U.S. Men’s National Team v. Mexico, Glendale, Arizona, 4.2.14: Jurgen Klinsmann’s Treatment of Landon Donovan

I will not add much to the hosannas already heaped on Michael Bradley for his performance last Tuesday against Mexico in a 2-2 draw. Bradley was in exceptional form in the first half of the game, which the U.S. dominated. When Bradley is on, he can play with all the brutal efficiency of a cyborg in a sci-fi flick—a hairless, expressionless, relentless, inexorable force. He took over the first half, scoring off an (atrociously defended) back-post run on a corner kick and bagging an assist via a flicked-on header into the box. In short, he fully justified the “Il Generale” nickname bestowed on him by fans during his season playing for Chievo in Italy’s Serie A.

For most U.S. fans and media, and for his current U.S. national team head coach, Bradley can do no wrong, and his occasional ineffectual stretches of play (like the bulk of his second-half performance against Mexico on Tuesday night) tend to go overlooked or unmentioned. This state of affairs will in time change, and Bradley himself is no doubt acutely aware of the vicissitudes of professional soccer. He is currently the gold standard of American soccer players, but he hardly rates on the international level, perhaps in part because he is an American. Some have argued that U.S. players abroad have to overcome negative stereotypes involving unrefined technique, creativity, and soccer IQ, though of course that’s debatable. After all, the U.S. is a growing soccer market, and soccer clubs are presumably motivated by expanding their consumer markets and by signing quality players at good prices, not by keeping American players down.

But for whatever reasons, Bradley was unable to break into the regular starting lineup at his former club, AS Roma, and he felt underappreciated by management. Bradley said of his recent move from Roma to MLS’s Toronto FC: “[A]t a certain point . . . you need a coach who sees something in you. Because otherwise it’s just a one-way street. You’re working and fighting and scrapping and clawing for any little opportunity. But if the coach doesn’t see it, it’s never going to be any real opportunity to play consistently. . . . I was done with that. I felt like I deserved more. The coach there didn’t.”

I suppose some might accuse Bradley of whining, but I think he was being honest and perceptive. (And no one with experience watching his evolution as a player would accuse him of being a whiner or lacking professional dedication.) His point is worth remembering: one coach, teacher, or boss may have faith in you, see your qualities and your promise, while another may never appreciate those aspects no matter how hard you fight. And the fact that Toronto is paying Bradley about four times more than Roma did says something about the subjectivity inherent in player evaluation.

It seems to me that Landon Donovan has not engendered much confidence in his current national team coach, and that Donovan might even take some solace from Bradley’s thoughts on leaving Roma. Klinsmann’s decision not to start Donovan against Mexico on Tuesday is I think of a piece with his treatment of Donovan during his tenure as national team coach, particularly since Donovan’s decision to take a hiatus from soccer from January through late March 2013. Klinsmann made it clear at that time that Donovan’s past accomplishments would not guarantee the player a spot on the U.S. national team when the hiatus ended. After Donovan’s return to MLS, Klinsmann said of his position on the U.S. depth chart, “I am not tossing out names, but there are players clearly ahead of Landon Donovan right now.”

The coach subsequently left Donovan off the U.S. roster for some important World Cup qualifying matches. And when the 2013 Gold Cup rolled around last summer, Klinsmann assembled what looked like a B-team roster, leaving off such MLS national team regulars as Graham Zusi, Omar Gonzalez and Matt Besler, as they had played and proved themselves in recent World Cup qualifiers. Klinsmann did, however, call in Donovan, and he then pointedly made DaMarcus Beasley the Gold Cup team captain.

Far from sulking at his need to prove himself all over again, Donovan accepted his post-hiatus situation as self-imposed, and also accepted the challenge of winning back his coach’s respect. When he heard about the April interview in which Klinsmann indicated there were players ahead of him on the U.S. depth chart, Donovan responded, “I agree with him. . . . I’ve said from the beginning that I have to earn my way back and . . . I still have a long way to go.” Donovan then went on to play with enthusiasm and flair at the 2013 Gold Cup. His team won the final, and along the way he scored five goals, had seven assists, and was named the tournament’s best player.

