USA 1-0 Costa Rica: Regular as Tuesday

Third image for "regular Tuesday." I like it.

Start with a premise: the U.S. Men’s National Team started (some of their) most promising young players, but not their (alleged) best, and go from there. Those kids lined up against a Costa Rican national team that was certainly experienced, but, full disclosure, I have no idea as to whether or not that’s Costa Rica’s finest.

Next question: how’d it go?

Eh. 1-0 to the U.S., and about as exciting as that sounds.

I’d say the U.S. was the clearly better team, or at least the one that played like it believed it could win – something else from playing to win – but Costa Rica had a great chance at the game’s first goal and they had at least two buck-naked breakouts (which means the U.S. had only one or two defenders close enough to matter) before that miss. Those breaks aside, the Americans started strong, and their movement and passing had the Costa Ricans chasing; Costa Rica adjusted by condensing its defensive lines, and the game turned into your everyday, ordinary CONCACAF slog.

To sum up, a young, untested American team played an experienced team from its qualifying region, one that has consistently ranked number 3 in the region behind the U.S. and Mexico, and they looked the better team, but still barely beat them. That's as regular as Tuesday, when you think about it.

Welcome to my blank slate for the U.S. Men’s National Team. I’ve made the decision to say, fuck the past, let’s just look at what’s in front of us. At this point, the U.S. is good enough to barely beat Costa Rica – and at home.

In Which I Try to Restart That Thing with the U.S. Men's National Team...

The mood I'm battling.

Seeing as we may not get a 2020 Major League Soccer regular season, now seems like a good time to return to an old hook-up, aka, the U.S. Men’s National Team…

…yeah, yeah, I’d be stunned stupid if MLS let CBA negotiations scuttle a landmark season (25th anniversary’s a biggie), but these are stupid times, so buckle up, I guess?

Back to the task at hand, though, the U.S. Men start qualifying for 2022 Bizarro World Cup this year, so there’s no time like the present for all concerned to gear up, players and fans. And, honestly, I’d like to get on board, but…well, that’s gotten harder since those faraway years when, because I didn’t really have an MLS team to cheer for, the U.S. Men’s National Team was my team. Back then, half the reason I followed MLS was to learn about the player pool. 25 years later, I’m a lot, lot dumber about what the U.S. has for options and, in a particularly comic twist, following the U.S. Men reminds me of how I used to keep one eye on MLS while I tracked the Portland Timbers’ fate in the USL; that’s to say, the only time I see Christian Pulisic play comes during the rare occasions I see him play for the U.S. Men. Based on that visual diet – i.e., watching a frustrated Pulisic kick at the sub seats (and did I dream this?) after departing at the tail of another anemic performance – is it any wonder I find Pulisic something less than great shakes?

Also, don’t get me started on when and where they air the goddamn games. It’s like they want to fail.

As of today, I’m biting back all that anger and just…trying to get excited about the U.S. Men again and, hopefully, seeing them qualify for FIFA’s latest monstrosity (aka, Qatar 2022, coming that Christmas, apparently). Saturday’s friendly against Costa Rica will be the next step in that process (ESPNews, guys? Really?). The first step will be…honestly, just figuring out what they hell is going on – e.g., how are the CONCACAF teams qualifying for 2022 (or even Gold Cup 2021), and what the silly fuck was the CONCACAF Nations League?

United States 2-0 Costa Rica: Ruler Theory

All shapes, sizes and qualities. All too big for some.

The United States Men’s National came out the other end of a scrapping slog against Costa Rica with a 2-0 win earlier today. It certainly wasn’t handed to the U.S. – Costa Rica kicked ‘em a couple times to remind the U.S. they were there to play (nothing malicious, just present) – and they struggled for long stretches of the game to play through a well-organized and well-coordinated defense. The break-through goals came late, though, and that’s the story of this edgy friendly.

