The Coaching Philosophy of the New US MNT Head Coach

http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Mens-National-Team/2011/08/Quote-Sheet-Klinsmann-Introduction.aspx


It’s not about power; it’s about topics that float around, challenges.

I’m really excited about this opportunity, this chance to coach the U.S. team having lived here for the last 13 years, and also getting to know the U.S. Soccer environment, having connected with this country in all sorts of environments – the youth level, the college system, MLS. There has always been a feeling around that maybe one day I’ll have the opportunity to coach the U.S. team.

We had a clear understanding of what we want to do, and that’s why I’m really happy that we’ve thought about this and found a comfort level for moving forward.”

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with the (US MNT) team.

When you come into a situation like this, you analyze every individual player, the team itself and the program… to see how I can develop them further. You build on what was built before, and if you look back on the past 20 years in this country, a lot has been built.

Now look where MLS is. I know in the beginning there were eight or 10 teams and half of those were supported by Phil Anschutz. Now, you have a league with 18 teams and growing next year again.

There are development teams being introduced with the Academy program. It’s come a long way, soccer in the United States. I’m now getting this opportunity to move it further.

I think you can also be proud of what you’ve achieved over the last few years where soccer is now. Look at this press conference. Look at three or four soccer television channels. Who would have thought that 15 years ago? It’s a lot of movement going on, and I want to be part of that movement and help out with it. There is a lot to do.”

I will, step by step, introduce the ideas that I have, always double checking if it suits the American game.
One of my challenges will be to find a way to define how a U.S. team should represent its country.

What should be the style of play? Is it more proactive and aggressive, a forward-thinking style of play? Or is it more reacting style of play?

What suits us best? What would you like to see and identify with?

‘Why is the program really not that important to people, and why is it always about where you are going to college?

What’s the high school? Where are your kids going to school?’ I always responded, ‘My kids are going to school at the next closest school. What’s the big deal?’

…what people can we work with on a global basis?

‘Should we have somebody in Europe to oversee those players so I don’t have to fly back and forth every weekend?’

“I deeply believe that soccer in a certain way reflects the culture of a country. Having studied the U.S. culture over the last 13 years, it’s quite a challenge.


Players have all different characteristics, so every coach needs to find his own little path of how to put things together.

All these discussions are important and also important for you, media, to have your say in it. I’ve talked to a lot of youth coaches, my boy is playing youth soccer, my girl as well, and they all wait for information. They are very knowledgeable on the youth level in this country but they also ask those same questions. I think there’s a huge opportunity to discuss things and bring different people in and hopefully define more and more how the style should look like.”

Studying your culture and having an American wife and American kids, mainly right now my understanding is that you don’t like to react to what other people do. I think this is maybe a starting point. I think America never really waits and sees and leaves it up to other people to decide what is next. I think America always likes to decide on its own what is next. This guides maybe towards a more proactive style of play where you would like to impose a little bit the game on your opponent instead of sitting back and waiting for what your opponent is doing and react to it. It always depends, also, on your opponent. If you play Brazil or Argentina, you might play differently than maybe a country in CONCACAF, but it is a starting point if you say we want to start to keep possession, we want to start to dictate the pace of the game, we want to challenge our players to improve technically in order to keep the ball. All those components you have to build into your training sessions and have to build it into the curriculum for the youngsters because the earlier they start with that type of work, the better it is. Barcelona was not born in the last couple of years. It was born, the style of play now, in the early 90’s through Johan Cruyff. It took 20 years for that moment today that we see and all admire, just to take an example. So I’m really curious to hear all the different opinions out there.”

“I think there are a lot of different challenges ahead of us, especially on the foundation level and the foundation is youth…
This is really important to be addressed from the beginning because I think this is what is really missing compared to the leading soccer nations around the world.

U.S. Men’s National Team head coach JURGEN KLINSMANN

The English were the ones to introduce the passion of the game to the world.

They did it by throwing the ball down in the dirt and starting to play in the many ocean ports around the world. As the locals watched them from a distance they observed how they pushed and shoved each other and occasionally even kick and chopped each other causing injury. They did this for only one reason: Fun.

