Jürgen Klinsmann Hired To Protect Sunil Gulati’s Job

Get ready to be “blamed,” American soccer fans, if Jürgen Klinsmann “fails.”  He is definitely “our guy.” Other columnists patronized those of us who go on the blogs screaming for Bob Bradley’s proverbial head after the World Cup, mostly supporting Klinsmann.  If we do not succeed at the next World Cup (and “succeed” and “fail” are wiggle words for sports politicians and their supporters in the American soccer media), prepare for the status quo salivating to blame us for wanting Jürgen.The truth of the matter is Jürgen is already behind the eight-ball, he should have been hired a year ago.  Not only did this happen at least one year too late (I would argue Bradley should have been fired after choking a two-goal lead to Brazil in the Confederations Cup Final), the youth program is a complete mess, nowhere near the level of where it needs to be, clearly not as promising as Mexico’s.  The lost year compared to other programs can be recovered to a point.  Argentina is going to have to do that.  But America’s youth program is nowhere near as good as Argentina’s.  Most of our national youth coaches have been let go.  (So much for “Project 2010.”) ...

Women’s World Cup: Will American Soccer Finally Wake Up and Change Course?

I am frankly stunned as well, I thought this was the last one we could win playing like we do. The loss to Japan should be a wake-up call to the United States. A nation whose top women's league is semiprofessional just beat us. Can we finally just admit that physicality and luck can only take us so far from now on, since more nations have caught up? Can we finally just admit that the "rich kids' game" approach to soccer has finally and totally failed?Did you know that the L League, the top women's league in Japan, is a semiprofessional league, yet they have two tiers of promotion and relegation? You know, promotion and relegation, something American soccer is allergic to. Of course, Major League Soccer fanboys will say "the infrastructure is not there yet" for promotion and relegation for American soccer, despite little Qatar having such a system, with two tiers of 12 teams each.  To develop the sport for the men, we must be able to have "superclubs." And we must start paying our top American players to play on such clubs in America. For the women, it's the perfect way ...

FIFA World Cup 2010: Is U.S. Soccer Willing To Change? 2010 Is a Failure

This obviously isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, rant as to what’s wrong with American soccer, but it’s mine and it’s right now.  And I’m at a point where I don’t care about changing anyone’s minds or hearts.    I need to vent and don’t really care about detracting opinions.    If you don’t want to read such a rant for five minutes, I don’t blame you, but you’ve been warned.  Thanks either way.   Well, so much for Project 2010.   Our United States soccer program can be likened to having sex with the ex-wife.  Sure, the sex is hot at first, but if the problems that caused the breakup in the first place weren’t fixed, the relationship will get worse.  We are expected to support a team “just because it’s OUR team” and be talked down to for daring to suggest anything is wrong.    Enough!  This was not a good soccer team that crashed against Ghana.  Just a lucky one who eventually got the result they deserved.  Maybe we should have made it a “revenge match.”    Americans have this incredible stubbornness to tradition, especially when traditions don’t make ...