Por: Inside The World Cup
Jürgen Klinsmann is trying to add some attacking zest to a side who were unspectacular in qualifying and know they must start well in a challenging group
This article is part of the Guardian’s World Cup 2014 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between 32 of the best media organisations from the countries who have qualified for the finals in Brazil. theguardian.com is running previews from four countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 12 June.
There’s an argument that Jürgen Klinsmann’s plan for the 2006 Germany World Cup team only became clear in retrospect, as it was not until the tournament itself that he brought a much-criticised, youthful side to the boil. The hope that he is doing the same for this USA team, albeit with more limited resources and under more challenging logistical circumstances, is behind such optimism as there is for the forthcoming campaign.
Klinsmann has gone from a very defensive set up in his early stages with the team, to more expansive formations in recent games. Early in his reign fans would joke about the number of defensive midfielders employed, as if he was trying to bung up the middle of the field and hope for a kindly ricochet to bring a goal. But as Klinsmann has settled on some first choices in that area of the park, focus has shifted to other problem areas of the team such as the full-backs.
As time has gone on Klinsmann has tended to play a 4-2-3-1 with Michael Bradley anchoring and getting forward from the midfield, and Jermaine Jones sweeping up alongside him. In that system Clint Dempsey has tended to play behind the striker, with Landon Donovan and/or Sporting Kansas City’s Graham Zusi pushed out wide. Most often the front man has been Jozy Altidore, despite his torrid year at Sunderland – though his alarming Wearside sojourn could feasibly put his place under threat, with Klinsmann adamant that form, not reputation, will pick his team.
The problem for Klinsmann, and those of us second-guessing his tactical moves, is the duality that comes with managing from team camp to team camp, according to differing stages of players’ seasons. One month will see a roster heavily staffed with MLS players and Mexican-based players, while the next squad will be drawn from European-based players and in particular the contingent of German-Americans Klinsmann has been discovering, Jack Charlton-style, since taking charge.
It means that in the last two warm-up games before the squad was selected we’ve seen a listless side, featuring a hopelessly isolated Altidore up front, fall to Ukraine in Cyprus, followed by an experimental midfield diamond trotted out for a game against Mexico in Arizona, played mostly by MLS players.
In that game, Kyle Beckerman, a possible midfield deputy for Jones and Bradley, played the holding role he plays for his club team, Real Salt Lake, while Bradley was pushed forward as the midfield tip of the diamond. For one half, it worked a treat, as USA stormed into a 2-0 lead, though by the end of the game they were arguably lucky to hold on for a 2-2 draw when Mexico adjusted their formation.
As a tactical response to a five-man Mexican defence, it mostly worked, but how instructive it was for honing the World Cup team was debatable. And there’s the rub. With personnel changing radically from game to game, it is hard to see where Klinsmann’s tactical thinking is going heading into the tournament, though in his comments about the side “learning to be compact” and springing into attack, there is an acknowledgement of the defensive tactical reality of a group stage against Ghana, Portugal and Germany. USA fans hope his plans are about to reveal themselves.
Who is the player who is going to surprise everyone at the World Cup?
There’s a fair amount of expectation around young attacking midfielder and the man touted as Landon Donovan’s long-term replacement, Graham Zusi, but look out for his Sporting Kansas City team mate – the central defender Matt Besler. He captains the current MLS champions and has developed into a mature presence at the back – forcing his way into the national team early last year, and remaining there throughout the latter stages of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
There has been more buzz about Besler’s defensive partner, and fellow young MLS player Omar Gonzalez, over the past couple of years, but since following him into the team Besler has arguably been the more consistent presence, and while he won’t do anything flashy on the ball, he will get plenty of opportunities against Ghana, Portugal and Germany to demonstrate that he has the ability to stop others doing flashy things to hurt USA. Whether it will be enough to stop those attacks, we’ll soon find out, but Besler won’t shy from the task.
What is the realistic aim for USA at the World Cup and why?
I was covering the MLS Cup final, at an event attended by several USA players, when the World Cup draw was made. You’d have expected a subdued response given how tough it was, but one by-product of Klinsmann’s insistence on the toughest friendly schedule possible (and the subsequent wins over Italy in Italy, Mexico in Mexico, Bosnia in Bosnia, and an admittedly second-string German team last year) has been that his players seem unfazed by reputations.
That said, the opening game against Ghana is, as Klinsmann describes it, “a final”, and anything short of a win against the team’s nemesis of the past two World Cups, will leave qualification for the knockout stages as a very tall order. But if they can soak up pressure and counter at pace, as they have historically done at their best, they can certainly trouble Portugal, and perhaps hope that Germany have already done enough by the final group game that they can steal something from that one too.
There are still a lot of “ifs” in any successful USA scenario, though Klinsmann and his back-room team have done their best to address such preparatory issues as they can control, such as taking the team on a winter tour of their competition venues in Brazil. And while the team have one of the most gruelling schedules of any World Cup participants, they will hope to play any elemental advantage over European teams for all that it is worth.