United States national team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann says he’s optimistic that the beleaguered US Under-20 team will survive the CONACAF Championships, despite a rough start in their first two matches.
Speaking with reporters during the first day of the USMNT’s January camp at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., Klinsmann said he’s watched both games for Tab Ramos’ side in Jamaica.
The US Under-20’s settled for a draw against Guatemala in their opener last week before suffering a 1-0 loss to Panama on Sunday. They take on last-place Aruba on Wednesday (5:30 pm ET; Fox Sports 2).
“Very, very difficult,” Klinsmann said of the team’s performance. “It was a bummer with Guatemala in the last minute, kind of a goal of the year decides suddenly a tie. And then you play probably the strongest team in the group with Panama, which could go either way. It went the wrong way, but there are three games to go and I’m very confident they’ll get their points in, and we will come out of that even stronger.”
Klinsmann – who Skyped with the Under-20 team before the tournament began last week – said that the Americans’ struggles in Jamaica against supposedly lesser opponents isn’t necessarily indicative of the US talent pool, but rather a telling sign that surviving CONCACAF is becoming a tougher task each year.
“It’s not an easy path,” he said. “It’s a very difficult path coming through CONCACAF. We know that, coming through World Cup qualifiers, and the Gold Cup is not easy. Everybody is pretty close to each other. [The Americans] gotta go through that.
“I think the talent pool is good,” he added. “We can only help and developer wherever we can, and then hope they get the job done. But I’m very positive they’ll get it done.”
The top two teams from each five-team group will automatically qualify for the Under-20 World Cup this summer in New Zealand, while the second- and third-place teams will be re-seeded and compete in a four-team playoff for the region’s final two spots.
The US have failed to qualify for the Under-20 World Cup just once (2011) since the biennial tournament expanded to 24 teams in 1997.