All the hard endurance work and sweat filled clothes came for the simple point of putting the round ball into the rectangle goal, it was for their team's victory. The joy of wining a trivial game played among friends who had to work everyday in a very stressful life out on the seas with little personal room for themselves was all they wanted. They were waiting to go back out to the ocean they loved to explore. They were the workers, they were a team.

It is because of this simple bit of admiration that the game became popular after they left to take the goods back to their homes. All people like good spirited competition, all people like team work for the common goal. They did not need to put it down as a written word, they were spreading the joy of having fun on your time off from work. It needed no language, it needed no teacher, it did not even really need rules.

We should all always thank them for bring us the great beautiful team game of flowing involvement by all.
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They also have a very good sense of humor.

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When you are lucky enough to travel around the world you see and learn more about who we are as a country, how we developed into our own culture.

Food is one of the areas of life where you can easily see who we really are as americans. We keep the very best of what each culture has to offer, and we share it with all around us while making a bit of a profit. We don't just eat "american food" because we just want to be americans, we eat Mexican, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Ethiopian, and even Irish dishes. We don't ask the history of where it came from, we don't need to understand every mistake their culture may have made along the way to where they are now because we all came from somewhere else and we all now get along here in the new world, after our own new start.

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As an evolving football/soccer country we understood we were not there yet and we needed some more help. We were not afraid to ask others for their help.

We needed someone who could see the big picture from the outside, identify the problems we still have to face, prioritize them and start the hard work on the solutions that will benefit us all. We needed someone we respected for their own achievements as a player, as a coach, as a manager of people, and as a manager of the games development. We needed someone that could sell that idea to the press and social media guys.

We now have that.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jürgen_Klinsmann


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dettmar_Cramer
http://www.soccersupplies.com/prod/booksdvdsvideos/coachingeducation/B-US0215

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/usa/story/cantona-cosmos-united-states-can-rule-the-world-080411

Eric Cantona believes the United States will win the World Cup in the next 20 years.

The former Manchester United forward is now director of football at the New York Cosmos and he believes bringing through young American talent in his new role can help the national team's chances of success.

"The last World Cup was won with eight or nine players from the academy of Barcelona and we want to be this kind of club.

"It's been over 25 years since the club last played a game and it's going to be a very emotional evening especially for Pele and some of the ambassadors who wore this shirt back in the late '70s."
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*A few of my old New York Cosmos photos from inside their locker room after they lost to the Minnesota Kicks in front of 40,000 Minnesota fans out at the old Met center.

The coaching staff working out their story of why they lost to Alan Willey and Alan Merrick.



Giorgio explaining the loss to the press.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Chinaglia

The pieces are starting to fall into place.

We do embrace change rapidly here in the US

FOX SPORTS POLL

Rate your satisfaction with the Klinsmann hire:

70% - Extremely happy
20% - Happy
7% - Unaffected
1% - Unhappy

Total Votes: 17,122

Grant Wahl>PLANET FÚTBOL

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/grant_wahl/08/08/klinsmann.mexico/index.html

I'm presenting this interview as a Q&A in part because it's interesting and in part because the format helps show how Klinsmann's thought process is working as he takes over the U.S. team. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers right now, but he does have ideas -- lots of ideas. - Grant Wahl
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I was clued-in to this article by Bruce through his du Nord website

http://www.dunordfutbol.com/

I tried to tell Bradley how to keep his job last April. He obviously did not listen to me!

Martin Vasquez is the #2 coach for the US MNT

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/grant_wahl/09/02/USMNT.mailbag/index.html?eref=sircrc

The 47-year-old Vásquez, whose claim to fame used to be that he was the first person to play for both the U.S. and Mexican national teams, has a resume that's similar to previous No. 2s. He has worked as an assistant in MLS to Bradley, Preki and Sampson. He was a head coach for one season (2010) at Chivas USA, and he also was Klinsmann's top aide for just short of one season at Bayern Munich.


