OT: WSJ Article on USMNT heading into the World Cup

Submitted by nmumike on

Interesting article on the style of play, and Klinsmann's attempts to reshape and overhaul our "system".

"Before Mr. Klinsmann took the reins of the American team three years ago, playing like an American meant, for the most part, sticking to an assigned position and reacting to the other team's attack. To Mr. Klinsmann, a former German star and national-team coach who moved to the U.S. in 1998, the strategy struck him as wholly un-American.

"Mr. Klinsmann, soccer's Alexis de Tocqueville, wanted to build a winner, but he wasn't interested in teaching Americans how to play like anyone else. He wanted to create a squad that represented what he sees as the defining American characteristic—a visceral hatred of being dictated to."

Looking forward to the start of the World Cup in two days!

Link: http://online.wsj.com/articles/with-his-eye-on-the-world-cup-soccer-coach-jurgen-klinsmann-overhauls-team-usa-1401899734

Yo_Blue

June 10th, 2014 at 9:09 AM ^

While I'm not optimistic, I wouldn't be surprised to see great things from the US team.  I think Klinsmann has put together a team that wil fight for themselves while taking much of the pressure off them by declaring that the US has no chance of winning the World Cup.

The conditioning seems to be there for our team, and that will play an important role in Brazil's heat.  With a break here and there, who knows what will happen.  Regardless, I'm looking forward to watching.

Gulogulo37

June 10th, 2014 at 9:15 AM ^

Get this Euro-sissy crap off my blog!

Seriously though, I'm going to the casino on Thursday and putting a little money, just a little, on the US getting out of the group. Ignorance of soccer is bliss. It's not so much that I'm confident they'll make it, but the betting odds should give a good payoff if they do.

wahooverine

June 10th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^

If I could post an OT thread about this I would, but figured I'd ask either way - why do so many Americans think that soccer is a "sissy" sport? 

Is it because it has less physical contact than football?  By that definition baseball and basketball are also sissy sports.  If you've ever played soccer, you know that at mature levels of play it's extremely physical and contact oriented (requiring strength as well as speed, agility and skill)  in addition to immense stamina.  Is it the no hands thing?  What is sissy about that? 

Just curious - I've played soccer (along with with baseball, bball and football) my whole life and never understood the unfair, yet ubiquitous characterization among many Americans.

 

 

 

 

Gulogulo37

June 10th, 2014 at 7:44 PM ^

Come on. Dwayne Wade's dives make the news. In soccer it happens 30 times a game, sometimes with a guy rolling around on the ground for 10 minutes. Guys like Kaka have been red-carded simply for having been run into. Obviously the Euro-sissy comment was total sarcasm and a joke about people who have been complaining about soccer content on here, but diving is probably the worst thing about soccer in my mind. It's maddening. I just watched a game yesterday where Korea gave up a goal against Ghana because the Korean defender dove to get a call even though he was between the ball and Ghana! He didn't get the call and Ghana got possession and scored. I was mad as a neutral observer. I do think it's the main reason some Americans think of soccer as a sissy sport.

aplatypus

June 10th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^

but they mostly ignore that soccer is the most physically taxing of the major sports and unlike other major ones like football, baseball, and golf, there is always something happening. 

But I think a lot of it also because the US isn't that globally and American egos like being #1 in everything, so when we suck at it we have to dismiss the sport or the competition in some way as a bit of an excuse. 

SKIP TO MY BLUE

June 10th, 2014 at 9:31 AM ^

One of the things I have always liked about Klinsmann has been his ability to get the players to change their style of play. Never heard him discuss playing more like America, but this makes perfect sense. Define the identity of the country and try to get the players to do the same. Great article.

Yeoman

June 10th, 2014 at 10:00 AM ^

You'll note that playing soccer like "Americans" means, by the author's own admission, not playing at all like Americans have played before, but instead copying modern German soccer.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. But describing it as a peculiarly American style of soccer is marketing crap driven by the need to win over American soccer fans (and, even more, American non-soccer fans).

ironman4579

June 10th, 2014 at 7:17 PM ^

I agree with you there. I do think the US needs to find its own style of play however, as I don't think the defensive minded game they've always played has fit the mindset of most Americans.

