Klinsmann Passes the Buck on USA's Gold Cup Failure

Speaking to the Washington Post ahead of the USA’s friendly against Peru in D.C. on Friday night, U.S. men’s national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann, in a wide-ranging two-part interview with Steve Goff, talks about histeam’s disappointment at the Gold Cup this summer, as the USA, which went into the tournament as the favorite, lost 2-1 to Jamaica in the semifinal.

“I was very upset with what happened in the Gold Cup — the whole sequence to sequence from game one to the last game withPanama. There was a certain amount of anger,” Klinsmann begins, adding: “A big problem hanging over us is called Concacaf. We don’t want to blame anybody. I am not blaming thereferees, but I’m just telling you, the referees had a huge influence on the outcome of the Gold Cup. So now the next time there is a questionable call, the cloud will again get darker. This isnot a good feeling for the Mexican coach, for the Panamanian coach, for us. This was a Gold Cup settled by decisions that were very, very questionable, and it builds up a lot of question marks forthis one-off game against Mexico next month.”

Off The Post couldn’t agree more: there were indeed several questionable calls made by referees at the Gold Cup this summer,particularly ones that benefitted Mexico, the eventual winner, but other than that, what in the world is the German talking about here?

Well, he continues:

“It was just too much.You thought it was too much [in the U.S. loss to Jamaica], and then you watch the next game [Panama vs. Mexico] and it got even worse. So you go into this one-off game [in October], and there’sa huge cloud — for both teams. It’s not good for the region, it’s not good for the game, it’s not good for anybody on both teams. …There is a cloud above us. And abovethat CONCACAF cloud is another cloud [FIFA]. That is uncomfortable for everybody involved in the game. You don’t know what to expect in a game. We can prepare the team the best way possible andwe don’t know what to expect really from other influences.” 

Huh?

To be sure, it would be one thing if Klinsmann was the coach of Costa Rica or Panama, which both lostto El Tri thanks to two dubious late penalty decisions, or if he was even speaking on their behalf, but to lump the USA-Jamaica semifinal in the same bucket of controversy as these other games is areally bad look for the German-born Southern California transplant.  

As we know, OTP is a staunch supporter of the U.S. men’s national team and he wants to see it succeed at everylevel and in every game in which its teams play, but make no mistake about it: the USA failing to reach the Gold Cup final had absolutely nothing to do with Concacaf or the performance of itsreferees.

There was really only one moment in the Jamaica game when referee Ricardo Montero made a somewhat dubious call, and that was in penalizing goalkeeper Brad Guzan forhandling the ball outside the area. This, of course, led to the second goal scored by Giles Barnes from the resulting direct free-kick. True, this particular offense is seldom called inEuropean club soccer, but TV replays showed that Guzan did indeed let go of the ball over the line, so the correct call was made.

However, even if you don’t think this was the correctcall, the fact that it was made at all is hardly a scandal. Bad calls happen in games, they happen all the time — sometimes they lead to penalties, sometimes they lead to goals, you have to acceptthem and move on. As we know, a huge part of this game is dealing with such adversity and overcoming it.

Even if it was the worst call in the world, and the German felt he had every right toquestion the impartiality of Concacaf’s officials during the Gold Cup, just what, exactly, did he hope to achieve with this whole “cloud” diatribe, particularly where ends with:“You don’t know what to expect in a game. We can prepare the team the best way possible and we don’t know what to expect really from other influences.” 

Usually,talk like that, which seems to have undertones of suspected match-fixing, is grounds for a big fine, regardless of any widening FIFA scandals 

But above all, the German here is basicallyabsolving himself of any responsibility for his team’s poor tournament, and placing it all on the referees and the regional governing body that organized the tournament.

Later in theGoff interview, Klinsmann tries to distance himself even further from the recent criticism that has come his way by talking about how there’s too much emphasis on coaching when it’s theplayers who do the job on the field. “The biggest educational problem is people think it’s a coaches’ game in the United States. It’s not. It’s a players’ game.There’s too much emphasis on telling people what to do.”

OK, Jurgen: if coaching isn’t really all that important, and your squad selection has never come into question, andyou’ve really done all that you can to advance this program — which, by the way, has thus far fallen short of the previous reigns of Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena — then whyshould U.S. Soccer pay you aminimum of $2.5 million per year — four times Bradley’s base — for worse results?

You couldn’t possibly say that Jurgen Klinsmann doesn’t have confidence inhis own ability to do things, but a huge part of being someone who a squad of players looks up to and trusts is being a man who takes responsibility for his actions when the going gets tough. What doyou call a man who constantly goes out of his way to blame everyone else when things go wrong? The word ‘narcissist’ certainly comes to mind, but whatever you want to call it, anyone whopasses the buck this much, you certainly wouldn’t call him a leader.