One thing, though: I will never get used to Gregg “Both Gs” Berhalter’s fixation on dicking around with the ball in the back. I think I’m starting to get the risk/reward calculus involved – more below – but you saw the ball get tangled in Zac Steffen’s leg that one time in the second half, and I could feel the breath of that Costa Rican attacker on the back of my neck. Anyway…

The win felt good, especially in the sense that it underlined last weekend’s result against Panama, and in more ways than one, but I won’t project much out of it. From what I understand (I was only half-listening, honestly), the U.S. will have all eligible, healthy players available for the two friendlies coming up at the end of March – against Ecuador and against Chile – and those games will hand us all a big enough ruler to accurately measure the machine “Both Gs” Berhalter is building, and the ground underfoot will feel a little firmer after that. All the same, I plan on withholding judgment on the design and elegance of the car we’re driving till after this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Back to the Panama thing, the Americans started just as slowly in this game as they did against Panama, only with the twist of facing Costa Rica, a better team. The Central Americans’ counter was very much on at that point, and they caught the U.S. midfield too far forward a couple times. Their pressure was effective, but also efficient: they built it around positioning, as opposed to scrambling, and they had a player in the pocket of any American when the ball arrived at his feet, plus another player or two nearby foreclosing on available outlets. Yanqui players struggled with this, none more than the Chicago’s Fire’s youngster, Djordje Mihailovic. After impressing around the edges last week against Panama (with his movement, for me), Mihailovic reacted slowly here, and like his head was in different places there, but he coughed up the ball over and over again, and mostly via theft.

USA 3-0 Panama: Perfectly Adequate, Utterly Undramatic

There are many fruit-based comparisons available, but this one is mine.

I'll start with this: if you've missed Major League Soccer during the offseason, the U.S. Men's 3-0 win over Panama should have scratched that itch. Even going beyond (MLS-exclusive) personnel, that match came as close to, say, Columbus Crew SC pushing around, say, the Colorado Rapids as you're likely to see outside the real thing (yeah, yeah, the latest edition ended differently, the three points wound up in the same column). Better still, it all held up, all the way down to the U.S. fucking around with fire inside its own defensive third; pure Gregg Berhalter that, the high-risk, high(?)-reward of playing out of the back...god knows what a more accomplished national team than Panama will do with that high-wire act.

Credit where it's due, though: even if Panama put a couple chances on the American goal (I'd call Abdiel Arroyo's near-self-assisted goal they're best look), the U.S. never looked worse than strained - pretty much exactly what one would expect from a U.S. C-team playing Panama's B/C team. For what it's worth, I'd argue Panama ceded possession more than the U.S. maintained it, but the beginnings of something good lurk in that detail. Whether or not the Central Americans played to practice defending deep (who's to say?), their relative comfort on the ball when they had it stands as the only real warning sign I picked up from Berhalter's first outing as U.S. Men's coach. It's hard to lose sleep over that because, if a game between the U.S. and Panama's A-Teams is an apples-to-apples comparison, this was tangerine-to-tangerine, and nobody really starts its tangerines in the games that matter. Still, it was good to see the tangerines have their day. The question is, how many will one day become apples? (And...thus ends the fruit analogy.)

I'll get to that, but I want to flag one deeply and personally satisfying shift from the Jurgen Klinsmann era to tonight. In his post-game comments, Berhalter made a very clear point in directing a question about what coaching his first game for the U.S. Men meant to him (from a notably close-talking Sebastian Salazar) to praise for the players. If he follows this up by taking full responsibility for the first crushing loss, Berhalter will get a solid year of slack from me. Now, back to the tangerine thing...

A fairly constant stream of chatter plays under friendlies like this, one that acknowledges that the "real starters" wait in the wings to take over when the real games come to town. Anyone who wants to change that equation has to stand out - and several players did that for the U.S. Men tonight, including the San Jose Earthquake's Nick Lima's balls-out tackle and next-level cross to pick out Walker Zimmerman for the U.S.'s second goal; or just everything Zimmerman did with his head all day long (that he might be better with his head than he is with his feet speaks volumes about how goddamn good he is with his head); there was also Jonathan Lewis' nifty change of pace against [Panamanian fullback] (sorry!) to set up the U.S.'s third goal; which went to Christian Ramirez who, in his few minutes on the field, managed to play a cleaner, striker role than Gyasi Zardes managed all night and, golly, did anyone else feel the weight of Taylor Twellman going after Zardes' game? Jinkies....

C&C Daily: On the MLS Conference Finals, Jurgen and Bruce

To think, it was there all along and we never saw it.

Interested parties can find a programming note down below, but I’ll just jump in…with regrets for

The Conference Finals

First, the Major League Soccer Conference Finals kick off in just over an hour (good time to post, dumbass), and it’s about damn time. I have only the briefest of notes on either match up.

