?They were set up in a way that was opposite from what they?ve been the past couple years, which is opening up, passing, attacking ? trying to do that. And the team?s been successful that way. Why they decided to switch that in the World Cup, none of us will know. From a playing standpoint, I think the guys will probably be disappointed in the way things went.?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/soccer-insider/wp/2014/07/03/landon-donovan-takes-a-shot-at-jurgen-klinsmann-i-dont-think-we-were-set-up-to-succeed-at-world-cup/?tid=pm_pop
I read the whole thing earlier today..
First of all, on ESPN right after the game Donovan did not say any of this...
However, I completely agree with him....
Jurgen is so full of shit... all that talk about the attacking soccer?? where was that? The only times we attacked IN EVERY SINGLE GAME was when we went down (except for the early Dempsey goal)
He completely gave up the midfield against Belgium and we saw how well it worked...he took out Beckerman the only guy that could give the team any sort of pause in the midfield and hold on to the ball... that was completely nuts.
And I'm sorry, some of those guys on the team there is no way they were more helpful than Donovan..
Its funny because in any other soccer loving country the loss would be analyzed frontwards and backwards and here its all "Juergen is so great and everything he did worked and isn't it great we have him another four years... we lost but we have our pride"
Against Belgium.. they're killing us for 90 minutes ... we have no midfield..does he make any change to improve things? NO. I mean who didn't see Belgium scoring..how many saves did he expect Howard to make? 34? Meanwhile one of the world's best coaches Van Gaal against Mexico changed his tactical approach three times until it worked.
I have no doubt Loew was the strategist for Germany in 2006 and that Juergen just doesn't really understand that facet of the game.. for him its all about the players chasing the ball 90 minutes and being fully fit....Bradley ran 22 miles ..hey he's great!... well it doesn't quite work that way.... sometimes you let the ball do the running for you...
of course after the game Juergen says we were unlucky and Howard "did his job".... great stuff.