Vásquez won't have the respect issues with the U.S. players that he had at Bayern, and he also could be a vital link to Mexican-American players who might be choosing which national team to represent. Klinsmann has said that he wants the U.S. national team to reflect the Latino population, and Vásquez will be an important part of that strategy.

Q- Will Martin try to bring Carlos Juarez with him this time?

http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/tag/_/name/carlos-juarez

Carlos is an long time coach in Southern CA, a friend of Martin, and also a USSF staff coach.

New/better coaching philosophy... Bull $#!%.

This is the same as it always was. In-house US Soccer coaching with just a new front guy for the media to talk to. Nothing has changed at the US Soccer MNT.








Well now that did not take long...
Why did we hire a euro coach who does not have any real euro contacts in the coaching world?

The two assistant coaches are the old coaches from Chivas USA?? Did they all have a ride share program back to the Home Depot center?

I'm not making any judgements on anyones coaching/managing abilities here, lets get that straight. But...

One "Euro legend" who is now a coach from LA gets hired (some of us assumed he would add new euro based input to the US program) and he brings two coaches/trainers from the same US Soccer- West building with him to train the team?? Really that's what we paid so much money for??

Why not just skip paying Klinsmen all that money if we were just going to hire these two US Soccer in-house guys to train the team anyway?



I'm glad we now have an "US attacking mentality culture". Sometimes all you need to do is just think something is real and it becomes what you have in your mind all by itself. Sometimes that is, sometimes it does not just happen all by itself.

Two Goals in Five Games against lower level teams, according to our FIFA ranking, which is now going to plummet us downwards even further into the FIFA ranking abysses.

http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index.html

USA = 18th as of Feb 2011
USA = 19th as of Mar 2011
USA = 22ed as of Apr 2011
USA = 24th as of Jun 2011
USA = 30th as of Jul 2011
USA = 31st as of Sep 2011

Yea... we beat Honduras the 53 ranked team 1-0.

And now we just lost 1-0 to:
Ecuador = 69th ranked team. You do the math...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Rankings

So why we're attempting to beat #69 Ecuador, at the same time Mexico #20 is trying to beat Brazil #7... Are we really planning this whole WC Q/WC 2014 thing out, or just winging it as we go along?

Fire the bum. Oh, that's what everybody said about Bob Bradley.

Not real wild about losing to Ecuador or any other also rans, but I will hold off major judgments until WCQ starts.

There also may be a healthy realization now that: (1) USMNT isn't that good and (2) maybe BB wasn't a big as idiot as some thought.

It takes time for a new couch to train his team how to do things his way. I say give him more time.
Even if we won the last game it still wouldn't have been enough points to do any damage.

A much better performance in the middle and defending third by the US MNT in Paris. Overall a good solid performance against a dangerous top international team although the US attacking chances were few and somewhat easy to defend against.

Defending: A 442 in the middle third with two pressuring players up front as the ball entered the middle third then became a 451 in the defending third. The team maintained good defending shape and had a clear line of confrentation around the central line. They moved numbers as a cohesive unit of defenders to where they were needed. The shape was ball oriented, compact and had two lines to provide good depth to stop any penetrations through the middle by France. The US MNT worked hard when they did not have the ball against a very good possession team. The transition into the attack was also good by the players.

The attack shape looked a bit confused was it a 424, a 442, or a 433?
The central attacking triangle of Beckerman, Edu, and Dempsey (whoever the central tri is) in the middle third is where the main problem still lies in the US MNT play. This group has to work harder in finding space during the transition into attack and control the speed and direction of play more. We were forced many times to play the ball to the outside or just simply away to relive pressure once we regained the ball.

