Klinsmann stunned by Costa Rica mauling

A very pale performance from Klinsmann’s men whose job is now in jeopardy with two opening defeats.

Playing on the road – where the team had never won – against 2014 World Cup quarterfinalist Costa Rica, the usa trailed by two goals with little more than 20 minutes remaining.

That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. “If I was asked to become the national team coach again, I would certainly be interested in doing that”.

The U.S. looked flat and uninspiring in a 4-0 loss to Costa Rica that has the Americans still searching for their first point in the Hexagonal. The U.S. has never won a World Cup qualifier at Costa Rica.

Right now, Klinsmann seems to have lost sight of common sense and the obvious strengths and weaknesses of his players. “We’ll get here some lessons but definitely it’s a bitter moment because we wanted to do far, far better than what we did”. The match is famous for prompting a mini-locker room spat that later went public. The score was 2-1. 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. On Wednesday, the group dispersed to return to their club teams.

The drubbing on Tuesday was a blaring alarm that the discontent is starting to reveal itself in the results. The other two years? And you have to win your home matches if you want to go to the World Cup. The U.S. plan changes match to match. Rather than continue to utilize a four-back system that produced results in the Copa America Centenario, Klinsmann switched to a formation that included three defenders. Klinsmann started off with an on-trend 3-5-2 formation. It was a tactical mismatch against Mexico’s strengths, and the US had not played the formation in any games over the previous years. If Klinsmann wishes to stick with a 4-4-2, he would be better advised to bring in younger, more athletic midfielders.

Having made the decision to stay with the same team, DeAndre Yedlin was again left on the sidelines and wasn’t even brought on a substitute as the US collapsed against Costa Rica. Center back John Brooks, so good in the Copa America, was frightful in the past week, committing mistakes that led directly to the game-winning goal against Mexico and contributed to three of the four Costa Rica scores.

Jones unsurprisingly struggled the whole night against the Ticos. Gonzalez was slow to close on Bolanos, who crossed for Venegas just outside the 6-yard box.

If at some point he does coach the USA, his staff better do not forget to hand him his hot beverage. But fixing your own mistakes at some point can no longer be seen as a redeeming quality.

“This is the defeat that hurts the most in my five years here, there’s no doubt about it”. There was no shield in front of the defence to liberate Bradley to move forward; just Jermaine Jones alongside him largely being asked to “go vroom” too. He should also be credited with the development of several players, including DeAndre Yedlin, Bobby Wood and Jordan Morris. Sure, the US equalized early in the second half and were on the front foot, but that was after a shift to a familiar 4-4-2 look.

In global soccer, it’s unusual for coaches to stay on after one World Cup.

There are qualified candidates available to step in and fix the problems. With his familiarity of the qualification process and the US player pool, Arena can provide that. The USMNT does not want to follow that lead and be so quick to make a change based on a couple of poor results in hard games.

“We won’t make any decisions right after games”, he told reporters at the Estadio Nacional. There’s always things you look back on and think you should have done differently.

If it’s going to be done, now is the time.

Altidore, 27, played down suggestions that the team’s tactics were to blame following the two defeats, instead suggesting it was time for the team to do some soul searching before qualifying resumes in March of 2017. Germany winning the 2014 World Cup in Brazil only affirms Low’s true impact on the side once he took over as manager. They were so bad, that after the game, experts speculated if coach Jurgen Klinsmann had lost the team.