NYCFC and the Power of Modest Adjustments

Irrelevant. Also, accidentally awesome result from a search titled, "Plans Gone Wrong."

Late last season, the Portland Timbers may or may not have made The Switch, aka, the subtle little coaching decision that set them off on two months’ worth of success and, ultimately, an MLS Cup. I’ve torn this idea apart in earlier posts, so elaborating on it now, well past the date of its relevance…my point is, Portland has moved on, for good or ill, and so shall I.

When mid-season loomed into view, and with results not being all they could be, a few teams adjusted how they fielded their players in order to fix this eternally-recurring slip here or boost this danger there. Here, I want to focus on the teams who made one specific move to shore up their respective defenses, specifically by moving to the 4-1-4-1. A couple teams have gone this way, DC United by dropping Marcelo Sarvas behind Nick DeLeon and (on a good day) Luciano Acosta, and the Houston Dynamo did it by parking Collen Warner on top of their oft-shaky back four. One other team went this way and with far, far better results than the two just named: here, I’m talking about New York City FC and Andoni Iraola.

As Cody pointed out during the podcast, this wasn’t a complicated choice. So long as NYCFC insists on fielding the elderly (Andrea Pirlo/Frank Lampard), they’re going to need cover, i.e. someone to do the running they won’t, or can’t so long as they want to remain forward-looking and/or relevant. It’s working pretty well so far – four straight games worth of better-than-OK results (also called wins) – prior to NYCFC’s recent loss to Sporting KC…of which, I know nothing.

RSL: Revenant Salt Lake

As with RSL v. Montreal, we are all winners here.

The very end of Real Salt Lake's crunching draw/near-win against the Montreal Impact featured a nails-'n'-claws duel between Laurent Ciman and Yura Movsisyan. Nothing came of it in the end, which is to say Ciman won the duel, but that's the kind of battle that makes any game of soccer worth watching. In my notes, I recorded this as "Godzilla v. King Kong." (What? Fuck you, I'm not old!)

I put out a poll before last Saturday's evening games kicked off, one where I asked what games people would like me to watch and report on. Sadly (perhaps even stupidly...um, no offense?) people directed me to watch New England Revolution v. Columbus Crew SC. While that game was better than the one I chose on my own (Seattle Sounders v. Los Angeles Galaxy), and even better than my default (all Portland Timbers games, which, against the New York Red Bulls...it was sub-epic), it didn't pique my interest nearly as much as the 20-minute highlight reel of RSL v. Montreal. A lot happened in that one, near as I can tell: Montreal looked like the team that started the season, sharper than a Ginsu knife in the counter and capable of as many cuts, etc.

Baggio Husidic & LA: The Dual Mystery

One of these guys is a grip. Might even be a key one.

Pop Quiz: If his name wasn't in the title, how many times would someone have to ask you to name a player for the Los Angeles Galaxy before you'd get to Baggio Husidic? For what it's worth, I think he'd be the 13th or 14th choice for most people, even LA's bigger fans.

Like Hollywood (to make an unfair analogy), I think LA has built its legacy by letting the stars soak up the adulation and gift baskets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while the key grips (which, here, recalls Dan Gargan, A. J. DelaGarza, and even Marcelo Sarvas) hammers every last goddamn nail into the scenery behind them, the backdrop that lets that beautiful career exist, but, hey, no worries...

Still, what is a Baggio Husidic? I'll tell you who. He's a player with a charmed life, a guy who probably would (and, hey, actually did) die with the Chicago Fire, but who has started in the majority of the past three years' games for the Glamour Team of MLS. It only gets weirder when I tell you what he's not. For instance, he's not a strong tackler (and/or an actual risk to others like Nigel de Jong), he's not a devastating one-on-one dribbler (like, say, Sebastian Lletget), he provides neither goals nor assists in great numbers, he's not some brilliant deep-lying passer who shifts the field in novel, new directions: he's just...Baggio Husidic.

And yet he's seen the field in every game but one this season, and he's started 10 games of 18. If I had to guess, I'd describe Husidic's role like this: he's a player who facilitates (somewhat) close to goal by finding LA's "real" skill players; I'm guessing he participates in their high press, at least whenever LA's uses it, and I'm confident he's suited for that.

New England: A Couple Pieces from Greatness?

It's part of what we all want, isn't it, in our sadness?

I read an article by the The Armchair Analyst, Matt Doyle, in which he broke down the transfer-window needs of every team in Major League Soccer. What he wrote about New York City FC, in particular, really caught my eye:

"Work the phones trying to unload one of their youngish guys with potential (Steven Mendoza, Patrick Mullins, Khiry Shelton) or – if anybody wants him – midfielder Mix Diskerud for a starting-caliber center back."