To be honest I'm a fan of the Dutch, and I'm not particularly excited about the teams chances to make much impact this year. Hopefully they'll be pretty, at the least.

Yeoman

June 10th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^

I guess I'm cynical because before it was being pitched as American, this style was being pitched as a German approach to the game: hard work in the service of precision clockwork engineering, creating a ruthless attack.

Of course the older style was also seen as peculiarly German. Iron will and determination wearing down the opposition, etc.

I think these supposed national personalities are so vague and nebulous they can be made to fit pretty much anything. They're like zodiac signs and horoscopes.

ChiBlueBoy

June 10th, 2014 at 1:15 PM ^

I agree with what you say, but I'm dubious of the idea that there's an "American" cultural style that can be reflected on the pitch. America, by its own self-definition, is a "melting pot." About the only consistently "American" thing that would be on the pitch would be a Coke advertisement.

That said, a style that is more physical, aggressive, and counter-attacking (in some ways more like American football or boxing) resonates with what the American viewer is accustomed to seeing and might build up its popularity.

Yeoman

June 10th, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^

I mean, look at the headlines.

How Jurgen Klinsmann Plans to Make U.S. Soccer Better (and Less American)

 

Soccer, Made in America

 

The Klinsmann in that article was the guy I thought was a good hire for the US. Honest, clear-sighted, understood what was wrong with the national soccer program and intended to fix it.

This article reminded me of the Klinsmann that, as a Germany fan, I was relieved was out of our hair forever: the master self-marketer, forever constructing the Klinsmann brand. The one that, supposedly single-handedly, remade Germany into a modern footballing nation, taking it where no German team had ever gone before, to the World Cup semifinals. Well, actually nine of the prior thirteen German teams had done as well or better but never mind that..

Ugh.

I guess the good news is that this time the marketing blather seems to be coming from the WSJ and not Klinsmann himself. The Times was full of direct quotes--there are hardly any here. I'm going to take the Times article as more reflective of what the man's actually thinking.

Needs

June 10th, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^

As a German fan, how much credit do you give Klinnsman for changing the German style of play away from what was some pretty dreary stuff in the 2002 WC (yeah, they made the final, but may have had the easiest road of any finalist in WC history: Paraguay, US, South Korea in the knockouts) and Euro 2004.

Was the move to the Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Podolski, Ozil (was he there?) generation going to occur then without him at the helm? Was the shift in how they played, ie pressing higher up the field, emphasizing transition football, etc always going to happen or was that a tactical innovation by JK/Loew? How much of the tactical stuff was Loew (I can guess the answer to this)?  Was JK's job mainly to sell this transition? 

And how do you view the change now, 8 years out? As a neutral, Germany's gone from being a team that I dreaded to watch because the style was so negative, to a must see team because they attack so beautifully, but it hasn't resulted in any trophies. 

Yeoman

June 10th, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^

I'm positive on the German changes on the whole. Ecstatic, even. Things in the late 90s were pretty grim.

In order of importance:

  1. An overhaul of the youth development system, with more attention given to technical training and, maybe more importantly, a fine-grained network of regular clinics staffed by professional coaches to make sure nobody gifted slipped through the cracks.
  2. A tactical revolution. What looks like "free-flowing" soccer is very highly structured. There's a hint of this in the WSJ article, where they talk about a goal coming out of a play they'd been rehearsing for a year and a half. The US apparently has half a dozen of these plays installed; the German playbook is enormous. Each rush is as choreographed as if it were a spot kick, with players free to improvise off the set of course. It looks free-flowing for the same reason Beilein's structured offense looks free-flowing--everybody's in motion and the ball doesn't stick.
  3. Introduction of modern fitness training and nutrition.

