Jurgen Klinsmann expresses disappointment over son’s tweet about Landon Donovan
Klinsmann says his son owes Donovan a “huge, huge apology.”
It can’t possibly be easy being the soccer-playing son of one of the most successful soccer players in history who also happens to the head coach of your country’s national team. But Jonathan Klinsmann sure didn’t do himself any favors on Thursday when he tweeted out a seemingly gleeful response to Landon Donovan being cut from the United States World Cup team.
The high schooler promptly deleted the tweet, apologized and, eventually, put his entire account on hold. At least for now, that’s probably the last we’ll hear from him.
It was up to his father to pick up the pieces during Friday’s press conference.
"I'm hugely disappointed," the elder Klinsmann said about his son. "I called him right away. ... He was fooling around with his classmates and just went off on Twitter, not really realizing that he's followed.
"He has a huge admiration of Landon, he's been following him for many years, he has his jersey in his room and he realized what he's done. He was devastated with what he's done. Obviously he has a father who put him in line and he owes him a huge, huge apology. It was highly disrespectful and he got his biggest social media lesson he could imagine."
Klinsmann, clearly aware that there's been a firestorm of criticism around the decision to leave Donovan off the roster, also attempted to extend a sort of olive branch. Although reports have suggested Donovan is not really even in consideration to fill in if a player were to be injured, Klinsmann disputed that claim and expressed hope that the leading scorer in U.S. history would remain with the program.
Obviously, only time will tell if that's possible.
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