First of all, Mix...how do you feel about an opportunity where part of the compensation includes an opportunity to get out from under that inflated contract? If so, we can talk. If not...

Odd as it might be to argue this the week after a team picked up an encouragingly comprehensive win, but, if you switch around a couple names, that same argument applies to the New England Revolution and, as I see it, with bells on. Doyle's piece goes on to argue in favor of bringing back an out-of-contract A. J. Soares, but that's just something I'd encourage most MLS teams to consider (yes, even Portland).

Mysterious Movements, and the Alleged Coming Storm

We have many Lloyd Sams. Octavio Riveros are in the back...

So, I was about to write a straightforward declarative as to when the MLS Summer Transfer Window opened this June/July, but, when I googled it, I found the usual goddamn bible we've all come to expect when it comes to MLS rules. Trying again...

...and, there we are, July 4 to August 3. So, a month (31 days in July, right?).

So far it's been quiet, after a slow opening week, teams are finally stocking up on new (probably necessary) players – e.g. a defender for the Vancouver Whitecaps (who also need things elsewhere), a defender for the Houston Dynamo (who very, very much need next-level defenders...again, among other things). Parse each of those moves as you will...

That said, the most bizarre move so far saw New York Red Bulls' Lloyd Sam get shipped to DC United. Against his will, from what I once gathered...though I lost the confessional/third-party tweet to confirm it. Held up strictly as a departure – e.g. Sam leaving New York in a vacuum (which, per official statements, it ain't) – the move makes little sense. Sam might not have been the best player in MLS, but he produced steadily, if slowly. As to New York's first game without Sam, last Sunday's draw at home versus the Portland Timbers, they pulled off a few waltzses up Portland's gut (if into a bearded wall), but one can't help but wonder what a little veteran savvy might have meant against Zarek Valentin, even if late in the game; he's a player, after all, who has proved to be better just about everywhere but left back (or am I switching my left and right again?).

Jurgen Klinsmann: Reassessment of a Reassessment

"the 10% that are unimpressed need to go be Germany fans because they will never be happy otherwise."
- Ryan Larkin (@Larkin8), a tweet.

If Jurgen Klinsmann cured cancer, I don't think I would congratulate him. It's likelier, probable, actually, that I would just list all the ways that he could have done it better. I lead with Mr. Larkin's tweet, then, to acknowledge...let's call it "Klinsmann Derangement Syndrome," as well as the possibility that I suffer from an acute case.

By end of day Saturday, the U.S. topped Group A in the Copa America Centenario. I did not see this coming. Getting out of the group seemed reasonable, but, for a fan-base conditioned to it by the 2015 Gold Cup, the 2015 CONCACAF Cup, and a rocky start to 2018 World Cup Qualifying, failure presented as a plausible option. The team has Ecuador next and, in a happy change, thoughts of a win and a trip to the Copa semifinals doesn't feel like fans smiling affirmations to themselves in a mirror from inside a burning house.

Mood swings of that magnitude make sense. Whether this it's accurate or just an effect of living it in the here and now, the Klinsmann era seems like the most contentious in U.S. Soccer history. The question of if and whether the U.S. Men's National Team programs are progressing at all, never mind as advertised, hasn't cooled off since the 2014 World Cup. Bad results in games that mattered kept discontent at a boil, but identifying the origins of the problems divided U.S. fans into two broad* camps (* yes, I think I'm squeezing out some nuance): one group of fans blamed those terrible results on the U.S. talent pool, while the other dropped the blame and a shit-ton of grief on Klinsmann.

U.S. Loses to Guatemala: The End of an Era in a Sane World

Yeah, yeah, she's dead. We can do worse.

I'll keep this short. In spite of past promises, of course.

When Jurgen Klinsmann first coached the U.S. Men's National Team, American fans were told there would be a transition period. This would be the time when Klinsmann would implement a new system that would make the U.S. Men better, more sophisticated, better prepared to "take it to the Big Boys of international soccer," your Spains, your Germanys, your Brazils, your Argentinas...uh, honestly, I don't really know what comes after those teams.

The U.S. looked confused in those early days, unsure of how to implement Klinsmann's "proactive system," how to dismantle any opponent calmly and with composure. Still, we were all assured that it would come, that Dear Jurgen would show us the way.

