Klinsmann’s status tenuous despite win
CHICAGO — U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati called into question the job security of the national team coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, on Tuesday, telling reporters hours before the United States was to play an important match that Klinsmann’s status could be re-evaluated if the team failed to advance out of the first round of the Copa América this week.
“We need to win a few games,” Gulati said. “I didn’t say Jurgen Klinsmann had to win games. I said we did. No one has ironclad job security; for coaches and players, it’s about results.
“Results are what matter, and everyone understands that,” Gulati added. “The last 18 months over all haven’t been what we would have hoped for, especially in official competition. We’re not where we’d like to be, and while I don’t get too high or too low based on one game, we’ll look at everything at the end of this competition.”
Turn for the better
The timing of Gulati’s critique was odd, coming only a few hours before a critical game against Costa Rica at Soldier Field that both Klinsmann and his players had called a “must win.”
But if Gulati’s intention was to take pressure off the team, or to motivate it, the comments were a success: The Americans thrashed Costa Rica, taking a threegoal lead by halftime and winning 4-0.
A second straight positive result, in their final group-stage game, against Paraguay on Saturday night in Philadelphia, most likely will see the team through to the Copa’s knockout stages.
Still, regardless of the outcome, Gulati’s statements seemed to be a direct reflection of the grim mood that has surrounded Klinsmann, the U.S. team and its fans recently.
The U.S. has endured a disappointing stretch by any metric. The Americans were favored to win their regional championship, the Gold Cup, as the hosts last summer but were shocked by Jamaica in the semifinals, falling by 2-1 in a dreadful showing at Atlanta. The Americans then blew a chance to represent the region at the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, an important dress rehearsal for the World Cup in that country a year later, when they lost to Mexico in a one-game playoff in October.
Those defeats, several other uninspiring performances in friendly matches and Klinsmann’s persistent criticism of his players had raised questions about his skills as a coach, leader and tactician.
Friday’s 2-0 loss to Colombia in the Copa América opener set the alarm bells off anew. Gulati has raised Klinsmann’s job security before; in November, he made similar comments ahead of a World Cup qualifying match, though at the time he stressed that he expected Klinsmann to complete his contract and lead the Americans to the World Cup in 2018.
Yet Klinsmann acknowledged Monday that the pressure was on, even as he continued to express his usual public, sunny optimism.
“The result is always the most important thing at the end of the day,” Klinsmann said. “You have to get the points to get out of the group.”
Too much authority?
Klinsmann has long been thought to enjoy an unusual degree of leeway in his post. Long courted for the job by Gulati — he first emerged as a possible U.S. manager in 2006 but reportedly backed out at the time over concerns about his autonomy — Klinsmann finally was hired in 2011.
Klinsmann won the 2013 Gold Cup and was widely credited with navigating his team smartly out of a brutal first-round group at the 2014 World Cup. But after Klinsmann got an unusual contract extension and a promotion to technical director in 2013 — months before World Cup play kicked off in Brazil — fissures began to appear. Star players — most notably Landon Donovan, who was dropped by Klinsmann on the eve of the World Cup — publicly criticized his coaching methods and style. And when the U.S. began to take a nose-dive this past summer, fans began to turn on Klinsmann as well.
The Costa Rica match offered an immediate chance at changing the storyline. In a flurry of goals, Klinsmann and his team did just that.