The basic supporting movements by the other players around them need to be better. The three central players need more options to keep possession before trying to move forward. The French team seemed to know that if they keep the pressure on the central players they could get the ball back quickly. This is where playing back to the defenders comes in. Many in the US (coaches) don't believe in playing back before going forward. There is a reason so many successful international teams do play backwards first. That is how a team controls the tempo of the game especially in the first half when you want the other team to chase you (using up their own energy going the wrong way) as much as you have to chase them. If when you gain possession you play back to the defenders then the other team has to drop off and find their own defending shape. This is where the team finds their own time to catch a short rest before penetrating through the middle with quickly executed combination plays. As a attacking player you can't do all the transition work back and forth up and down the field as your team plays ping pong and then still have the 110% of energy to beat defenders in the final third.

When the counter is not on then the attack must take more time to develop going forward. Only when your team has solid possession and space will the other team drop off. As that happens even more space opens up in the back for better build up play.

Both teams need to have the same amount of possession in the first half. It's about player energy use in a game that is 90 minutes long. The team that has possession the most has the most opportunity to slow down their players movements forwards and backwards and maintain that peak energy reserves for the final third attacks with good quick penetrating and support movements.

A good attack should have both build ups through the middle, up both the outsides, and counter attacks that can go quickly with just a few players when that play is on (few defenders back) and the space exists to play the long ball to them. The balance of different attacking styles creates unpredictability and defenses then have to make decisions and that is when they make mistakes.

An attack that always goes forward first, plays without good support (no time for the space to develop and players to use) and does not give the players time to create combination plays. That creates high risk passing that turns the ball over more often causing your players to run hard a lot (in the wrong direction) getting back into the compact defending shape.

Players can't run at 90-95% MHR for 90+ continuous minutes. Short rest gained during your own teams possessions in the middle third are the key to good quality attacking play. To get those short rests in the attacking transitions a team should balance attempts to play forward quickly with slower developing build ups that have enough space to maintain possession for longer periods of time. You gain that space and time by playing back and maintaining possession when no good chances to go forward are apparent. Playing ping pong does not give your team any time to rest.

Get through the first half using energy only when a great chance presents itself, make the other team chase you as much as you have to chase them by having good long lasting possession, then win the game after 70 minutes of play with aggressive attacking play down the center part of the field (the most dangerous area) using 110% of the attacking supporting movements energy you now still have.

All chasing/defending with no energy left in reserve/and no time for good supporting movements in attack does not win games against top international teams.

Great info JW7. My layman's analysis was that the US looked afraid to move forward, and when they did, they were disorganized. At least the US drew an easy initial bracket in the World Cup qualifiers.

I had a really good time watching the US men's national team play today down at the Sweetwater. There was a nice group there and it was a very enjoyable time.

Ithought that Buddle played a solid game, but did tire toward the end of the match. However, his goal in the ninth minute was spectacular and world-class. On the other hand, Altidore was essentially worthless on the pitch in my opinion. Who cares that he scored a goal on a penalty kick. I could have scored myself. I was tremendously upset with the way that the US backline played. I have seen a group of U6 players play better. Beckerman was also a disappointment in my book.

It was interesting the US played primarily 442. However, Altidore clearly is not able to play up top by himself. Having an extra forward did give the US an opportunity to play forward. This was something they clearly were unable to do against France.

Does anyone have any idea when the next international friendlies are going to be? I sure hope the US gets their act together before they face their initial group and World Cup qualifying. Otherwise, Jamaica is going to be the team to beat.

I remain skeptical!

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/news/newsid=1566711/

Interview with Jurgy

Q- So the theory is to not just bunker in and hope for results against the bigger teams, but to be one of the bigger teams?

A- If you play Spain or Barcelona ten times and try to stay back and defend, you might win one out of those ten games and maybe get one draw, but they will beat you, probably badly, seven or eight times. Maybe they will have a bad day and you will get lucky, but this is what I mean when I say the USA needs to be more proactive and less reactive. My goal is to show the players that the way to compete with this kind of football is to improve every element of our game.

Q- Your best result so far was a 3-2 win in Slovenia in November. Did you see the kind of football you’re talking about then?

A- It’s not good enough to have a 45 good minutes like we did against the Slovenians. We need to be tactically more aware and awake all the time, to play the game the same way, totally tuned in, for a full 90 minutes. Little mistakes are not allowed at the top level, and we saw that against Ecuador

Q- Can you keep players from making mistakes?

