US Soccer prioritizing money over results led to USMNT downfall

The United States men’s national team is not in a good spot at the moment. The Stars and Stripes previously entered Copa America 2024 with high hopes. After all, the tournament is being played on home soil and the team appeared ready to make their mark in such a prestigious competition. Nevertheless, the Americans embarrassingly failed to qualify for the knockout round.

As a result of the debacle, many USMNT fans are calling for Gregg Berhalter to be fired. The current head coach came back to the USMNT last summer after US Soccer previously allowed his contract to expire. The move has since backfired as evident in the team’s Copa America display.

While bringing back Berhalter was a mistake, a former USMNT head coach predicted a bigger issue at US Soccer. Jurgen Klinsmann previously coached the Americans from 2011 to 2016. With the German in charge, the Americans experienced both highs and lows during the five years.

Following his dismissal, however, Klinsmann could see that the USMNT would struggle in the future. This was, according to the coach, due to the organization prioritizing money over actual results.

Klinsmann claimed USMNT can’t grow with US Soccer scheduling CONCACAF games

Three years after US Soccer fired Klinsmann, he sat down to conduct an interview with ESPN. Looking back at the discussion, the German coach’s analysis foreshadowed a lot of the problems that the USMNT is currently suffering from.

For instance, Klinsmann told the news outlet that the USMNT needs to schedule more friendlies against the top teams in the world. “I think the biggest challenge for the United States, or even Mexico or Costa Rica, is that you don’t really have the highest competition,” stated Klinsmann. “When you just play within your system [CONCACAF], you don’t have the big matches against European or South American countries in order to grow your program.”

“You need to play Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Holland and England,”…

Source link : https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/us-soccer-prioritizing-money-over-results-led-to-usmnt-downfall/

Author : Chris Moore

Publish date : 2024-07-10 15:07:03

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