#1 was decided on in 1999 and fully off the ground in 2002, years before Klinsmann was hired. It was by far the most important development (although there are some people that would argue the loosening of German citizenship laws was just as key) and while Klinsmann reaped the benefits he had nothing to do with it. Why he's often given credit for it, I have no idea.

#2 was important, too, because the style of play under Voeller would never have made full use of the improved technical skills of the new generation of players. And it was, in every sense that matters, Loew. Klinsmann mouthed some platitudes about "imposing our will" but the details were in his assistant's hands and they didn't really bear fruit until Klinsmann was gone and Loew was in charge. A lot of the goals in '06 were cracked in from distance; they still struggled to create chances against good teams. They haven't been strugglng for chances the last five years or so, I guess pretty much since they went to the 4-2-3-1.

#3 was Klinsmann. He brought it with him from LA and it was much needed. The players thought the dance and yoga was a little weird at first, then they saw the benefits.

 

So Klinsmann gets a +1 for #3. He gets a -1 for firing the guy in charge of the program I linked to in #1, and fair or not he gets another -1 from me for taking credit for something he didn't do.

But he gets about +5 for providing political cover for Loew. Klinsmann's a national hero and he commanded respect. It's very unlikely Loew would ever have been hired directly, and if he or someone like him had somehow gotten the job they'd never have been able to introduce such a drastic shift in tactics, or to integrate it into the national program as a whole. They'd still be playing for slow buildups and the great first-touch ability of all those midfielders would have been wasted.

When he was hired I didn't think the US had any need for that. I was wrong and I'll admit it. When you've got former national-team coaches saying the team needs more MLS players, it's pretty obvious they need somebody at the helm strong enough to force a rethink.

 

There's one tactical piece that might very well have been Klinsmann--it's certainly reminiscent of Klinsmann the player, who was a good defender for a striker and never shied away from some extra running. They like to press--they try to attack the ball-winner immediately, and they use their striker to pressure the other teams center backs and try to force a loose clearance. That makes sense to me--the center backs are usually the least technically gifted players out there and the ball's never as vulnerable as when it's just been won and hasn't yet been fully controlled. And unlike other forms of pressure, it doesn't pull your defense out of shape. If your striker is fit (Klose's getting up in years now, but he's always been fanatical about fitness) and you're going to sub him out after an hour anyway, why not?

AA2Denver

June 10th, 2014 at 10:42 AM ^

"Physically uncomfortable for opponents" is a good description of American soccer over the past few World Cups. This was the game that made me a soccer fan:

Rabbit21

June 10th, 2014 at 12:40 PM ^

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/6/8/5789860/usa-nigeria-2014-world-…;

I think this take sums it up pretty well.  In essence you take the U.S.'s physicality and work on some possession to enhance it and voila'  You have an American style of soccer that depends on a physical presence and good athleticism that leads to a lot of the BANG! moments that appeal to the American sports fan.  I think one of the reasons the Donovan goal against Algeria was such a hit was that it A) was hugely important, but B) Happened very quickly and was the product of athleticism leading to an exciting play even the unitiated could follow all the way through.  The problem is that it's hard to dictate play with this style and thus Klinsmann's emphasis on possession and working on the technical skills as players grow up.  That said the team looked extremely coherent against Nigeria and if that's the way to play against the big boys for now, I am comfortable with it and can see it being a defining "American" style for some time to come.

Gulogulo37

June 10th, 2014 at 7:53 PM ^

There are people who complain about every sport being boring. The more you know about a sport the more you can enjoy the nuances and strategy and appreciate it. I often like defensive basketball or football games and don't get all the complaining about a game just because it's 10-7 as long as that's mostly because of good defense. However, soccer at its worst is extremely boring, some slow passing, very few shots, very few runs. I still remember Euro 2008 being the most soccer I've watched. I watched basically every game when I was over there. France-Netherlands was something like 5-4 and was full of action. If that was every soccer game, I'd love it.