Regarding Montreal Impact v. Toronto FC: I don’t think Montreal will be able to do to Toronto what they did to the Philadelphia Union and, in particular, the New York Red Bulls. The climax of the regular season laid bare both teams’ capacity for defensive lapses, which only left it to Montreal to expose them, with Ignacio Piatti tugging at the drawstrings. Toronto will/should be better balanced, and they’ve got Jozy Altidore (who has been good and is always large and strong) and Sebastian Giovinco pressing matters on the other end, but that’s why they play the games, right? To see how things pan out?

As for Seattle Sounders v. Colorado Rapids, I’m expecting the Rapids to bunker, especially over Leg 1. If Seattle can’t break ‘em down – and this could be without Jordan Morris available – the Sounders will just become another patsy for the trick that the Rapids have pulled all season long…

…and, like all good Portland Timbers fans, I’m hoping they do it, even as it will mean me struggling to stay interested in/awake over the fourth straight hour of soccer I watch tonight. It would have been that little bit cooler if Shkelzen Gashi wasn’t Shkelzen Gimpy, but the thing that happened to his ankle happened to his ankle, so…it’s all down to Sebastian Le Toux?

An Epistle to the Hillsborites (And Some Teasers on Portland's Win Over FC Dallas)

It was good back then. Wait....no, it wasn't.

As anyone who's likely to visit this site already knows, the Portland Timbers booked their ticket to MLS Cup 2015 by way of a gutsy(-wrenching) 2-2 draw against FC Dallas, in Dallas. The first thing I have to say about that is, HELL, GODDAMN FUCK HOLY SHIT CRABAPPLES, YES!!

That's to say, I can't believe that the Timbers, the mighty, mighty Timbers, could very well be hoisting the actual MLS Cup one week hence. As good as Columbus Crew SC looked today – i.e. tight as the H.M.S. Titanic at launch (and, ideally, much the same at the end of that journey...if without the loss of life, so no skimping on lifeboats) – Portland looks just as good for the win as Columbus does. As anyone knows who followed the Timbers all season, that's just super-goddamn impressive and, for lack of a better phrase, warm squishies all 'round.

As much as I'd like to go on about how Fanendo Adi continued to cement his name into Timbers lore tonight, or how Lucas Melano opened this first chapter of his legend, or how Nat Borchers fucking kung-fu-kicked away a clear equalizer, I feel like I'm sitting down tonight with enough meaningful mysteries in my head to keep me from writing anything definitive, or even worthwhile about tonight's game, specifically. To give examples of questions begging answers, I can't say how Portland built the maze that kept Dallas' Mauro Diaz from finding any kind of daylight today, or how they bottled up Fabian Castillo for, more or less, the full 90. Given that, I'll leave that sort of heavy, technical lifting for another night – next Saturday, in fact, when I hope to dig into just how Columbus stifled Red Bull New York's defense over 180 improbable minutes...these are mysteries that need answering ahead of (gulp!) MLS Cup. Which is, like, a week away. EEEEEeeeeeee!! And Auuuugggghhhhhh!! (Ecstasy, Agony; you get the picture).

First of all, that involves a review of the tape(s), which I will do this week. (But, Jeff, what about the 2015 season reviews? Work in progress, Randall. Don't talk now, son, dad has a project. Judy: put the pork chops and grits on a plate; I'll nuke it later; and, kisses, all for you, sunshine.) For now, though, rather than write about how, say, Portland needs to better manage the game against Columbus than they did against Dallas tonight (quick question: did anyone else shit their actual pants at about the 80th minute, or was that an, um, extremely local phenomenon?), or to ask about just how Columbus absorbed the volume of the Atlantic Ocean without dripping a drop, I want to kick around something perhaps larger in the North American Soccer landscape: specifically, I want to talk about how, tonight, soccer was the biggest attraction in an unlikely town. Hillsboro, Oregon, to be precise.

The U.S., St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and an Inevitable Win

I see the U.S. winning the World Cup.

Call it a good start, I guess. Or just call it the right one. With the U.S. Men's National Team tangling with a small island minnow like St. Vincent & the Grenadines, anything too far short of clear victory would have begged questions. One of those could have been, how the hell did St. Vincent score that first goal?

Within the U.S. context, this is the equivalent of those preseason spring warm-ups that Major League Soccer clubs play against the local college: victory is basically assured and the day will be a success so long as Hristo Stoichov or Dema Kovalenko doesn't break some poor kid's leg (hmm...thought Kovalenko broke a college kid, too; nope, just one of my all-time favorite MLS players, Ronnie O'Brien). In any event, St. Vincent (or do they prefer the Grenadines, when people aren't feeling up for spitting out the whole mouthful?) could barely get out of their half. The game only becomes interesting if you rewrite the rules to allow Grenadines (going with that one, this time) a goal every time they got the ball across the midfield stripe at the feet of one of their players. Even with that revision, I think they still would have lost last night...

