Jurgen Klinsmann sacked as US head coach

Jurgen Klinsmann has been sacked as head coach of the United States national team, less than a week after a humiliating defeat in Costa Rica that damaged the American team's chances of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.

U.S. Soccer did not announce a replacement for Klinsmann, but the former United States coach Bruce Arena is considered the leading candidate.

U.S. Soccer, the federation that oversees the sport in the United States and runs the national team programs, announced the change. Klinsmann also was dismissed as U.S. Soccer’s technical director, a lower-profile — but significantly important — role that gave him broad responsibility to overhaul soccer development in the United States.

Klinsmann’s firing was not a surprise. The United States sustained two painful losses in its opening games of the final round of regional World Cup qualifying recently, starting with a 2-1 defeat against Mexico that was the Americans’ first loss in a home World Cup qualifier in 15 years. Then came the 4-0 thrashing against the Ticos in which Klinsmann’s team looked alternately disorganized, dispirited and — perhaps most damningly — disinterested.

“While we remain confident that we have quality players to help us advance to Russia 2018, the form and growth of the team up to this point left us convinced that we need to go in a different direction,” Sunil Gulati, U.S. Soccer’s president, said in a statement.

Klinsmann, 52, was a polarising figure as the United States coach, attracting both praise and disdain from hard-core fans throughout his tenure.

He arrived to much fanfare in 2011, finally agreeing to a contract after Gulati had pursued him on-and-off for five years. Vowing to elevate the national team program in a way that "suits the American game," he led the team through a successful qualifying campaign for the 2014 World Cup. But he was criticized for saying in an article published in The New York Times Magazine that he did not believe the Americans had any chance to win the World Cup, as well as for his decision to leave the popular veteran Landon Donovan off the final squad he took to Brazil and for a string of comments denigrating the American professional league, Major League Soccer, even as it produced nearly half his roster.

Drawn into a very difficult group, the United States beat Ghana, drew with Portugal and lost to the eventual winners, Germany, but advanced to the knockout round on goal difference. The Americans were eliminated by Belgium in extra time in the round of 16, nearly winning a match in which they were significantly outplayed.

Some thought Klinsmann’s tenure should have ended then. In many other countries, the national team coach generally keeps a job for no more than one four-year cycle — Klinsmann himself stepped down as coach of the German national team after just two years despite leading his home country to a third-place finish in the 2006 World Cup — but the United States has often opted for more stability. Gulati actually gave Klinsmann a contract extension for another four years even before a single game was played in Brazil. It was a surprising show of confidence, and Klinsmann also was made technical director of the federation in his new contract, further strengthening his connection to U.S. Soccer.

It did not take long, however, for criticism of Klinsmann to escalate during his second cycle. The previous coach, Bob Bradley, had been fired after a poor performance in the 2011 Concacaf Gold Cup, the continental championship, and while Klinsmann’s team won that tournament in 2013, it was upset in the semi-finals by Jamaica in 2015 — the first in a series of poor performances in the kind of important games and tournaments that Klinsmann had long preached were the teams’ most important tests.

Klinsmann’s tactical knowledge, his penchant for using players out of position and his habit of blaming his team — not his team selection or his own game plans — for defeats became perpetual talking points for those agitating for a change.

Klinsmann rarely looked concerned about his job status, however, including after last week’s Costa Rica defeat.

“I’m not afraid,” Klinsmann said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday night. “What you need to do is stick to the facts. Soccer is emotional, and a lot of people make conclusions without knowing anything about the inside of the team or the sport. I still believe we will get the points we need to qualify, and I am even confident we could win the group.”

He added: “The fact is, we lost two games. There is a lot of talk from people who don’t understand soccer or the team.”

Klinsmann’s confidence might have been rooted in a faith in Gulati’s penchant for taking the long view. An economics professor at Columbia, Gulati is renowned for rarely allowing emotion to color his decisions on hirings, firings or judgments on the progress of the national team. And by placing so much power in Klinsmann’s control, Gulati effectively had linked his own legacy to the coach.

And yet, still: Even Gulati’s backing of Klinsmann had begun to crack as the team struggled over the past year: the Gold Cup defeat, another in a regional championship game against Mexico late last year, and the recent qualifiers.

“No one has ironclad job security,” Gulati told reporters ominously in June, when a humiliating first-round elimination from the Copa América tournament, played on home soil, was possible. “For coaches and players, it’s about results.”

(New York Times service)