That Gold Cup performance, though less than a year old, is now a distant memory. As Taylor Twellman noted during the ESPN broadcast of last week’s Mexico friendly, national team soccer is about “what have you done for me lately.” The consensus of Twellman and his ESPN colleagues before, during, and after the broadcast was that Donovan is no cinch to make the trip to Brazil this summer, and that if he does he’ll probably come off the bench.

In a halftime interview that seemed to confirm these sentiments, Klinsmann told a sideline reporter that he was going to bring on Donovan, Clarence Goodson, and young national team German-American newcomer Julian Green at about the 60-minute mark, “If,” Klinsmann stressed, “things go okay.” That “if” can be read as a jab at Donovan. Klinsmann implied he was only going to bring him on if the game was well in hand.

In the event, things did not go okay in the first 15 minutes of the second half. Mexico thoroughly dominated the U.S. starting 11 during that stretch and cut the lead in half. But Donovan (along with Goodson and Green) came on anyway, and his performance was lackluster. Whether the pedestrian play resulted from tendinitis in his knee as reported, age and declining skills, Klinsmann’s lack of confidence in him, or from some combination of those and other factors is impossible to say. But after the game, Klinsmann himself downplayed the effects of Donovan’s injury and emphasized instead Donovan’s poor performance in recent trainings; not starting Donovan “was a simple decision based on where he was the last couple days. . . . He told me also this morning that he had some issues with his left knee. But he didn’t train well. He had no tempo in his training sessions. He had no higher pace, higher rhythm. He didn’t take people on.”

Donovan is not one of Klinsmann’s “core guys,” as coaches of American football often put it. As Klinsmann made clear in a February interview, his core guys are Bradley, Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore, and Jermaine Jones. And no matter how inconsistently those last three individuals might play—and you could make strong, probably watertight arguments that each one of them has been less consistently effective for clubs and country than Donovan has been during the whole of this World Cup cycle, even accounting for the hiatus—it’s hard to imagine Klinsmann not starting any one of them against Mexico had each been available. It’s equally hard to imagine Klinsmann publicly denigrating any of them as he did Donovan in the wake of the Mexico game.

I mentioned professional dedication earlier. Some might argue that Donovan’s hiatus infuriated Klinsmann so much, that he regarded the layoff as such an egregious breach of professional etiquette that he has made it his mission to use Donovan as an example of the dire consequences of unprofessionalism. If true—and I think there’s more to Klinsmann’s treatment of Donovan than his reaction to the vacation—then I think Klinsmann has been shortsighted and uncharacteristically rigid. Off the top of my head I can think of two accomplished athletes—Michael Jordan and John Riggins—who stepped away from their respective sports for a lot longer than Donovan did, were welcomed back by their coaches, and subsequently rewarded those coaches with MVP performances in championship games. Even Vince Lombardi—supposedly the ultimate exemplar of meritocratic coaches—treated his best players differently.

Furthermore, we should not forget Klinsmann’s own kid-glove treatment of one of his core players—Jermaine Jones. Jones had a self-imposed two-month hiatus of his own in late 2011 and early 2012, courtesy of a Bundesliga suspension for stomping on an opponent. Jones has a reputation for erratic, hotheaded play, and the incident and subsequent penalty were not widely greeted with surprise. But rather than chastise Jones for continued unprofessionalism, or move players above Jones on the U.S. depth chart, or use Jones as an example to other players of how not to act, Klinsmann rushed to his core guy’s defense: “[Jones] did something where he got punished heavily, which we think was very harsh based on what he did. He apologized to everyone involved and [he’s] not getting even the opportunity to play friendly games with his club team.” Remarkably, Klinsmann not only called in the suspended Jones for the U.S. 2012 January camp, he rewarded him with a team captaincy for the U.S.’s January 21 friendly against Venezuela. If I’m not mistaken, for all of Donovan’s accomplishments in a U.S. shirt, Klinsmann has never once appointed him team captain.