So, I guess that leaves talking about the U.S. Men's collective and individual performances. On the collective side, see above, I suppose. At its simplest, the U.S. just had to figure out how to break down the St. Vincentians (also, probably not correct...know what, hold on: I'm going to figure out how to do this right, show a little respect. OK, have my resource...added "the" to the nation's formal title; and, hence forward, I will call the players and their country by their right name; OK, got it). And they did. To their credit, the Vincentians fought hard to keep the U.S. in front of them and to make their one goal stand up...and that lasted about 6 minutes or so. It did take a nice headed goal by Bobby Wood to equalize, at least, and a couple U.S. goals felt a little lucky, thanks to deflections (still, did not know Fabian Johnson could take a respectable free kick; see all the goals here). And so the U.S. walked out 6-1 winners.

I'll wrap up with thoughts on a couple players, even while acknowledging that a game like this provides a pretty distorted lens by which to judge anything. To put that more clearly: there are things U.S. attackers can do against the Vincentians that they can't do against even Trinidad & Tobago (who, for the record, won last night). Anyway, on with the Yanks, starting with a very special debut.

The U.S. Men and the Beginning of the Journey: World Cup Qualifying

Good times.

As the United States Men’s National Team embarks upon what everyone hopes, and all assume, with be its eighth consecutive successful World Cup qualification tournament, I’m feeling a little philosophical. Here, “philosophical” means anxious in that unique way one feels after 7 or 8 years of marriage – i.e. safe in the knowledge that things are fine, and probably will remain fine - but, again, just “fine,” as opposed to “great,” “orgasmically intense,” “soul-suckingly shitty,” or any other usefully definitive emotional state – so, what’s there to do but smile and suck it up till one or both of you is dead.

So, cheerful, in other words.

As everyone knows, U.S. Soccer is not in a happy place right now. While every past U.S. coach ended his tenure under some uncomfortable scrutiny, U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s tenure possesses all the Sturm und Drang of a Wagnerian opera, stuff of the intensity not seen since Steve Sampson’s weird experimentation and early exit from the 1998 World Cup. Arguments have raged for at least a year now over whether Klinsmann is guiding the U.S. Men’s program or ripping out the rails from beneath it; they’ve hit such a pitch since the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the meek display against Mexico in the (stupid) Confederations Cup play-in that some pundits have speculated (hopefully) that a failure by Klinsmann’s team to take at least four points from these first two qualifiers could finally force U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati to look past the (apparent, but clearly real) blood-brother arrangement he has with Klinsmann and fire the man.

I have no opinion on that particular point beyond acknowledging a certain emotional numbness. It’s not unlike marriage sex in Year 8 (missionary OK, Judy? No, you don’t have to move. Sure, you can leave the TV on). That’s to say, I don’t think anything changes and I don’t expect it to get better, really. Look, just kick the fucking ball, already. Just play the game, yeah?

It’s precisely times like this, in the Marianas-esque depths of ennui, that one is inevitably drawn to the past. As one thinks about all those past campaigns, both the long marches of getting troops and the supply “tail” to the front (qualifying) and the decisive, pitched battles (the actual World Cup tourneys), one’s memory drifts here and there with no clear object, or even intention. Memory does its own thing, here, and one sees what one sees and dwells on whatever comes up.

On Klinsmann: Feeling Cooler Heads With a Phrenologist’s Fine Hand

I sense...resistance to a certain line of thinking...

A couple good and wise posts went up earlier today. One sought to place Jurgen Klinsmann's tenure in a...let's go with a more grounded context, while the other clocked the tenor of broad, hysterically seething national outrage directed at Dear Jurgen and declared it...let's go with excessive.

For those new to this space, I have, in the past, joined the aforementioned chorus of "broad, hysterically seething national outrage"; it's possible that, in the past, I have blamed Klinsmann for everything from the most recent U.S. Men's National Team loss, through a minimum of two forms of cancer (yep, prostate; that's on him), and up to a general sense that, dang it, things just ain't what they used to be. Apple pie has tasted like straight-up shit for years, I tell you.

