Costa Rica shuts out USMNT in World Cup qualifying

The United States lost its second consecutive 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying game Tuesday, this time to Costa Rica at Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica.

In his more than five years in charge of the United States men’s soccer team, Jurgen Klinsmann has displayed an uncanny ability to repeatedly bounce back from major setbacks. They did not have to try too hard against a team that seemed all at sea in an appalling second half. Instead the blame goes to the coach for either picking the wrong players or for putting them in position to fail.

Jurgen Klinsmann surprisingly left Yedlin out of the Mexico match, the Newcastle defender only getting the last 16 minutes in that 2-1 defeat.

The top three finishers in the Concacaf round-robin tournament qualify automatically for Russian Federation, while the fourth-placed side enter a play-off.

Team USA has played in every World Cup since the 1990 finals in Italy. Jozy Altidore, Bobby Wood, Fabian Johnson and Michael Bradley all looked up for the challenge, but there just didn’t appear to be any clear tactical plan in place – not one that was ever going to earn the US team its first win in Costa Rica. “So anybody who thinks that is sorely mistaken”.

Klinsmann flamed out in spectacular fashion in the team’s first two Hexagonal encounters of the World Cup cycle, dropping results against Mexico (2-1) and Costa Rica (4-0) over the course of a week.

A goal late in the first half cracked open the match, and the Ticos scored three in a 10-minute span of the second half.

US coach Jurgen Klinsmann stayed with basically the same starting lineup against Costa Rica that opened Friday’s 2-1 loss to Mexico but switched to a conventional 4-4-2 formation.

Said the former Germany striker: “We didn’t imagine we’d start with two defeats”.

To say Klinsmann’s tenure as head coach has been rocky is an understatement.

“But, hopefully, they’ll take some lessons from this”.

But Gulati sounded less certain following Tuesday’s loss, telling reporters, “We’ll think about what happened today and talk with Jurgen and look at the situation”.

But, the way things have been going, Klinsmann has not been able to get his players play some brilliant football despite having some good players.

There may be changes afoot for U.S. Soccer. No one, however, was on the back side.

In his second full year as USA coach, Klinsmann won 16 games – 13 of them in a row – and compiled a.761 winning percentage, all national team records. Brooks and Omar Gonzalez started in the center of the back line.

Next game: Six weeks later, the team headed to Denver where it knocked off Costa Rica in the famous “snow game”.

The Ticos midfielder had ample time to look up and survey his options. Venegas beat Brooks to the ball and sent a header across Guzan. “But still you can not give away three more”. Four of those went in, one each from Johan Venegas and Cristian Bolanos and two from substitute Joel Campbell.

Defender Ronald Matarrita sent a ball over the US defense to Campbell, who slotted the ball past Guzan in the 78th minute to close out the rout.

Do the recent defeats mean the Americans aren’t going to qualify for the World Cup? A player’s manager like Cherundolo or Kinnear could help spark a flare in the likes of Christian Pulisic, Julian Green and Bobby Wood.

Not in uniform: Howard (injured), Bedoya (injured), Stanko.