Leading the charge: USA coach Jürgen Klinsmann.
Twenty years have passed since Jürgen Klinsmann first arrived in England, VW Beetle in tow, on the path to becoming one of the most charismatic and successful strikers in Tottenham Hotspur’s history. Back then the United States had just hosted the World Cup but now, decades on and with Klinsmann at the helm, the Americans’ appetite for success has never been greater.
“It will definitely be the goal, to win the World Cup, many years down the road,” said Klinsmann this week, in London for the USA’s friendly against Colombia at Craven Cottage on Friday. “We learned how to advance out of the group stage [at Brazil 2014]. The next step is to learn how to win knockout games at a World Cup. That has a lot to do with the mental aspect of the game. That’s what it takes, that’s our learning curve.”
The game against Colombia represents USA’s toughest challenge since the World Cup, before a match against the Republic of Ireland next Tuesday in Dublin, with the dust having settled on a South American campaign that captured the imagination of many emerging supporters en route to a narrow second-round defeat by Belgium.
Behind the hosts, no other nation bought more tickets for the World Cup than the United States. The videos of Will Ferrell and Teddy Goalsevelt rousing hordes of fans will live long in the memory, as will Barack Obama’s phone call to the team.
For Klinsmann, though, the hard work continues. The adopted Californian was appointed the head coach in 2011 and signed a contract extension last December that runs until the conclusion of the 2018 World Cup. As well as coach, he is now the US Soccer Federation’s technical director, embarking on a blueprint for the future, which he describes as both challenging and exciting.
Those challenges include strengthening the relationship with an ambitious, growing domestic league, while also encouraging some players to forge a successful career away from the United States.
Effective infrastructure
Tensions have already threatened to spill over between Klinsmann and the MLS commissioner, Don Garber, but the 50-year-old 1990 World Cup winner believes the establishment of a new, effective infrastructure is a wonderful opportunity.
“A lot of people see the game keeps improving and is growing,” said Klinsmann. “The tricky part within the US is that we haven’t connected the pieces yet, from professional teams to other professional levels, down to the college level and the youth level. There are so many disconnected pieces floating around. The whole structure is not in place, like it is in a traditional football nation.
“But this is also pretty cool because you kind of have a clean sheet of paper and say: How are we going to do it? You work in England or Germany and it’s pretty much set in place and you have to work with the pieces that are there. For us, we can change the youth approach and the curriculum of coach education and make changes with the college coaches and talk to them about doing the season differently or the feeder system differently, then it can happen. We can have an influence; that is exciting.”
His 25-man squad for the Colombia and Republic of Ireland games includes the Stanford student Jordan Morris and Miguel Ibarra of the North American Soccer League’s Minnesota United. Their inclusions are just one example of how the emphasis is on the future, of how Klinsmann hopes the US can tap into numerous talent pools – be it from the college system, dual-nationality players or promising potential from the Latino community.
The difficulty lies, perhaps, in forming a cohesive structure that can be a successful long-term model. Klinsmann believes he benefited hugely from his peripatetic career, one that included spells at Stuttgart, Internazionale, Monaco under Arsène Wenger, Bayern Munich, Sampdoria and Spurs.
“I was lucky that football gave me an opportunity to travel, to go to Italy and learn Italian, to go to France and work with Arsène Wenger for two years, learn French and understand their way,” he said. “I was better prepared then for England because I had already learned in Italy to take people the way they are, and not the way I wanted them to be, which is more the German approach, that ‘it has to be this way’. I think every player can learn so much from his managers, and I was so lucky. I had Arsène, Trapattoni, Beckenbauer, Ossie Ardiles, Gerry Francis, Cesar Luis Menotti.
Fish and chips
“I mean all of them [at Tottenham], if it’s Gary Mabbutt, Teddy Sheringham, Colin Calderwood. I had a whole group of guys who showed me ‘this is how things work here’. Fish and chips and we go down the street and we figure it out. This is something that you wish that a kid like [DeAndre] Yedlin will hopefully experience [at Tottenham]. This is how it works in London, the rivalries, the Premier League, life off the field. Some can do that better and quicker, some will struggle longer.
“For every kid there is a different way. It’s really down to the personality of the kid, how he is raised and what his environment is. There is no answer to that question. We are thrilled with Emerson [Hyndman]. He has been here two years and he’s doing extremely well. One step at a time, at his own tempo, he will break through and make his way. We have other ones where it’s better to stay in America.”
Klinsmann’s is evidently a long-term plan, where stability, it is hoped, will reap rewards. On Sunday he watched Spurs lose 2-1 at home to Stoke City, under the stewardship of their fourth manager in two and a half years.
On Mauricio Pochettino’s position, he said: “I wish Mauricio only the best. I think he’s a tremendous, talented coach. He’s shown that already. He’s got a smart brain. We’ll see over time how things work out. If you want to evaluate the work of a coach then you can only do that over a longer period of time. In order for Mauricio to put his stamp on Spurs he needs time. He also needs a couple of transfer windows over time to build the team he has in mind, to put the puzzle together that he envisions.”
And would Klinsmann ever return to Spurs as manager? “I don’t know. Right now I see me hopefully doing a good job for us. I never imagined when I was a player that I would become a coach. So you never know what happens tomorrow and in life. I keep that open-mindedness with me, that was part of my career, and see where life takes us.” – © Guardian News & Media 2014