re: The Official Fire Gregg Berhalter Thread

Guya, don't let last month's embarrassing episode cloud the fact that Klinsmann tried to murder the national team in the 2018 cycle.

All this talk about youth development, but he failed to give it any attention from after the 2014 World Cup till he was fired after the first qualifying window in 2016, despite having ample opportunities to do so (Gold Cup, Copa America, friendlies).

Remember how pissed we were that Pulisic (and Nagbe for that matter) didn't play a second of the Copa America until the 2nd half of a match we had already lost against Argentina. Meanwhile, Beckerman, Wondo, Zusi, Bedoya etc. all got starts.

quote:

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I wonder how we’d have faired if we had kept our old coach thru this WC.

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Klinsmann never would have survived until 2022, and no he didn’t get a bad rap. You could say he did a good job in 2014, but he deserved to be fired during the next cycle.

My issue with the idea of fans supposedly overrating our talent is that, while that may be true, it’s not as big a problem as the manager overrating the talent, which you could say that both JK and Gregg have done, judging by the style of play they’ve tried to instill and the way they’ve managed the roster.

A more pragmatic manager would recognize the lack of quality players and not do things like leaving Donovan off the 2014 team and whatever Gregg did to Gio this time (telling him he would have a “very limited role”, according to Gio).

It’s hard to say. I’m sure lots of us would be pissed if the manager weren’t trying to evolve the national teams style of play, but then again, it doesn’t seem to be working all that well.
(I don’t think “getting out of the group”, without context, is a good judge of a national team manager.)