It’s easy to forget that Jurgen Klinsmann didn’t have an entire World Cup cycle to work with last time around. Hired in 2011, the USA head coach had three years to prepare for Brazil. That’s plenty of time, of course, but it means that we didnt have any precedent for how he might treat the 12 months of wind-down following a World Cup. So as he set the course for the Americans next time, exactly what he was going to do was a bit of an unknown.
Jurgen Klinsmann is doing the right thing by making the USMNT younger
The latest USMNT squad features a number of uncapped players, and it makes sense.
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But if his first post-World Cup roster is any indication, his approach will be a lot like Bob Bradley’s four years ago, and entirely in character.
Klinsmann's roster for the Americans' friendly against the Czech Republic has some familiar names -- Jozy Altidore, Alejandro Bedoya, Brad Guzan and Fabian Johnson all made the list -- but there are also several faces we haven't seen for a while and six players who have never been capped before. It's very much a roster in transition: the established guys are getting time, but there's also a clear eye on the future as well.
With the Gold Cup still 11 months away, Klinsmann is in no rush to narrow down the group of players he’ll select from. He’ll have the entire month of June for training camp and friendlies, then another year before Copa America and several more months after that until we get to World Cup qualifying. Klinsmann wants as wide a player pool as possible and that means that he’ll start blooding in some youngsters for a taste of the senior international game.
He's following, broadly, in Bradley's footsteps. In the Americans' first match after the 2010 World Cup, Omar Gonzalez got his first cap and Alejandro Bedoya's national team career was just getting started. In the final match of the year, Juan Agudelo, Mix Diskerud, Gale Agbossoumonde, Teal Bunbury and Tim Ream all made their debuts for the national team.
Bringing in a lot of young players right after the World Cup is the norm, and it’s also exactly what one would expect from Klinsmann. After all, he’s the one who named Julian Green, DeAndre Yedlin and John Brooks to the squad that went to Brazil. He also didn’t have much choice: Klinnsman chose not to disrupt the tail end of the MLS season, with Nick Rimando the only domestic callup.
Forward Rubio Rubin may have just made his Utrecht debut, but he has already earned a start in the Eredivisie and is one of the Americans' most promising young players. Fellow striker Bobby Wood continues to be a fixture with 1860 Munich, while midfielder Joe Gyua is off to a good start with the Borussia Dortmund reserves. Emerson Hyndman has been one of the best players on an admittedly poor Fulham side and Greg Garza is Tijuana's starting left back, so impressive that they sold former starter Edgar Castillo.
More from our team sites
More from our team sites
The only questionable inclusions on the roster are goalkeeper Cody Cropper and Stanford forward Jordan Morris. However, Klinsmann has always used his third goalkeeper spot on a young player, though, hoping to keep him integrated with the team and keep an eye on his progress.
That habit neatly explains Cropper’s inclusion, and it’s not hard to make a case that he is doing the same with Morris, who is the first college player to make a U.S. team since Ante Razov in 1995. Morris has been excellent at all youth levels for two years now. Maybe he plays, maybe he doesn’t, but Klinsmann clearly thinks he has a bright future with the national team, and even training will give him an idea as to the level required to play for the USA. If it convinces him to leave Stanford and join a professional team -- something Klinsmann must be hoping for -- then all the better.
Friendlies are about development, and even the days of training beforehand provide an opportunity for growth. Players will get to know each other and the coaches. They will learn the system and the newcomers will get their first real idea of the work, physicality and maturity required to succeed at the international level. Klinsmann often speaks of the process, and he has picked a handful of young players he wants to be part of that process right now.
One World Cup is in the books and another is four years away. Klinsmann has time to build a team, even before the Gold Cup, and to give himself the best possible team to choose from he has to make sure that the net’s cast as far as possible. Not only is he sticking to form by going after younger players -- he’s giving the United States the best chance possible at having a strong team over the next World Cup cycle.
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