Anyone who watched the U.S. lose to Guatemala tonight – and, no, I don't give a lazy, disinterested fuck if that game happened in Guatemala, because I'm told that the U.S. hasn't lost to Guatemala since Reagan (partially) occupied the Oval Office (look Nancy Reagan was our fucking president back then, just like Woodrow Wilson's wife seriously might have been the first female president) – should completely appreciate one damningly unavoidable point: after six-plus years under Klinsmann, the U.S. men still have no goddamn idea what they're doing when they take the field. They concede the first goal more often than not, so they're always playing from behind, etc. The U.S. spent the first half against Guatemala lumping long balls to forwards running into space? That's progress?

Worse, even had a couple decent U.S. shots gone in, what would that have really meant in the long term? Where are the green shoots? Where is any tangible sign of improvement with the U.S. National Team? And if anyone points to wins over Germany and the Netherlands last year, or whenever the hell that was...my answer is this: the cold, stark reality is that the U.S. lost tonight to Guatemala, one of the most stagnant teams in CONCACAF, a side that trotted out at least three frankly ancient barrel-chested players. And I'm not knocking barrel-chested guys, heading there myself, but I'm not a professional soccer player aiming for a World Cup, now am I? As much as CONCACAF has improved, it remains a fucking minnow region on the global scene. That is 100% NOT fucking improving on any scale that isn't devised, defined and calibrated by Jurgen Klinsmann and U.S. Soccer.

By any plausible appearance – yes, I'm hedging mightily here - U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati made a mistake hiring Klinsmann. And, like the fuckwits who run the global economy (say, what's Gulati do for a living again?), rather than admitting he made a mistake, Gulati doubled down before a 2014 showing at the World Cup tournament that saw the U.S. do no better than it has in the modern era – e.g. the time since 1990, then the U.S. pretty much started automatically qualifying for the World Cup. So, per Gulati, all of you should totally take out subprime loans today. And do it on the beach, or maybe on a flood plain because nothing will ever change, housing prices will always go up, and what's climate change?

What about Klinsmann's prior success as a coach, both with the German National Team and with Bayern Munich? As we all know, Bayern had the sense to chuck Jurgen after a fairly short period of time, mostly because he was more obsessed with the Fitness Gospel than with sorting out tactics and personnel. As for Germany, yes, the man undeniably mined the German nation for the new young talent that it desperately craved. Here's a funny thing: if you mine for talent in a gold mine (e.g. soccer-mad Germany) guess what you get? You get fucking gold. Yes, if you dig in a gold mine you get gold. This isn't complicated. In other words, what happened here is pretty straightforward: Klinsmann identified talent among a rich crop of German players, guys who get minutes on some of the best teams in the world, and he set them loose on the world stage. Surprise of surprises, he did well with that. Not well enough to win a World Cup – that came later, and there's a story there, for sure – but he laid a foundation that someone else built into a renewed, invigorated Mannschaft.

That same script doesn't hold up when you try to find gold in a silver mine, or, worse, a copper mine. I honestly don't know the talent level of the U.S. player pool. None of us do, because there is no test but the Klinsmann's years to tell U.S. fans where their national team is now. I only know it's nowhere near what one sees in Germany, or Spain, or Brazil, or Argentina, or even much of Africa, the rest of South America, Mexico, and select parts of Asia and Central America. What I do know is that blaming the player pool is a dodge. It's pushing one's own failures onto something that can't be controlled, which is a hell of a lot like saying your dog ate your homework. Failure is failure is failure. And, more to point, this failure came after some version of progress and success, so....

Klinsmann was hired on the explicit assurance that he would improve the U.S. National Team. Period. The U.S. has clearly not improved, and by any applicable measure, and, at this point, I don't give a fuck why it happened. After last summer's CONCACAF Gold Cup, the moronically contrived CONCACAF Cup, all I know is that the U.S. Men cannot do any worse than they have under Jurgen Klinsmann. The only counter-argument to all the above – literally – is for patience, that we all wait for Jurgen to unearth the next gem. The answer to that line of argument: name the first gem. Why the hell are Kyle Beckerman and Clint Dempsey still vital to this team after all the players Jurgen Klinsmann has brought in? Anyone blaming the player pool is adopting the opposite argument of what has made the rest of CONCACAF improve, so far as it has: by making the fucking most of what you've fucking got. That is Klinsmann's clear, and sole failure: he never even attempted to find out what IS best from the pool he has. And, objectively, time is running out.

Bottom line: the one thing we know is that we cannot fix the player pool in the short term. The one thing we can do: fire the fucking coach. Again, this was someone hired, and retained, on the premise of taking us to the next level. At this point, anyone who does not believe that the U.S. has actually regressed is like Sunil Gulati: they just don't want to admit that they were wrong.

Probably. Look, I know it's hard, but look at the evidence. It’s damning. And, yes, this is short for me.