US Soccer: Good thing these guys don't do healthcare

What? You say you have been diagnosed skin cancer? OK, US Soccer will just slap this colorful bandage on it (it is made in Germany after all...). Is it going to cure the cancer below? No, but it looks good in the mean time and it provides the appearance of some sort of remedy to your ailment. Good thing these guys aren't doctors...


US Soccer's recent hire of Jurgen Klinsmann is a short sided and very temporary solution to a set of complex long range problems that have little to do with the national (men's) team and lots to do with a structure that does not fully take advantage of available talent and, more importantly, lacks a cohesive and coherent identity in terms of style and does not have an effective vertical organization across FIFA's varying age categories. Klinsmann will likely build a decent team (probably one that is very defensive and stingy), he should probably qualify without any problem to the 2014 World Cup, and he may even pull off a major coup by upsetting Mexico at home. If he were to accomplish all of that it would be something, but it is nowhere near the true capacity of US (men's) soccer. In fact, even with all of those as certain accomplishment, they might all add up to a step back rather than finally taking the decisive step forward US Soccer has been on the cusp of for what seems like an eternity. 

Altidore and Adu in 2007

I emphasize that this is all applicable to the men's team because the US Women are on a different path altogether. Unlike the men's utter failure in recent years, the US Women's teams have a definite identity and have been able to push players through the Under-18 and Under-19 teams, to a much greater degree than the men's squad. The top players on the women's side are all veterans of the Under-18 and Under-19 teams: Hope Solo,  Rachel Buehler, Amy Rodriguez, Megan Rapinoe, Heather O'Reilly to name a few played on at least one Under- team (and sometimes more than one) on their way to making the national side. In contrast, the Men's efforts at cultivating youth up into the ranks of the senior team have been disastrous. The Under-17 team is currently headed by former Colombian international Wilmer Cabrera has not fared well in international competition and, , save for a few support players, neither Cabrera or his predecessor (John Hackworth) can claim successes that match those of the women's national team. The Under-20 team, now with a head coaching vacancy, has not fared any better in terms of advancing in international competition despite performing well in the opening rounds of a few recent Under-20 World Cups. Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore and Freddy Adu are recent successes for the US Under-20 team (all on the 2007 World Cup team that made it to the quarter finals) but not there's not much else of significance after that tournament. To make matters worse, the Under-20 team recently failed to qualify, losing to Guatemala, a first time qualifier to the Under-20 World Cup.


The US does not need a glamarous head coach. Whatever shortcomings Bob Bradley demonstrated in his tenure as head coach (and they were many) and in whatever way Klinsmann's pedigree and (limited) head coaching experience can overcome those limitations, there are deeper problems that will continue because they are structural and philosophical across all of US Soccer. Structural because the approach of treating the men's Under-17 and Under-20 as something separate from each other and as something altogether distinct than the senior squad has resulted in an abject failure to construct a "feeder" system that builds on experiences gained in the younger divisions (hence the lack of carryover in terms of personnel). Philosophical because Cabrera's Under-17 plays one style of football and the Under-20 (at least in its latest iteration under Thomas Rongen) played an almost diametrically opposed style that relied on completely different types of footballers (Rongen's teams were much more defensive and physical, Cabrera's tend to try to rely on more talented players at the expense of physicality). The US needs an identity, a style of play that suits the idiosyncracy of the US game: defensive? offensive? It almost doesn't matter what the choice is but there needs to be a clear and definite choice that informs what is done across all competitions and age levels because, in the long term,  it will provide what successful national teams have, a football identity that serves as a center of gravity which provides a useful reference point for players and coaches. Senior team head coaches should be hired because they have a long term project for the senior team as well as for the Under-17 and -20 side and because they can form a coaching staff that handles not only the senior side but the younger squads as well. For international powerhouses like Brazil, Germany, England, Argentina, Italy, Spain, or France, the process of developing that center of gravity has been a prolonged historical experience, often marked by a significant degree of back and forth, tensions, massive disputes and years of failures. Unlike societies where football is a part of social and cultural life since the nineteenth century, the US has the potentially enormous advantage of being able to choose a path and institute it. Swapping Klinsmann in for Bradley has little to do with making that choice. If the head coach fails then the coaches for the younger squads should replaced along with him as a way of keeping all three national teams in synchronicity and maintaining coherence in terms of a national scale project. Until the leadership decides on something and implements it in a coherent way across its national teams, the US might be on its own century long identity search.