Deep within the hivemind of the U.S. men’s national team fan base, there has always been this lingering thought: “What if? What if we just hired one of the best soccer coaches in the world to coach our soccer team? That would be what puts us over the top.”
It already happened once — sort of. In 2006, Jurgen Klinsmann led a reenergized and rebooted Germany to extra time of the semifinals of the World Cup. The former national team star brought fresh ideas and a new perspective to a program that was seemingly being held back by tradition.
After the tournament, fans decided that he was the guy to lead the USMNT, and so too did the U.S. Soccer Federation. But talks eventually broke down much to the disappointment of almost everyone, and Bob Bradley was appointed the interim and eventual-full-time coach. Bradley then led the team through perhaps its most successful modern period: winning the Gold Cup final against Mexico for the first time in 2007, taking down all-conquering superpower Spain in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup in 2009 and winning a World Cup group that included England in 2010.
Eventually, though, Klinsmann did come, replacing Bradley in 2011. It’s just that he turned out to be more of a salesman than a savior. He talked a big game about getting players out of their comfort zones and reconceptualizing how this country viewed soccer, but there was no progress.
The team got out of its group at the 2014 World Cup, before hanging on for dear life in an extra-time loss to Belgium. In 2015, the Americans were eliminated in the semifinals of the Gold Cup by Jamaica, and after an unlikely run to the semifinals of the 2016 Copa America bought him some more time, Klinsmann was fired later that year with the U.S. at the bottom of the World Cup qualifying standings.
Now, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to think that this process was right in theory, but wrong in practice. As the succession of post-USMNT failures suggests, Klinsmann is simply just not a good coach. And with the USMNT’s disastrous group stage exit under Gregg Berhalter, plenty of U.S. fans and former players are now telling themselves that the team hired the wrong Jurgen.
So, let’s just say that U.S. Soccer went out and actually hired arguably the best coach in the world: former Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp. What would it look like, and what might actually happen?
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