With that in mind, I just want to say: they're right. I tweeted both posts because both Will Parchman (first link above) and Wes Burdine (second link) offered strong arguments as to why we should all just calm the hell down. And, as both authors pointed out, that is not the same thing as not wanting Klinsmann gone. And I still want Klinsmann gone (and, frankly, I don't get the argument that Klinsmann swallowing a demotion to the role of technical director alone is a blow his ego couldn't sustain, because ego slightly bigger than Montana; pretty sure he can take it; yes, yes, but would he? Do you honestly think I care?).

Call those posts a welcome corrective, then, not unlike a friend calmly telling you to walk away from that dude who said something about your mom (really, dad? To mom? Jesus). With this post, I intend to walk through their points with two main thoughts in mind: 1) to attempt to explain just why Klinsmann pisses everyone off so very, very much (which is to Burdine's point); and 2) to take a stab at assessing where the U.S. Men are right now (which is, somewhat, to Parchman's) with the World Cup qualification cycle just about one month into the future.

A Brief, Polite Comment on Last Night's Game (and U.S. Soccer's Hostage Situation)

What I'm watching for when I watch U.S. Soccer these days.

OK, I just read a whole bunch o' crap on the United States' Men's National Team loss to Mexico last night. Had to, really, because I can’t claim to know the U.S. team like I used to: while I watch all the games that count, I haven't caught a friendly in a couple years (virtually always scheduled during, or immediately after, work; I'm not taking time off for a friendly, people), and, on top of that, I only read closely about the games I watch.

It also bears noting that I wasn't all that invested in whether or not the U.S. won – e.g. see the argument here that the Confederations Cup is more a silly cash-cow than a worthwhile tournament – and, yes, I am 100% a card-carrying member of the angry mob that hunts Jurgen Klinsmann on Twitter and in other outlets, and have leaned that way since before 2014 (when I called a truce in support of shared rooting interest – e.g. the World Cup).

So, there they are, caveats express (e.g. I see the USMNT play about half dozen times a year) and implied (I don't know much about the players coming up to press the old guys). I don't have much to say about tactics, line-up, or actual game-play because I'm not familiar enough with the team to really dig in there, or to talk in anything but a general way. That said, let's start by picking up that second parenthetical...

MLS Week 21: On DPs, Foreign Players, MLS's Backbone...and Jurgen Klinsmann

Speaking of fucking legends.

Thanks to the Gold Cup, the domestic soccer week – Week 21, for those keeping track – overflows with talking points. Add all the transfers (which, full disclosure, I am barely tracking) and the most polite thing you can call me is desperately, graspingly behind. Which argues for an image of a behind being grasped desperately.

There is, however, one addition of which I'm proud: e.g. the new sidebar that transfers this site's disclosure as to how many times I've watched each and every Major League Soccer (MLS) club in action over a full 90 during the 2015 season. I'll update that every week rather than embedding it in these weekly posts.

As for the contents of the post itself, it's what it was last week: a shot (one big idea) backed by a six pack - e.g. six talking points – that came to me while watching the following games over Week 21:

FC Dallas v. Portland Timbers (already written up; sorta)
Chicago Fire v. New England Revolution
New York City FC v. Orlando City SC

Oh yeah, went East Coast-heavy this weekend. Also, given how late this is going up (my never-met goal is always Monday night), here's to hoping that the thoughts that came to me are random enough to be novel against the larger soccer backdrop...because what's the same shit worth if it's just later?

The Shot: My Kingdom, My Kingdom for Fine-Ass American Forwards!
Somewhere in the middle of Simon Borg's vast, broad tantrum about the Gold Cup semifinals, he did what a healthy number of American pundits do – e.g. more or less absolve Jurgen Klinsmann for his complete, utter, and wage-defying adequacy. In Borg's defense, though, he smuggled a pretty sharp observation into the conversation - specifically, he argued that anyone coaching the Yanquis (aka, the U.S. Men's National Team) will struggle due to the thin collection of quality forwards at his (and maybe, some day, her) disposal. His argument rounds out decently enough when one considers how many goals the aging Clint Dempsey scored for the U.S. during the just-past, little-mourned Gold Cup tournament – and, no, we're not counting the Cuba game, which was a goddamn free-for-all in which it's possible that I could have scored. OK, no, not me.

FIFA, Their Cups, and My Raging Discontent

OK, maybe half of that ass.

