Former United States Men’s National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann is a controversial figure. As a player, he was part of the World Cup winning West German team in 1990, won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich in 1997, and won UEFA Cups in 1991 and 1996 with Inter Milan and Bayern, respectively.
As manager of Germany, his team never placed higher than third in a major competition. In South Korea, his status as manager was terminated after less than a year with a record of eight wins, seven draws and three losses. As manager of the U.S. team, his lone trophy came in the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup. The rest of his time as American coach was marked by inconsistency including a round of 16 appearance in the 2014 World Cup, a 4th place finish in the 2015 Gold Cup and a disastrous start to the 2018 World Cup qualifying cycle which ultimately cost him his job.
On Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard, the hosts have been forthcoming about their feelings regarding Klinsmann’s time charge, and, on their latest episode, they expounded on those feelings in response to a fan’s question about the team seemingly overachieving during Klinsmann tenure.
“There was overachievement”, Howard explained, “but it wasn’t by the manager. The overachievement was by the core group of players who drove that team to success in spite of the manager.”
Donovan added that Klinsmann had good energy and positivity and that he raised the standards of the team. But those things only lasted so long. He went on to tell a story of playing for the national team and practicing in one formation with the first team all week only for the manager to change both the team and the formation on the day of the game.
“We actually went to Jurgen and said ‘Jurgen, we’ve been training in a 4-4-2 all week, we’re not prepared for [a 4-3-3],’” Donovan explained. “And he said ‘oh guys, I’m just trying to keep you on your toes.’ And I was thinking to myself, is this guy out of his mind? I’ve played 400 games, you don’t need to keep me on my toes, you need to make sure I’m prepared to play the game.”
Donovan’s story illustrates a vastly different internal dynamic than what fans were witnessing on the outside of the team at that time. He went on to say that many fans believe he has a personal vendetta against Klinsmann for being left off that 2014 national team for the World Cup, but ended the segment by saying “objectively, it’s no coincidence that everywhere he’s gone, he’s failed.”
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