Why go into all of this? Mostly to emphasize the point—made by Bradley after his move from Roma to Toronto—that soccer players, like other workers, are to an important extent at the mercy of their superiors. And they sometimes aren’t afforded the respect and rewards they, you, or I might feel are deserved under the circumstances. Other national team coaches would undoubtedly have treated Donovan differently over the past year or two, and based on his experience, recent form, and accomplishments (unparalleled in U.S. men’s soccer), many would have named Donovan as a core player, a player virtually guaranteed a spot on the 2014 World Cup finals roster. But Klinsmann seems intent on knocking Donovan off his perch and ushering in the post-Donovan U.S. soccer era sooner than many of us would wish.

U.S. Men’s National Team v. Austria, Vienna, 11.19.13: Michael Bradley and the Ewing Theory

Just days after playing Scotland to a scoreless draw, the U.S. men’s national team lost 1-0 to Austria in the second of their two November friendlies. Despite ending the calendar year with those two unsatisfying results, the U.S. finished 2013 with a gaudy 16-4-3 record.

Most fans and critics of the U.S. team agree that its foremost area of concern is the outside back position. DaMarcus Beasley’s combination of recovery speed, soccer IQ, attacking abilities and overall team performance when he plays left back make him, I think, the best choice to play that position in Brazil. My faith in Beasley remains unshaken after the Austria friendly, but he did have a down performance on Tuesday. He gave attackers too much space on occasion, and was involved in the game’s only goal.

The goal-scoring sequence came in the 33^rd minute and was a good example of how out of sorts the U.S. backline looked during much of the game. With Austria on the attack, Beasley initially slid towards the center to cover Austria striker Marc Janko, who was not closely marked by center back John Brooks. When the ball was played wide to Austria’s right, Beasley therefore found himself out of position. He eventually narrowed the gap, but Austria defender Gyorgy Garics was able to receive a ball in space and send a cross back towards goal that eventually found Janko for the score.

Geoff Cameron was Beasley’s fullback partner. Cameron is best suited to playing in the center, but he’s been forced by his club (Stoke City) and country to spend significant time at right back. (He also occasionally plays midfield for Stoke and the U.S.) Despite some low points—like a bad cross in the 9^th minute and an unforced turnover in the 37^th—Cameron had the best game of any U.S. defender. His deflected header off a Michael Bradley corner in the 17^th minute probably went over the end line before it was swiped out of goal by Austria keeper Robert Almer, and Cameron almost scored from close range in the 66^th. In the 74^th minute, his left-footed ball into the box nearly led to a Jozy Altidore goal. A few more performances like this one, and Cameron will likely supplant Brad Evans as the U.S.’s first-choice right back.

Of the remaining players in this game, few stood out. Altidore had at least three excellent chances but couldn’t take them. Aron Johannsson had a quiet 56 minutes playing behind Altidore in an attacking midfielder role. Jermaine Jones was his usual inconsistent self, alternately winning balls and turning them over. Jones—often described as a red card waiting to happen—also displayed a continued lack of poise. Early in the second half, he punctuated some trash talk with Austria’s burly midfielder Marko Arnautovic by patting Arnautovic on the cheek. Jones was lucky to get away with that one, but there’s zero doubt that 2014 World Cup opponents will target Jones as a player apt to lose his composure and get sent off. Winger Brek Shea started and played 56 mostly desultory minutes, looking particularly lackluster while defending. Shea was slow to track back on Austria’s goal, and he and Gonzalez had to be bailed out by Bradley after some loose defending in the 12^th minute.

Speaking of Bradley, he did not have a good performance by his current sky-high standards. He turned the ball over a few times, including a sloppy giveaway immediately after Austria’s goal that might have doubled their advantage. Still, he played better than most, and the offense tended to move through him. As Landon Donovan said after the Costa Rica match in September, the U.S. team “has in large part been built around Michael.” Most commentators agree that Bradley is the most important player on the team, including the great Ian Darke, who in one 2013 broadcast referred to Bradley as the “glue” of this U.S. national team. Bradley’s teammates defer to him and seek to play him the ball whenever possible. There’s mighty good reason for this. Bradley rarely loses possession and has excellent vision and passing skills.