The U.S. Men's loss to Jamaica, and the concomitant early exit from the Gold Cup, put me into a head-scratching funk, just like it did for a lot of American fans. That said, I think I caught a different bug. The short diagnosis goes like this: the loss to Jamaica, and everything about it, didn't piss me off nearly as much as the fact that the U.S. can still reach the Confederations Cup. The long version follows, which elaborates on how totally and ridiculously ass I find the larger situation.

While I forgot the mechanism – that is, the playoff for CONCACAF's Confederations' Cup spot between the 2013 and 2015 Gold Cup champ'eens – it sounded familiar once people started talking and tweeting about it as last night's semifinal slipped further and further out of reach for the U.S. And it's fair on paper: here, in CONCACAF, we just happen to play our regional tournament on a two-year cycle, as opposed to the more common four-year cycle, and, with the Confederations Cup happening once every four years, they had to come up with some way to decide on which team gets to fly the flag...

...at the Confederations' Cup...

...which is like a half-assed World Cup...

...held the year before the World Cup...

...to accomplish? Oh, goddammit!

An (Unlikely) Exit from the (Alleged) Klinsmann Konundrum

The guy on the right just needs blonde hair.

My brain fried irreparably during ExtraTime Radio’s (ETR) latest podcast on What Jurgen Klinsmann Said (e.g. the comments about fitness). Those latest comments turned more pundits and regular people against the United States Men’s National Team’s (USMNT) Teutonic Taskmaster than ever before – or at least they did within my orbit. (Against this, a comment in du Nord’s latest podcast nailed the dynamic: it’s either charlatan or visionary and with little in between). Anyway, I lost my patience with Klinsmann during ETR. I dunno, chalk it up to the power of Borg (as in Simon Borg), but I want the man gone (uh, that’s Klinsmann, not Borg).

Speaking of, is there some booth where interested parties can line up for a turn to punch U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) President Sunil Gulati in his stupid squishy face? I never liked the expansion/extension of Klinsmann’s contract through 2018 and my opinion of it gets lower and angrier every day. Could it be Klinsmann talks like he shits purple rose petals because he feels untouchable? Even if the USSF offered that extension in the midst of brighter days (yes, I did forget all that), his accomplishments hardly warranted such a full and unquestioning surrender to his Bavarian wiles.

Making matters worse, or maybe just more stressful, I keep hearing (David Gass on ETR; Jason Davis on Backheel’s Soccer Morning) that Klinsmann’s not going anywhere, not with that contract and not when he has the full faith and regard on the USSF brass. Helplessness enjoys a very direct, special relationship with anxiety. Gulati will be especially tough to crack because how often do you see an executive actually admit to a mistake. Wait...sensing a theme here...

And, yes, the reality is that Klinsmann will likely survive just fine through 2018. Face it, it just doesn’t take that much in CONCACAF to get results. If the program stagnates, or if Jurgen actually damages it, well, put it this way: signs of rot are notoriously subtle (in fairness, so are signs of progress). That said, I really, really need to believe that there exists some form of failure so unavoidably, undeniably obvious that the USSF would have no choice but to call the Klinsmann Experiment dead. To borrow a scenario from ETR’s podcast, what if Klinsmann “lost” his players? (And don’t forget the rumors from the summer of 2013). Unlikely as the USMNT results/performances will keep on sucking, what if they did? I mean, there has to be point of no return? Even with a contract? Right? Ah, yes. There it is. The USSF canned Bob Bradley.

So, if it did come to that, I had a thought. Why not retain Klinsmann as technical director? It provides some form of escape hatch for all concerned, for starters. Maybe the USSF saves some money if it voids only half of Jurgen’s portfolio (I said could; I’m not claiming to know contract law). There’s one potential, deeper advantage in making this shift. While I’ve never rated Klinsmann as a coach, the man is one hell of a gadfly. So, why not let him continue as the stern, unappeasable father-figure for the U.S. program? Or as the foreigner who gleefully mocks our national laziness, naivete and obesity? (I use "gleefully" advisedly; listen to the audio and tell me the man isn’t cackling as he rips his players).

What the USSF does then is bring in a new head coach, someone who can serve as a buffer between Jurgen, the angry-father and his trembling (waddling?) players. American, not American, doesn't matter. Just find a smart tactics guy with a big teddy-bearish heart. Think good cop/bad cop. Or, hell, think God and Jesus. Whatever you call it, that's a dynamic with long, proud history.

