Let The Klinsmann Era Begin
Soccer’s battle to establish itself as a legitimate major sport in the United States received a nice little boost back in June with the U.S. World Cup performance in South Africa. For a brief moment, the men’s national team captured the American public’s attention thanks to Landon Donovan’s stunning stoppage time goal that propelled the US past Algeria and into the Round of 16.
Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last long as Ghana ended the Americans' run shortly thereafter, but there’s no doubt that soccer in this country added some fans as evidenced by tremendous TV ratings for the U.S. games plus an unprecedented level of media coverage. Even Major League Soccer, our young professional league, gained some momentum thanks to several major post-World Cup player acquisitions led by the New York Red Bull’s signing of French superstar Thierry Henry.
The question now is "Where Do We Go From Here?" U.S Soccer President Sunil Gulati is now dealing with that as he met with Coach Bob Bradley this week to discuss Bradley’s future. The coach is under contract through December, but very few national team coaches succeed when brought back for a 2nd World Cup run and Bradley certainly has his share of critics. Favorite complaints among those detractors are that he doesn’t develop young players and that his teams have this annoying habit of falling behind in matches far too often.
For these reasons, handicappers give Bradley a very slim chance of returning in January and if that’s the case, the clock is ticking on finding a replacement.
And it’s a big hire, given the state of soccer in the U.S., a country that’s hoping to host another World Cup as soon as 2018 and one with a professional league that has struggled for credibility throughout much of its 15-year history. The difficult task ahead is to build on the National Team’s recent success and get the program – and the entire sport of soccer in this country - to the next level.
My Cliff Notes analysis of the U.S. as a soccer country is we’re good at developing goalkeepers and defenders, and while we’re steadily improving, we have a serious lack of depth in the midfield, and especially at the striker position. We can compete with the world’s best on any given day, but we’re still nowhere near as good as the top European and South American nations. Further, there are few, if any young players on the horizon who are viewed as potential stars, to the degree that Donovan was a decade ago.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati