re: How is this not a fireable offense?

I'm not sure why everyone posts this quote. We all know Jurgen is tactically clueless and has been since his managerial career began, at least since I've followed his international career.

What pisses me off is that there should be a push to surround him with tactical wizards to account for it. The guy's just a character and a great figurehead. The best analogy is the Les Miles analogy. He will always follow up greatness with madness, and you will question your sanity from time to time as a result. We have gotten results, though, and we have pulled in some exciting young guys.

I think what everyone just needs to accept (or admit if you're a fanboy like me) is that Jurgen was never going to take us to "the next level" or revolutionize US Soccer in the way people hyped him up. He's a new age, fitness-first, positive-thinking confidence guy, and he was a successful footballer. Our issues are at the talent level, and bad tactics only expose that. No matter who we have managing this team, we're still a generation away from seeing real changes.

We still need to get results now and constantly compete, but Jurgen Klinsmann's tactical weaknesses are not the anchor keeping us down. We're just not there as a program, and people are upset that we got rid of Skeletor for some German guy who thinks Landycakes is fat and average. He's a really easy scapegoat for our frustrations with waiting to really see some progress.

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We all know Jurgen is tactically clueless and has been since his managerial career began, at least since I've followed his international career.

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So... You're defending a tactically-inept coach in a game where success is predicated on tactics.

Is this the bed you want to lie in?

How am I defending him? I'm saying that he's tactically clueless, and we're pretty much exactly where we were before in terms of results and style. My whole point is that he's not going to bring the US soccer revolution any time soon, and no one else will either. It'll be generations of American kids growing up enjoying the sport that'll do that.

We hyped him up way too far and expected a lot more than he was ever going to bring. I personally like him, but he's clearly flawed. Tactics are not why we aren't winning World Cups, though. We also have matches where everything falls into place and everything looks beautiful. It's a constant rollercoaster, and we're schizophrenic as someone said before. We're changing due to a maturing soccer culture here with a squad people want to play for. We are at that point where the talent gap between the top end of our Starting XI and the bottom end is pretty large, and we're going to struggle to find a real identity until that gap closes.

I'm not defending a constant mishandling of personnel, and I'm not defending the lack of an identity. Those are all things I'm concerned about moving forward. I'm just pointing out that we didn't trade in Bradley for "the revolution". We traded in Bradley for a big name attached to a successful international club to rebrand our "style" instead of revolutionize it. What will be the telling point of Jurgen's tenure at the helm of the USMNT is where the youth programs go from here. If we are low on talent in 10 years, the Jurgen experiment was a bust.

EDIT: To be clear, I personally think we're improving slowly and surely, whether you want to attribute that to Jurgen or to German-Americans or guys in the Army slinging dick worldwide. I just think that the idea that a manager was going to suddenly turn us into USelona was too much. We're far too short sighted a lot of times.

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I just think that the idea that a manager was going to suddenly turn us into USelona was too much. We're far too short sighted a lot of times.

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Anybody expecting that was insane and I don't recall many on here expecting some huge Renaissance...

It was all about taking that next step though and Klinsi made note of that from the very beginning... Four years later, we haven't progressed beyond a deeper player pool (which would've happened with or without JK)

I agree. I think there has been solid progression across the board. I really do. I also think that almost anyone could have produced similar progression. Props to Jurgen for not totally fricking things up (lots of guys may have done that) but has there been enough to give him 2 cycles? I don't see it.

"Early in that game". Astonishing how many times we could say that about Bob's teams, and yet, no lead was safe. Again, the first 25-30 minutes of a 90 minute match doesn't change what happened for the remaining 65-70. The narrative changed when Mexico began scoring every 10-15 minutes like clockwork. Everyone was calling for Bradley's head after the match, which hardly indicates a closely fought battle between rivals. There's a reason that he was sacked just like there'll be a reason when Jurgen is eventually sacked.

Just because I defend Jurgen from time to time doesn't mean I don't disagree with shite he does. It doesn't mean I think he's perfect or that he doesn't do stupid shite. I just don't think this constant dramatization does anything but divide the fans of a team who just got fans to speak of in the last 5-10 years. When Pep comes and we go out in the Round of 16, we'll all wish we'd have taken Caleb Porter instead and given him all of the handshakes he could ever want.

If we win people will still bitch

When it comes to Jurgy this place turns into the rant

Of course it's a frick up but he wins the playoff just move on from it.

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I also think that almost anyone could have produced similar progression.

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This was my main point in all of that. This is how things would go with any decent manager. I think that he closed strong leading up to the World Cup and did reasonably well all things considered. Obviously, we went out early, but we were all a Wondo half-volley and Clint shot from sticking around.

The one thing that Jurgen gives this team in droves is that confidence that teams have to beat us instead of the other way around that a lot of people outside of the US were really drawn to. Love him or hate him, the view on US Soccer post-Brazil was very positive due to our performance and overall team mentality. I think that's why these young guys want to come in. He just seems like he believes that he's undeniably a winner and that he'll win at whatever he does, and he demands that everyone else do that at the highest level.

That's something the USMNT really needed. The players need to have that "frick it, we'll compete with anyone" mentality instead of a "Oh no, we have to play Cristiano Ronaldo and Germany!" mentality where we just hope to keep up. People know we're playing to win now, and that's something that has really changed since Jurgen's been here.

Dude, have you ignored the rest of the results during the Gold Cup? Jamaica drew Costa Rica, beat Canada and El Salvador, and beat a Haiti team 1-0 that pushed us late with the same scoreline. You're acting like they were St. Helen's School of the Blind. They're not a bad team, and when you shoot 20 times with 10 on goal and only score once, it's not surprising that a decent team may steal one from you.

They scored on some pretty ugly plays, and we couldn't put the ball in the net so it's understandable that there'd be a lot of frustration. Saying that this is the lowest point is US Soccer since France '98 is just downright insanity.