U.S. Soccer has selected Germany’s Jurgen Klinsmann as its newest National Team Coach. Klinsmann, a star in Germany’s 1990 World Cup winning side, was the German National Team coach during the 2006 World Cup. He earned a reputation as the emotional epicenter of Germany’s effort as hosts during that cup which yielded a third place finish for his team. He is deservedly known as a motivator and all around kinetic force.
Klinsmann is not known as a super coach—he is a strong leader and works best when he is authorized to set the course and cajole his assistants and players toward his predetermined objective. Joachim Low, Klinsmann’s assistant in 2006, and the current German coach, is the strategic mind behind the German team’s achievements over the past several years, and that includes his 2006 role.
Low is 51 years old, and as head coach has assembled a top notch supporting cast whose extended family includes a trio of fortysomethings who are all qualified and potential coach-in-waiting candidates—Matthias Sammer, Adreas Kopke, and Oliver Bierhoff. Nice long range planning.
His inner circle is centered around a top notch assistant coach and an internationally well regarded fitness coach. Low’s assistant coach has 40 years of football experience: 30 years as a player (started in the national youth program in 1971, at the tender age of 6 and includes 5 years as a starter at Bayern Munich) and a decade as a coach. His fitness coach is none other than Mark Verstegen, the founder of Athletes Performance and Core Performance, Director of Performance for the USA’s NFL Players Association and currently also assisting our national football team.
So, the questions begin to align themselves: Will Klinsmann take a page out of Germany's and Low’s books, surrounding himself with complimentary and potential future coaches, and availing himself of one or more master tacticians while keeping his fitness guru? How will he select who will form part of that coaching retinue (allegedly by evaluating some guest coaches)? By what criteria will he select our next national team players? How will he work with Tab Ramos and Claudio Reyna (our most recognizable youth development gurus)? Who will he select for the vacant U-20 and U-23 head coach slots? and, How much of this start up period will actually be used to test what he and Gulati have already decided to do before yesterday’s official announcement? Let’s speculate.
Would it not be intriguing if Klinsmann and Gulati had actually been working together behind the scenes for some time to uproot U.S. Soccer and replant it in their new image? Would it not be interesting to find out that Klinsi’s predilection for attacking football was a major factor behind Reyna’s recently published U.S. Soccer Curriculum, whose opening sentence states: “All teams will be encouraged to display an offensive style of play...”? What if Ramos and Reyna were already tapped to take over those U-20 and U-23 head coach slots? Ok, too much conspiracy for one article, right?
Let’s revisit some to this in September, after the USA has played Mexico, Costa Rica, and Belgium.
Comments