Having said that, there were times during the Austria match when I sensed that Bradley acted as an inhibitor to his teammates. The urge and/or coaching directive to play through him may mean that the U.S. side is generally less creative, free-flowing and attacking with Bradley in the game. I wondered during the Austria match if the Ewing Theory—roughly, that there are some great players whose teams actually play better when they sit out—might apply to Bradley. I doubt it, and most U.S. fans would consider it heresy and lunacy to even suggest such a thing. But I decided to take look at the U.S. team’s win-loss statistics during the current World Cup cycle. Consider that since the U.S.’s final game in the 2010 World Cup, the Yanks have played 58 matches. During that stretch, and by my unofficial count, the U.S. is 17-10-9 with Bradley in the lineup, for a winning percentage of .597. The U.S. is 15-5-2 without Bradley in the lineup, for a winning percentage of .727.

There are many factors that go into the above winning percentages, such as opponent strength. For example, Bradley wasn’t around for the stat-padding 2013 Gold Cup, when the U.S. went undefeated and crushed such teams as Belize (6-1), Cuba (4-1), and El Salvador (5-1). Then again, that 2013 Gold Cup team was by U.S. standards highly collectively creative and attacking. And it should be added that Bradley was on the 2011 Gold Cup team. That team was thoroughly outclassed by Mexico in the final, losing 4-2. Along the way, the U.S. lost to Panama 2-1 in group play and managed to beat Guadeloupe by the slimmest of margins, 1-0.

None of that is Bradley’s fault, of course, and no one at this point would dream of sitting Bradley in favor of any other U.S. central midfielder. It makes sense that the current team is built around him, as Donovan observed. But between now and the World Cup, coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s challenge will be to ensure that the U.S. team doesn’t become too one-dimensional, that Bradley is regarded by teammates as the primary, but not sole, option to begin attacks.

U.S. Men’s National Team v. Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica, 9.6.13

The U.S. national team’s night began unpropitiously on Saturday evening as midfielder Michael Bradley limped off the field during warm ups after rolling his left ankle. Over the last few years, Bradley is as close as the U.S. gets to a sure thing. He can be counted on to play hard, smart, and well. He’s seemingly always available and never turns in a dud performance. And he mans the middle of the field, virtually ensuring that he gets touches, is in on challenges, and remains visible.

He managed to remain visible against Costa Rica last night, even though his ankle injury relegated him to the sideline. His absence leapt off the TV screen. Without him, the U.S. midfield looked as soft as the average American’s midriff. The players routinely gave away balls and lost challenges, particularly in the first half. Jermaine Jones was asked to assume Bradley’s role, and Jones is the anti-Bradley, as inconsistent a central midfielder as can be imagined on the international level, and not just game to game but play to play. Forced to watch the beIN broadcast at a bar last night, I was unable to take notes, but I’m confident in saying that Jones sent many balls long and out of bounds and ceded possession needlessly in critical situations. He booted the third kick of the game over the Costa Rica end line, and just a minute later gave the ball away at midfield, starting a Costa Rica attack that resulted in a corner-kick goal.

As for the rest of the U.S. midfielders, Graham Zusi had the presence of mind to spring Clint Dempsey by taking a quick free kick near the end of the half, leading to a penalty kick and the only U.S. goal of the game. But Zusi was beaten badly for speed a couple of times down Costa Rica’s left, and generally did not look sharp or even energetic, which you expect from him. Geoff Cameron actually did fill in for Bradley in the midfield, and had a below-average, drab game. Fabian Johnson played on the left. He did have a flawless, powerful half-volley on goal that was saved spectacularly by Costa Rica keeper Keylor Navas, but otherwise he played like his line mates and failed to impose his will.

On the second Costa Rica goal, which came in just the 9^th minute, the U.S. midfield virtually took the play off. Central defender Omar Gonzalez was sucked into a vacuum of space on the Costa Rica left side, ultimately lunging at a Cristian Bolanos cross. Costa Rica attackers swarmed on the pass and overwhelmed the remnants of the U.S. back line to head the ball into the net. The defense looked and was out of sorts on the goal, but it was the U.S. midfield that put them in that untenable position. Zusi was beaten down the sideline, Jones was in the box but marking no one, and Cameron and Johnson had an excellent view of the proceedings from the top of the 18, where they both stood alone together.