A- All the elements need to improve. As the players get better and hungrier, the team gets better. There’s more competition. Along the way we will lose some players. When I was a player, there were countless times when a team-mate had more skill than anyone out on the training pitch, but you just knew that he wouldn’t make it because his mentality was wrong.
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That is the real question about this current group of US MNT players...
"Can you keep players from making mistakes"?

As a coach your job is finding the correct style of play for the group of players you currently have, it the federations job to develop the next group of players. How do you as the US MNT coach give them the best chance of success in a short tournament like the World Cup Final where most teams only get to play 2-4 games that even matter to their end result? I'm assuming they will qualify out of the CONCACAF group.

Not sure if he really answered that question? And this is the very strength of the top teams, they will not make mistakes and when you do they will make that cost you a goal.

Who are we really kidding sitting at the 34 ranked position in FIFA?

Tell me what tactics the #2 team The Netherlands use against the #1 team Spain in the last WC final game. Did they try to beat them at their own game or did they try to disrupt the flow of that possession/passing style with the most fouls ever in a final game.

Jurgy has no real plan to execute... Except to have high hopes of success, which is a trait of forwards, never to give up on hope! No matter how many times they miss the net, they always think the next one will go in.

I hope, his hope, is good enough in this day and age of well executed possession play soccer played while giving up very few mistakes. Few mistakes made while pushing attacking numbers forward to score goals exposing your defenders to a numbers down situation in front of their own goal on counter attacks. Do we really have good enough defenders to play 1v1 nearer to our own goal vs the worlds best? Have we even found a real strong left back yet?

A tactical mistake to not know who you really are in this game today, one coaches make all the time now days trying to copy a style of play far out of reach of their current players.

How many teams has that worked for against Spain? Teams that were player for player much better than the (currently ranked #34) US MNT group.

How many teams like Switzerland (#17 ranking) have taken points from a team like Spain during the World Cup final tournament, and what were their tactics again?

He only gets a few days a year training this team as a group, changing the whole dynamic of american soccer skills may not happen fast enough for him to survive. The next World Cup qualifying starts soon.

25/06/2011 USA vs Mexico 2-4
04/06/2011 USA vs Spain 0-4
History tends to repets itself, unless you find better, more realistic tactics.

"Can you keep players from making mistakes"?

-If not then does redundancy make sense?

Redundancy
• Engineering the inclusion of extra components that are not strictly necessary to functioning, in case of failure in other components : a high degree of redundancy is built into the machinery installation.
• chiefly Brit. the state of being no longer employed because there is no more work available : the factory's workers face redundancy.

Good luck son, it's looking more and more like you're going to need some.

Tactics in a real world.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/20...ule=from_footer

Great game! 1-0

I know of a soccer coach in particular that could learn a lot from this article. However, that coach knows more about soccer than I do and is probably beyond this article. Sadly, the results on the pitch don't show it.

Jw7, thanks for passing on another great article. It will be interesting if LA can find their winning form in the 2012 season.

Results are not really all that important the style you play is. Unless of course the goal is to win the game. Then I guess the end result counts. But that's just my own opinion.

4-3-3 And the new American orthodoxy

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/20...dule=from_foote


And while there is institutional desire in US soccer to adapt and become a 4-3-3 country in the Dutch mold, few of the players on the squad have been drilled in the finer points of the formation’s tactics either as youths or pros. Of the players on the roster, only Teal Bunbury plays in the 4-3-3 regularly for his club team.

The 4-3-3 is a thing of beauty when it works, which is why neutral fans tend to adore the teams that employ it well. But it takes time, discipline, repetition, instincts and distinct skill sets to make it happen.

Right now, I don’t see those skills on the US team, either Porter’s U-23s, or Klinsmann’s full national side. In switching to the 4-3-3 at this juncture, the US is trying to jump straight to calculus without first having mastered algebra.

