New coach just plans to build upon the past
Jurgen Klinsmann built his reputation as a coach on how he coaxed his native country of Germany into a frenzy and guided his national team to the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup.
Now the 47-year-old will be expected to do something similar for the United States, which unveiled him as coach of the men’s national team Monday after five years of on-again, off-again courting. His first big task will be to mold the team for the start of 2014 World Cup qualifying next year.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with the team,” Klinsmann said at his introduction in Manhattan. “It lost to a very good Mexican team in the Gold Cup, a top-10 team in the world. When you come into a situation like this, you analyze the team and the program and build on what you have already built on the last 20 years.”
U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, who failed in two previous overtures toward Klinsmann because the coach sought more control, termed his prized hiring as “the start of a new era.” Gulati said he was influenced by the Mexico game and other recent results in last week’s firing of Bob Bradley.
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be wins and losses along the way,” Gulati said. “But we’re very pleased, generally, with where the sport is headed.”
Klinsmann, whose German success was largely credited to his assistant coaches — he didn’t have the same success at Bayern Munich without them — deferred on naming a staff and instead will audition “guest coaches” over the coming months, seeking opinions from the country’s top coaching minds. But he also allied himself with a pair of former American stars who have moved to the sidelines, U.S. youth technical director Claudio Reyna and Tab Ramos, who recently did a stint as interim coach of the U.S. under-20 team.
Both likely will be involved as the United States hosts Mexico in a friendly next week in Philadelphia.
“One of my challenges will be to find a way to define how a U.S. team should represent its country,” Klinsmann said. “I think America never really waits and sees and leaves it up to other people to decide what is next. I think America always likes to decide on its own what is next. This guides maybe towards a more proactive style of play where you would like to impose a little bit the game on your opponent instead of sitting back and waiting for what your opponent is doing and react to it.”
While the appointment could be mistaken as the end of the focus on winning rather than player development at U.S. soccer’s younger levels, the former German forward can’t afford to make the same mistake himself with his new primary charge.
“For the short term, it’s absolutely to qualify for Brazil and do as well as we can there,” Gulati said. “It’s a three-year project. But we think a big part of this program and this project is the excitement of how Jurgen can help us influence a lot of what’s going on.”