It must be said that while the U.S. back line was hung out to dry, it did not acquit itself well in any case. In order for Cameron to move to the midfield, natural center back Michael Orozco played right back for the U.S., and Orozco’s need for support often pulled the defense out of shape. Matt Besler had a tough night, most spectacularly on a counter in the second half that led to Costa Rica’s game-sealing third goal. Besler was the picture of an overmatched man expending all his strength and speed. He was muscled off the ball and outrun. It was a beautiful play, actually, a classic counterstrike off a U.S. turnover in the penalty box. Costa Rica substitute Jose Cubero’s long one-time ball over Besler was quick and unimprovable, the kind of classy touch U.S. players could rarely summon in this game.

DaMarcus Beasley also had a rough time in the back, but I think partly out of misfortune. He was manning the near post on Costa Rica’s first goal, and had a chance to clear the ball off the line, but the powerful close-range shot glanced off his shorn head and into the net. Realistically, no one short of Spiderman could have reacted quickly enough to make that play. Beasley was also involved in the second goal described above, but no team can rely on its left back to challenge three attackers making unimpeded runs onto such a fat, juicy cross, especially when that left back is a speedster listed at 5’8”, 145. I think Beasley will get a lot of undeserved grief for this performance, and a lot of people will call for his replacement, but that’s nonsense. Beasley has been remarkably solid—and sometimes considerably better than solid—on defense in the prior dozen games for the national team, all of them victories.

Similarly, this loss should not be pinned on Landon Donovan, who made his long-heralded return to World Cup qualifiers. He played forward along with Dempsey, and given the performance of the U.S. midfield, combined with a field-clotting five-man Costa Rica back line, those two were given few chances to shine. When Donovan and Dempsey did have the ball at their feet against Costa Rica, it was a visual relief, a series of brief reprieves from watching the unpolished performances of the rest of the U.S. players. Donovan and Dempsey nearly linked up in the 56^th minute, producing one of the few U.S. highlights of the night. Donovan beat Costa Rica’s left back, driving to the flag and then turning the ball back to Dempsey at the top of the box. Dempsey took over, doing what he does best, creating space in traffic by juking his defender and dragging the ball back in the opposite direction. His low left-footed strike hit the outside of the post.

After the match, Donovan had an insightful, gracious quote about one of the few U.S. players on his and Dempsey’s level, a player that undoubtedly would have changed the nature of this drab U.S. performance: “This team has in large part been built around Michael [Bradley] and that hurts. We lose a leader and a good player but that doesn't account for how we started and how we played. We still needed to do better than that.”

U.S. Men’s National Team v. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, 8.14.13

The U.S. men’s national team brought a number of their best Europe-based players to Sarajevo, including Michael Bradley, Tim Howard, and Jozy Altidore. But most MLS and Liga MX players—including Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Graham Zusi, and DaMarcus Beasley—stayed home. Oddly, the two MLS players that did make the long trip were from the same team (Eddie Johnson and Brad Evans, from the Seattle Sounders). To fill the remaining gaps, U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann called in three Europe-based youngsters: John Brooks, Aron Johannsson, and Bobby Wood, all of whom got their first U.S. caps on Wednesday.

So the roster was a hodgepodge, even by national team standards. And in the first half of Wednesday’s match the U.S. play reflected that quality, looking disjointed and devoid of class. In the 7^th minute, Eddie Johnson dwelled on the ball in the U.S. final third, carelessly giving it away. Four Bosnia-Herzegovina attackers pounced, then Edin Dzeko shot, collected the rebound, and shot again, this time threading the ball behind a U.S. back line that was too slow to cover the exposed goal.

A few minutes later, Altidore had a good chance to score but played an oddly weak ball across the face of goal that no teammate had a hope of latching onto. In the next five minutes, Mix Diskerud lost possession three times. In the 30^th minute, after clearing a corner kick convincingly, the U.S. defense relaxed and Geoff Cameron was beaten off a header on the second ball into the box. When the first-half whistle blew, with the U.S. down 2-0, all those European soccer snobs, inside and outside the stadium, must have been chuckling into their hop-rich beers and yelling towards the field and their TV screens, “You’re not in CONCACAF anymore, boys!”

