72115_isi_klinsmannjurgen_usmntjd072215102 John Dorton/isiphotos.com
Post-Match Analysis

U.S. Men's Soccer Took a Step in the Wrong Direction

The U.S. men's national team hasn't lost in a Gold Cup semifinal since 2003—until Wednesday night, when Jurgen Klinsmann's men fell to a Jamaica team that seems to have the German coach's number.
BY Brooke Tunstall Posted
July 22, 2015
11:10 PM

ATLANTA—In sports, especially at the highest level, things like winning games and lifting trophies matter.

Yes, the United States' 2-1 upset loss to Jamaica here in the semifinals of the Gold Cup can be dismissed as just as that, an upset, a one-off surprise result that is a reason why fans of underdogs watch sports.  

But ultimately, wins are the gauge with which progress is measured. And for the U.S. men’s national team and head coach Jurgen Klinsmann, crashing out of the Gold Cup before the final for the first time since 2003 and losing to a Caribbean team at home for the first time since 1969 is the opposite of progress. 

Yes, the loss is just one game. But we’re now four years into Klinsmann’s tenure as national team coach and for all his words about improving and playing proactively and more possession-oriented soccer, we’re still seeing the same things from the U.S. that we’ve seen for 20 years. 

That’s not all on Klinsmann. But the bar of expectation has been set as Klinsmann has said to judge the U.S. both on how it played and the results. 

Well, it played lousy in the group stage of the Gold Cup. And it lost tonight. You can’t say “as long as we win” and then pivot to “but we played well” when the results don’t your way. 

A lousy Gold Cup got Klinsmann’s predecessor, Bob Bradley, fired four years ago. This isn’t to say that Klinsmann should be fired. The U.S. has done some good things on his watch. 

But the U.S. also did good things on Bradley’s watch and Bruce Arena’s watch, and, hell even that of Steve Sampson and Bora Milutinovic. And none of them made the kind of salary Klinsmann is drawing from U.S. Soccer, nor had the carte blanche Klinsmann has. And none of them had the depth of player pool that the U.S. currently does. 

So at this point, it’s tough to look at where the U.S. is under four years of Klinsmann and say this is where they’ve improved. As has been pointed out here before, there’s nothing Klinsmann has done that his predecessors didn’t. 

Win the Gold Cup? Bora, Bruce, and Bradley all did that.

Win the group in World Cup qualifying? Done.

Advance to the second round of the World Cup? Check.

Get some nice wins over traditional heavyweights? England, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Spain—they all fell to the U.S. under previous coaches. Even the tie in qualifying in Azteca, which the U.S. did two years ago, was  accomplished previously by the U.S.—under Sampson. Sampson!

None of those coaches lost to Jamaica and the U.S. has now lost to the Reggae Boyz twice under Klinsmann. 

It also needs to be pointed out that Klinsmann's hand-picked choice to guide the U-23 national team in Olympic qualifying, Caleb Porter, failed to deliver the U.S. to the 2012 Olympics and the U-17 national team failed to make that age group’s World Cup two years ago. Klinsmann isn’t just U.S. coach but technical director so results like this are on his watch and part of the metric by which he’s evaluated.

So the heat is now on Klinsmann. And while his boss, the perpetually ducking Sunil Gulati—who refused to comment on tonight’s loss just like he ducked the U.S. Senate and just like he’s failed to discuss what he knew about FIFA and CONCACAF corruption—likely won’t fire the German over this year’s Gold Cup results. 

But the reality is that if the U.S. slips up and falls in Olympic qualifying or fails to win the playoff with this year’s Gold Cup champion for the spot in the 2017 Confederations Cup, or has any hiccups when World Cup qualifying starts, then Klinsmann will be under intense pressure. 

Klinsmann comes across as perpetually upbeat and positive when dealing with the media but he also never admits that anything is ever his fault. Ever. At some point, that needs to change, especially when the results and the performances went the way they did in this Gold Cup. 

Because the U.S. didn’t just fail to progress at this year’s tournament, they took a step backward.

Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter.

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