Mediocrity Will Not Be ToleratedJurgen Klinsmann Is Demanding Much More From U.S. Soccer; Even You, Clint DempseyBy MATTHEW FUTTERMAN
Associated PressJurgen Klinsmann has spent the past 18 months trying to pinpoint the shortcomings of U.S. soccer.Carson, Calif.
Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German star who now coaches the U.S. men's national soccer team, has spent the past 18 months taking his sword to the game's sacred cows in the U.S., determined to point out the shortcomings of a culture that he sees as having largely accepted mediocrity.
For players still patting themselves on the back for making the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals, Klinsmann had this to say during a rare in-depth interview last week: "Just because you won a game in the World Cup in the knockout stage, you haven't won anything."
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In Klinsmann's eyes, nearly all of his players are below the level he demands. Even Clint Dempsey, who scored 23 goals for English Premier League Club Fulham last year, will have to work harder to truly impress his national coach, a former international star who won a World Cup for Germany in 1990.
"[Dempsey] hasn't made s---. You play for Fulham? Yeah, so? Show me you can play for a Champions League team, and then you start on a Champions League team," Klinsmann says. "There is always another level. If you one day reach the highest level then you've got to confirm it, every year."
Then there's Landon Donovan. Long considered this country's greatest player, he is currently an afterthought. Donovan is on another lengthy vacation following the Major League Soccer season, a concept Klinsmann seems to find baffling.Klinsmann recently told Donovan he didn't want him at the U.S. team's January camp or at the match against Honduras in a couple of weeks. "It will be defined over the next year what his role with the national team is. But the ultimate call is mine on whether he fits into my plans or doesn't fit into my plans."
And it isn't just the team's stars who are hearing a new message. "Some players are walking around waiting for something to happen, but Jurgen's message is that it's up to you which type of professional you want to be," says Kyle Beckerman, a midfielder who has made 23 appearances with the national team.
Soccer remains the last great puzzle in American sports. It's the only widely played sport that the U.S. hasn't come close to conquering. Forget about producing a team that can compete at the highest international level—something the U.S. has managed in nonendemic sports like hockey, archery and rowing—this vast, wealthy, sports-obsessed nation has never even produced a genuine superstar.
No one knows why exactly. To Klinsmann, who has an American wife and has lived here for 15 years, it's because the culture has never demanded it. American players begin to feel as though they have made it when they get a college scholarship, or an MLS contract, at 18 or 19. While the rest of the world plays 11 months a year, Americans grow up seeing professional athletes play a seven-month season and taking the rest of the year off.
Action Images/Zuma PressU.S. national team stars Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey."We don't have the environment telling them nicely, 'OK you had a good week, but next week has to be better, and the next week again,'" he says. "Here it's: 'Oh, take a week off.' No, don't take a week off. If you take a week off as a programmer at Apple, you missed the train, you lost the job. You can't afford it."
Dempsey is apparently listening. He joined Tottenham, a more prestigious English side, this season and scored his fifth goal Sunday. "Jurgen is trying to raise the bar for U.S. Soccer, but Clint has met the challenge at every level," said Lyle Yorks, Dempsey's agent.
Richard Motzkin, Donovan's agent, said he, too, is taking Klinsmann at his word and knows he will have to earn back a spot on the national team after he rejoins his club, the Los Angeles Galaxy, at some still to-be-determined time later this year.
For all involved, Klinsmann has been something of a rude awakening in a country where quasi-anonymous national players can drink in night clubs until 3 a.m. without any repercussions. Play in Italy or Germany, Klinsmann says, "You drink more than two glasses of wine, you get the looks from people."
Likewise, early exits from the World Cup don't cause a lot of people in the U.S. to get too hot and bothered. A mere trip to the knockout round has become a cause for celebration.
By contrast, Germany's early exit at the 2004 European Championship created a national debate within the government and the media about the direction of the country's development program. It allowed Klinsmann, who was named the national coach at the time, to alter Germany's style from defensive and organized to a more freewheeling, proactive approach that he felt reflected how the country wanted to be seen.
"We said the only way was we got to attack, we got to go forward," he says. "Maybe it's in our DNA. Maybe it was wrongfully in our DNA in two world wars. Who knows that? I don't know, I was not even born yet. But I just said we Germans, we can't take just defending."
Back then, Klinsmann's work drew an international spotlight. One morning last week, the man who once starred at Bayern Munich and Inter Milan trudged alone across an empty parking lot at the Home Depot Center near Los Angeles, lugging a backpack and a shoulder bag to lead practice for his team's second-tier players. The best ones, like the players on every other top national team, were busy with their club teams in the European leagues that play through the winter. Two hours later, he stalked the center of the penalty area, badgering his players during a crossing-and-shooting drill. "Hungry, hungry…Time it, time it…Nice, but no goal. Got to be better."
As the U.S. prepares to embark on the final phase of qualification for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Klinsmann is aiming beyond a decent showing and sees the U.S. as a country that needs to be dictating the action. But its national team has never played that way because, in his view, no one ever demanded it. As a result, the players weren't physically or mentally conditioned to press opponents with the relentlessness of the best teams in the world. Long a believer in the constant monitoring of players, Klinsmann has instilled a system of regularly testing the team's strength and fitness and proscribing specific training regimens so each player can mitigate his deficiencies.
Results have been mixed so far. The U.S. team matched its best-ever winning percentage in 2012, but struggled with consistency on the road during World Cup qualifying. "This team needs to measure itself with the best out there in order to get better," Klinsmann says before rushing off to another practice. "That's what we are trying to do."
