex qualification begins?

First thing to do is to stop calling it soccer; it's called football for a reason but in order to do this, you need to rename American football touchball or throwball or something.

let's start here wrote:

First thing to do is to stop calling it soccer; it's called football for a reason but in order to do this, you need to rename American football touchball or throwball or something.

hand-egg ball.