Against the Jermaine Jones Experiment

I have a longer, more thorough thought-piece for the fate and future of the U.S Men’s National Team (USMNT*) in mind, but I'll get that up tomorrow, or over the weekend, because, involved. (*Sorry I keep doing the legal thing with abbreviations...but what if someone doesn't know the acronym?)

For now, I want to dig into the latest proposed major shift to the USMNT set-up – i.e. the decision to play Jermaine Jones in the center of defense. Why? Because this is, without question, one of the weirder debates I’ve followed concerning the U.S. Men. It's not the idea that’s weird – as everyone points out, it has its merits...but the larger, related point is that it also has highly apparent drawbacks.

Soccer By Ives' podcast, the one posted today, I think, offered the sternest defense of his I've heard so far. The general discussion begins with the U.S. experimenting with the 3-5-2 (that's around the 33-minute mark), but it turns to Jones' switch to center back around the 35.30 mark. The key line, or one of them, was this:

“...seriously, why are people having a problem with Klinsmann wanting to build his defense and, potentially, his entire system, around Jermaine Jones in that slot? Like, why is that a problem?"

Ives Galarcep goes on to call opposition to the experiment “bizarre.” He questions whether such people exist, if only because he hasn’t actually heard anyone defend the opinion in word or writing (he’s taking said people’s existence on the word of his youthful ward, Gareth Cleverley). So, I’d just like to say, even understanding that Mr. Galarcep will never read this...um, hi. I see more downside than up in playing Jermaine Jones at center back. And I say that with a lifetime's worth of respect for Galarcep, his knowledge and his work.

Matt Doyle, along with a couple tweets he pastes to his "Three Things" article, captures a couple reasons why: 1) Jones' penchant for the "hero ball" (e.g. the pass so sublime that it may not be an viable option); 2) his tendency to "search for the game," (e.g. to wander out of position in search of the ball); 3) the limits of his aerial game. Now, take any soccer fan you know, and explain to him/her how you’ve got this simply incredible player you think will do really well at center back, possessed of heart and experience and savvy to spare, sure, he's older, but there are these further drawbacks, e.g. #1-3 listed above.

How convincing is that argument? Not enough? Does Jones more than occasional trouble with cards tip the scales? No? OK, OK, let’s throw in his age.

I list age last for a reason. Jones will be 36 (and closer to 37) when World Cup 2018 comes around. As a number, that doesn't matter enormously to me. It does matter, however, when understood as a collection of tendencies in how someone plays the game. With the exception of his problems with cards, all of Jones' handicaps as a central defender aren't problems in a midfielder; they're actually net strengths where Jones is used to playing...and that's the point. The man is a midfielder, and a very good one. But it's one thing to retrain, say, a 25-year-old midfielder versus one entering his mid-30s.

Overall, the discussion about shifting Jones to central defense underrates defending as a skill and a mind-set. Playing without a net requires an understanding of timing and circumstances that too many people dismiss too readily. (What do you mean, "who is this strawman?" I've known him all my life!) More to the point, the U.S. player pool includes several players who are solid defenders and they're better in the air and reasonably good at passing out of the back. Without looking, I'd suggest Matt Besler, Geoff Cameron and Michael Parkhurst. Now, turning to a web-page with a list of current U.S. defenders, I feel comfortable adding...well, OK, that didn't produce the list I imagined, but I’d be willing to try Tim Ream or, to pull from a little farther up the field, Kyle Beckerman or Maurice Edu. Even when talking converted midfielders, the latter two are more disciplined at holding their position than Jones. And both pass very well, if not better in the relevant circumstances (That said, I bet it’s a seriously sad push for aerial weakness if one pitted Jones against Beckerman.)

The point isn't that everything about the Jones Experiment sucks. And it's his age as a number matters less than his willingness and capacity to retrain after nearly a lifetime of playing a certain way. Word that he went wandering earlier today – something you emphatically don't want from a centerback - isn’t encouraging. The larger point is that the U.S. pool contains options who do some things better than Jones, even if they do some things worse (and I didn’t even mention Chris Hedges!). But when defending and staying home are key parts of the role, it strikes me as wise to pay attention.

Struggling U-20s: Jurgen's Home for Misspent Youth

It is SO your fault!

So, the terrible, shameful start to qualifying for the U.S. Men’s U-20 National Team has passed into the consciousness of anyone who cares to absorb it: for those not watching (or cowering in shame before the future) Wee-U.S.* has compiled a 0-1-1 record in qualifying for this summer’s U-20 World Cup by way of a 1-1 draw to Guatemala (highlights for the curious) and a 1-0 loss to a gutsy, yet inexplicably perfect, Panama (again, highlights for the curious).