I was thinking along those lines myself. But the game changed remarkably in the second half. It is true that Klinsmann used all six of his available substitutions, but it should be said that the two most transformative players in this game were Bradley and, especially, Altidore. The latter scored a hat trick and assisted on the U.S.’s fourth goal, and Bradley had a couple of assists and generally displayed as much class as Dzeko, Miralem Pjanic, or anyone else on the Bosnia-Herzegovina roster, currently ranked 13^th in the world by FIFA.

Many critics consider Bradley to be the U.S.’s best player right now, and much has been written about his passing ability and soccer IQ. Those traits were clear to see against Bosnia-Herzegovina, and his pass to Altidore in the 86^th minute that helped put the U.S. up 4-2 was a calmly delivered, understated thing of beauty.

His passing ability and game smarts don’t need further burnishing from me, but I will point out two additional elements of his game that may lie beyond the obvious and widely recognized. The first is how strong Bradley is on the ball. He’s not a particularly large midfielder, and God knows he’s not a particularly fast one, but he frequently seems to defy the physical law stating that weight moves weight. Through a combination of leverage, reading his opponent, physical strength, strength of will, and no doubt other factors, he routinely runs bigger and faster players off the ball. In addition to that, he has an uncanny ability to slide (or “go to ground” or whatever) when the ball appears to be just out of his reach and deflect it so that his team either maintains or regains possession. He did this no fewer than three times against Bosnia-Herzegovina in the first half. Maintaining and regaining possession are of course critical factors in winning games, and Bradley’s well-timed slides help his teams win those battles. (The U.S., incidentally, had about 60% possession on Wednesday.)

To move on to Altidore: anyone who thought his otherworldly game against Panama in June was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke national team performance needs to go check out the Bosnia-Herzegovina match before Watch ESPN takes it off the website. Altidore was a rare bright spot for the U.S. in the first half, but he was a supernova in the second. He helped get the U.S. on the board in the 55^th minute with a great first touch off a long ball from Bradley; Altidore’s trap fell to Johnson, who scored off a side-footed shot into an empty net. Less than five minutes later, the U.S. pulled level off a nice sequence that started with newcomer Brooks playing a pass from the back to Fabian Johnson, who turned and found Altidore, also playing with his back to the goal. Altidore made a nice turn himself and laced a spectacular left-footed shot far post to beat the keeper.

Remarkably, Altidore outdid that strike with a dead-ball hit in the 84^th minute. I don’t recall Altidore ever taking free kicks for the U.S., but he took two of them against Bosnia-Herzegovina. And maybe I’m forgetting something else, but I can’t remember a U.S. player hitting a free kick as sweetly as Altidore hit this one, a dipping ball struck with power and accuracy into the top of the net near post. After the goal, Altidore ran toward the stunned, silent crowd, his arms outstretched as if to say, “Where’s your CONCACAF-bashing now?” He’d score again, in the run of play, two minutes later to put the game out of reach.

This post is already too long but something should be said about 22-year-old U.S. national team newcomer Aron Johannsson, who was born in Alabama, grew up in Iceland, and plays his club soccer with Altidore’s former Dutch-league club Alkmaar Zaanstreek (AZ). Johannsson played less than thirty minutes against Bosnia-Herzegovina, but he looked unmistakably skillful, smart, and dangerous. Soon after coming on, he slid a nice through ball to Altidore; in the 74^th minute he deftly settled a ball in the box to create a volley for himself; and in the 77^th minute he had a very good touch in the box to blow by a player, creating another good shot for himself. The thought of Johannsson working in the final third amidst clever, quality players like Bradley, Dempsey, Donovan, and Altidore is appealing.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Altidore on Johannsson’s strong performance: “I'm not surprised at all. Aron, over the past six months I was with him at AZ, you saw in training his ability to see passes and score goals and beat people so effortlessly. He's such a smart player and I'm so happy he chose the U.S. I think he'll be an asset going forward and I think he'll help us a lot.”