October 10, 2011
German Hand Bolsters American Identity
By GEORGE VECSEY
The New York Times
Jurgen Klinsmann, the German coach of the American soccer team, has his own ideas, large and small.
Some of them are details, like making the starting players wear Nos. 1 to 11 (to emphasize competition) and having players wear identical outfits in training camp (for uniformity).
Some of his ideas are more cosmic, like the revolutionary theory for young players that soccer should be fun.
“Soccer is not like baseball or football, where the coach tells you what to do,” he said.
Then there are the symbolic touches, like the bonding of players with roots as foreign as his own. Klinsmann’s vision led the American squad to the subdued oasis of the National September 11 Memorial in Manhattan on Monday. A lot of teams have visited the former site of the World Trade Center, some of them New York franchises looking to pay tribute to the people who died there and rescued there and rebuilt there. But this visit was different — this was a team that wears red, white and blue at every game.
“For us, as a soccer team representing the United States, it’s a wonderful opportunity,” Klinsmann said as his players inspected the honor rolls and the reflecting pools.
“Yes, we are only representing soccer, but we have a generation of people with dual citizenship,” Klinsmann said. “This gives us a deep sense, a deep connection, of who we represent — a very special country, an amazing country.”
Welcome to the Klinsmann age, which follows the successful terms of Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley. There is no guarantee Klinsmann will be a better coach than either of those two professionals just because he was one of the great strikers in the world and later the head coach of the third-place German team in the 2006 World Cup.
Since replacing Bradley in late July, Klinsmann has made a few changes, including opening up some practices for fans just to get some noise and enthusiasm into otherwise empty stadiums. On Monday, the Yanks prepared for Tuesday’s friendly with Ecuador at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., and an M.C. with a hand-held microphone introduced Klinsmann to about 500 fans in the best seats.
The squad itself is a work in transition, as national teams always are. Klinsmann has called up two German players with American fathers: Tim Chandler and Danny Williams. Many others on the American squad have roots overseas. Klinsmann himself is married to an American woman, and lives much of the year in Orange County, Calif., where he was on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Everybody was paralyzed,” he said Monday, adding that he began receiving messages from all the European countries where he had played. “It made Americans and everybody else realize we live in a global world,” he said.
On Monday, the players strolled around the outdoor memorial, surrounded by construction of the new World Trade Center. They were recognized by visitors and security agents, who took photographs, shook hands, asked for autographs. Several German tourists were delighted to recognize Klinsmann and chat with him in their language.
The players were not the only celebrities. In separate visits were Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, and John Paul Stevens, a retired justice of the Supreme Court.
Tim Howard, a goalkeeper from New Jersey, remembers hearing about the attack as he drove to the practice of the team then called the MetroStars, and seeing smoke rising from what would be called ground zero.
“I never had the desire to come here,” Howard said with what could be described as a shudder. He now plays for Everton in Liverpool. “But I’m glad I came here today, to see something beautiful emerging from this.”
The players in their identical training outfits with white T-shirts hopped back on the bus before their training session in New Jersey. One of the 22 players called up for this trip is Michael Bradley, who plays for Chievo of Italy and is the son of Bob Bradley, who now coaches Egypt. The players speak respectfully about their previous coaches and hopefully about their new coach.
DaMarcus Beasley, a World Cup veteran having a renaissance in Puebla, Mexico, was asked about Klinsmann’s practice of assigning Nos. 1 to 11 to the starting lineup each game and dropping names from the back of jerseys. “He comes from a European background,” said Beasley, suggesting that the old-school approach places status on whomever has earned the start. “I do miss my number,” added Beasley, who was usually assigned No. 7. He made it sound like a minor matter compared with still being in the American mix.
The main thing is moving back toward the level of Arena’s 2002 team, which reached the quarterfinals in the World Cup. On Saturday, in Klinsmann’s fourth match as its coach, the United States finally won, beating Honduras, 1-0. Klinsmann is trying to get his players to expend more offensive pressure, the way he did when he was a fleet forward.
He is also preaching that soccer should be fun, a concept that will no doubt shock some American youth coaches who shout instructions from the sideline the way Vince Lombardi or Bob Knight did. As a result, many young players stifle their natural instinct as they wait to hear what Coach wants, thereby squandering the split-second opportunity to do something feral and innovative, which is, in fact, the heart of the game.
That aspect has been incorporated into the teaching syllabus being revised by Claudio Reyna, who was one of the stars of that 2002 World Cup team and is now the official in charge of the development of American players.
“Athletes must play the game by themselves; they must be creative,” Klinsmann said with animation. “Yes, coaches can teach soccer, but on the field, soccer is not a teachable sport,” he added. And with a quick step, he moved on, from ground zero toward training camp, and more of the new era.