Wee-U.S. has games left, thank gods...

...wait. Let us pause here to contemplate the sheer crappiness of the U.S. Soccer website when it comes to the junior U.S. Men’s Teams. Where are the standings, the schedule, any semi-useful information about the most important thing going on right now in U.S. U-20 Soccer? I see videos of Tab Ramos talking about...things, and painful highlights, but little in the way of obvious context for the tournament at hand...

...oh god, don’t make me go to CONCACAF’s site…OK, gawd, I’ll do it. Ew, ew, it smells like Jack Warner...

In all honesty, I’m just coming to this qualifying tournament. I’m only now looking at the groups, standings and schedules for the first time as I write this. (What? Not having this shit on some convenient platform hardly promotes interest). And, OK, it took a little digging, more than expected or wanted, but I finally figured out what the U.S. has to do to book their ticket to the U-20 World Cup in New Zealand: either top their group (Group A) or come out as winners of the game between teams two and three in the same Group A.

OK, with games 1 and 2 officially pissed away, we have the rest of a round-robin to rescue this and reach either the Holy of Holies (1st in group) or…that space in front of the Holy of Holies whose name escapes me at the moment (2nd and 3rd in group). The group “heavyweights” did their damage (that’d be Guatemala and Panama), which leaves Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya, to Key Largo, Montego...Dang it, don’t recall the lyrics an sorry for wedging that shitty song into your head. No, the teams we have left do include Jamaica and Aruba, but there’s also Trinidad and Tobago to play, a team who currently stands second. Now, I’d like to think we can beat all those teams – just like Panama and Guatemala probably will – which should guarantee a spot in the playoff...

...but that bring us to the uncomfortable subject of the U.S. junior team’s recent record qualifying tournaments.

The U.S. missed out on the most recent Olympic Tournament; this, apparently, is what has Jurgen Klinsmann calling in a fresh batch of youngsters for the latest January camp. That makes sense because that Olympic miss was a pretty high profile fail. Tragically, that was of a piece for the Junior Yanquis’ fairly recent past…and, well, shit. The U.S. Soccer website provides the same underwhelming coverage (Jesus, does the 2013 U.S. U-17 Championship still-shot seriously connect to current news about other U.S. U-## teams? Yep.)…moving on to Google...

There it is: we missed the U-17 World Cup in 2013, falling to mighty Honduras (not real snark: the Contrachos are improving). As it happens, that was the first time in a long damn time that Tiny-U.S. had failed to qualify for the World Cup. Happily, recent history looks better at the U-20 level, but there was that miss in 2011…and what about the U-23s? Mmm…spotty. In fact, the U.S.’s most recent qualification – 2008 – was bookended by failures in 2004 and 2012.

And all that begs the question: when was Klinsmann hired? Middle of 2011, yeah? And here we have fails in 2011, 2012, 2013 and, now, potentially, 2015 (U-20s) – and another could follow?

OK, yes, I’m starting a conspiracy for sport. I don’t really have much sense for how much Klinsmann’s playing/training edicts trickle down to the youth teams at this point in his tenure, but I know (or at least believe) that that’s the goal. And I’m uncomfortable with that because I think Klinsmann’s a snake-oil salesman who bought instant credibility with a foreign accent. I know one U.S. team pretty damn well – e.g. the senior men’s team – and I can’t call what I’ve seen in them progress. It’s stagnation at best, topped off with some pretty reasonable allegations of training sessions as torture. The man generally comes across as more of a life coach than a soccer coach and that’s not what the program needs. Add in the disconnect between the way Klinsmann talks about how the U.S. Men’s team should play versus how they actually play and it’s hard not to ask questions.

Is there any point to this, then, beyond slander? Well, yeah. Klinsmann has, at most, four more years to get his system in place across all levels of U.S. soccer. He’s had about three and half years prior to that as well and what we have, objectively, are a series of hiccups at the youth national team levels, some of them comparatively unprecedented, and a men’s national team that’s maybe in transition or maybe just the victim of a coach so eager to push theory that he’ll pass over getting good returns.

What we have here are trends, people. And they ain't good. If the current U-20 campaign actually fails...well, if that's not the time to ask questions, I don't know when is.

* To introduce a naming convention: Tiny-U.S. will be the U-17s, Wee-U.S. the U-20s and Pocket-U.S. the U-23s.