Expect some real, severe growing pains along the way. Olympic qualifying starts next month, and that’ll be the first test of this new American orthodoxy. If they don’t get high marks, they'll be stuck watching how the 4-3-3 really functions every time they see the masters work it.

http://www.usldiscussions.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/278077/1

Inter Milan has gone from a very successful classic defend and counter 442 under Jose Mourinho to this years fashion of new attacking systems under first Gian Piero Gasperini's very short lived "343 experiment" and to now on to another system "the christmas tree formation" of Claudio Ranieri (which would be a completely new shape again) in one season and it has been almost a perfect lesson on how to ruin your teams confidence in one easy season of confusion and system changes...

And now sitting in 6th place in the league they are almost completely out of the run for Europe next year. That might just cost them a few dollars next year, and a few championships over the next few years as they will not be able to afford the top players.

1. AC Milan GF- 45 GA-20
6. Inter Milan GF- 34 GA- 33


http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/serie...asperini-021512


“It might be that we have or had got some decisions wrong,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t believe there have been that many errors, nor have there been any big ones. I know that football doesn’t always follow arithmetic and that strategies to renew the team don’t always give the results that you’d like.”
- Massimo Moratti

Back to the future, again.

USA 1-Italy 0

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/usa/s...linsmann-022912

Where Klinsmann deserves credit is for not forcing some ill-fitting persona on the United States. He took Bradley and Maurice Edu, planted them in the middle of the field, and built a wall for Andrea Pirlo and Italy’s attackers to climb. He then positioned Altidore as a lone forward, giving him the unenviable task of being a battering ram without much attacking support, freeing up Dempsey to roam the space in midfield behind Altidore, further squeezing the space Italy’s playmakers had to work in.

Jurgen Klinsmann deserves his share of credit for that. No, he didn’t re-invent the wheel or transform the United States into some high-flying attacking squad like some thought he might. What he did was play to his team’s strengths: a strong defensive core, committed team defending, and the capabilities of Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altidore.

If the formula sounds familiar, it's because it's the same recipe the United States used to defeat Spain in 2009. That day, the Americans road strong goalkeeping (from Howard), a resolute defensive display (anchored by Michael Bradley in midfield), and goals from Altidore and Dempsey.
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451 defend to win, works.

Not sure who I'm more proud, of the US MNT for beating Italy 1-0, or the US U23/Olympic team for their 2-0 win over Mexico.



-The MNT team used good tactics to win an important friendly game away from home.

-The U23 team looked great all around and dominated possession against a strong possession oriented team.

= A new generation of American football is ahead of us (at the end of the tunnel).

This was not a shift in the paradigm of US soccer, but a simple example of why defending is so important in our game. Once in a while you can get out with a win vs a stronger team when they are struggling to hit the back of the net.



The goal looked simple but many of the players on the field had a big part of that historic goal in Genoa on February 29, 2012.

The first half was not a well played game by ether team. It was nothing more than an opportunistic game of ping pong.

The second half changed right from the start and the Italians were now completely in control of the ball in the middle third. The US was forced to chase in their own half for the first eight minutes. They defended well and regained possession and made the very best of their first strong possession after the half scoring a goal.



The one goal by the US was a classic possession play goal and showed why having players move to train and play games in Europe is a positive thing for US Soccer development. The play included many aspects of good solid possession soccer which had good decisions, good technique and most important good execution. It looked simple to score on Italy.



-#8 Edu drew the foul after defending for 8+ minutes in your own half, create a short rest for the 10 players working hard.

http://screencast.com/t/maDuHzbcbP



-A simply great possession play goal which included nine players.
#7 Willams decision -Play not on, go back keep possession #2 Cherundolo, around the back to #8 Edu, to #4 Goodson, to #5 Bocanegra, to #6 Bradley, switch the point of attack out to #3 Johnson, play into to #9 Altidore, hold the ball with your back to the goal and lay it off, (combine) for #10 Dempsey to shoot a screened shot at goal.

http://screencast.com/t/XaFNEaEWRQ6



A great team attacking goal.