KLINSMANN HAS CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM
USA in good shape in World Cup qualifying
To say Jurgen Klinsmann is an optimist is akin to suggesting Kobe Bryant liked to shoot the ball once in a while. But while the U.S. national soccer team coach has stumbled through a few obstacles since taking the job five years ago, his rose-tinted view might be the right one this time.
Klinsmann was a contented soul Tuesday, when a 4-0 victory against Trinidad and Tobago put his team atop its qualifying group and into CONCACAF’s final World Cup qualification stage with a confident swagger.
However, a jolt of trepidation flooded through the American soccer community with a glance at the schedule for the next round.
The USA will host its archenemy, Mexico, on Nov. 11. That clash will begin the “Hex” — the sixteam double round-robin tournament that will be spread over a year and send at least three teams to the World Cup. Four days later, the Americans will travel to face the region’s next-most accomplished team, Costa Rica, a 2014 World Cup quarterfinalist.
Klinsmann is delighted. He knows those matches will be two of the team’s three toughest scheduled games, the other being Mexico on the road. He wants the early challenge, the opportunity to build momentum and, while he wouldn’t acknowledge as much, the prospect of effectively wrapping up a spot in Russia early in the piece.
“Sooner or later you have got to play your big rival,” Klinsmann said. “Better to do it right away. Send a signal out in this qualifying campaign.”
The pessimists’ view, on the other hand, is that two initial defeats could turn the route to the biggest show in soccer into a frantic struggle and give hopeful nations such as Panama, Honduras and Trinidad and Tobago a chance to gain a quick points advantage out of the gate.
In reality, though, the U.S. team should be beyond such concerns. Klinsmann has not been perfect during his time in charge, but he is right that if the USA wants to become a major soccer nation, it has to start acting like one.
Furthermore, the Hex is a forgiving place, and for one of the biggest teams in the region to miss out takes quite some doing. Just ask Mexico, which endured an abysmal qualifying campaign ahead of the 2014 tournament, winning two of 10 games, yet managed to make it to Brazil, where it reached the Round of 16.
Klinsmann has his own ideas, and they are not to everyone’s taste, but as the World Cup closes in he is still here and has done enough to ensure he will remain in charge at least until the end of the summer of 2018. That much was ensured by the Copa America run to the semifinals, which indicated that even if the gap to the top teams in the World Cup is as big as ever, the USA is a giant among the lower-ranked teams in its neighborhood.
Now is the time to make that status really count. Now is the time to prove it.