Jurgen Klinsmann discussed the US national team's youth movement, shared his plans for a busy 2015 and reiterated his frustrations with the domestic calendar in an extended Q&A published on ussoccer.com on Monday.
Taking stock of an eventful 2014 with more than 2,500 words of commentary and analysis, Klinsmann's latest public communication provided USMNT fans with plenty of useful information.
It also renewed some of the long-running concerns the Yanks head coach has expressed with the domestic system in his adopted country, as he lamented the MLS schedule being “not in sync” with the international calendar.
The league's spring-to-fall format, slightly shorter than its Western European counterparts, means “we can't compete” with leading soccer powers, said Klinsmann, and forces U.S. Soccer to patch the longer offseason with the now-traditional USMNT January camp for MLS- and Scandinavian-based national team prospects.
“With the tricky situation that we have in the United States that now we have the season for the MLS players going towards the end and a lot of them having a break of almost two or three months, we are forced to hold a January camp to try and get the players in early in order to build their foundation for the season,” he said.
“With that schedule that we carry in the United States that we only get a nine, nine-and-a-half month season, we can't compete with the nations that go 11 months through. We're missing two months basically, so we try to bridge that with camps. We keep working, we keep explaining, we keep educating, which is very important on the field and off the field.”
Klinsmann did single out his MLS-based goalkeeping trio of Nick Rimando, Bill Hamid and Sean Johnson for warm praise, and hailed the influence of New England Revolution star Jermaine Jones. Since his midseason arrival in MLS, the USMNT veteran has sparked the Revs' run to the Eastern Conference Championship in an all-action midfield role – but will continue to learn the ropes at center back while with the Yanks.
“Does he see himself as a midfielder? Probably, but we see that at his age he has tremendous experience and leadership to guide a back line,” said Klinsmann of Jones,“especially with young players coming through like John Anthony Brooks. They are the ones who need that leadership from him on the back line. It's good to have this drive from Jermaine. Going forward this will be important for us.”
The USMNT boss also spoke excitedly of U.S. Soccer's new “National Team Advisory Services” program, an initiative being led by former MLS executive Nelson Rodriguez which spearheads a 2015 that Klinsmann describes as a “year of developing talent on and off the field” at all levels of the national-team system.
“The theme will be education. Education wherever we can,” he said. “We want to educate more on the coaching side, we want to educate on the players side, we want to educate on the parents side about what it really takes to become a professional.
“What's exciting for us is we're building our own counseling office with Nelson Rodriguez leading it. This is a huge step ... We want to grow our program and one day compete with the best in the world, so it means a lot of hard work in 2015.”
