Landon Donovan thinks US national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann should be fired if the USMNT loses their World Cup qualifier to Guatemala in Columbus on Tuesday night (7 pm ET; ESPN2, UniMas, UDN).
Speaking on The Dan Patrick Show on Tuesday morning, Donovan pointed out that a loss to Guatemala on Tuesday would effectively end the Americans’ World Cup qualifying campaign, which would leave Klinsmann's continued candidacy in a precarious position.
“Well, if you look at it based on a business decision, you’re potentially losing out on tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in all different ways [if you miss a World Cup], so you’d have to say yes. And if you look at it as a performance decision, if you can’t beat Guatemala at home you don’t deserve to be at a World Cup and you’d have to say yes, so there’s your answer,” Donovan said.
“If you can’t beat Guatemala at home in a World Cup qualifier you probably shouldn’t be the coach, it’s as simple as that.”
While Donovan thinks Klinsmann needs to go if the US falters, he thinks the US will take care of business against Guatemala. The US soccer icon told both Patrick and Soccer Morning’s Jason Davis in a separate interview on SiriusXM (below) that he expects the US to beat Los Chapines, who beat the US 2-0 in Guatemala City on Friday.
“These guys now will know that this is their World Cup chance on the line. If they lose tonight it’s very likely they don’t qualify for a World Cup,” Donovan said on Soccer Morning. “Forget about the implications business-wise and what it means for our country and blah, blah, blah. For all these guys this might be their only opportunity to play in a World Cup, so they’re going to be very focused and I think, my opinion is that they’re going to win the game more comfortably than people might think.”
Donovan, famously left off the 2014 World Cup roster by Klinsmann, took a deep dive with Davis on the German manager, the national team player pool and the state of the USMNT. The MLS legend made it clear that he thinks there have been some positives to Klinsmann’s reign, but echoed a familiar complaint about the coach's tenure, saying players lack confidence due to his unpredictable, and at times unstable, setup.
“We’re looking at a player pool that as good as it’s ever been, in my opinion. We have guys now who have more experience, that have played in bigger games, more meaningful games than ever before, so that candidly to me is ridiculous when people say that [the pool is weak],” Donovan told Davis. “The sense I get, and I talk to a lot of the players that still play and I watch the games obviously, the sense I get is that there’s no confidence because there’s no stability. They walk in on the day of the game, they don’t know if they’re playing, they don’t know where they’re playing, they don’t know what position they’re going to be in, who’s going to be around them and that’s very unsettling for a team.”
