Landon Donovan says any other team in the world would fire Jurgen Klinsmann. Is he right?

United States men’s national team legend Landon Donovan spoke ahead of the Confederations Cup playoff against Mexico on Oct. 10. He thinks Jurgen Klinsmann should lose his job if the USMNT doesn’t win.

“We had a very poor summer with bad results in the Gold Cup,” said Donovan on ESPN FC on Monday. “The last game against Brazil was probably the worst game I’ve seen them play under Jurgen. The reality is that now, anywhere else in the world, if this coach had those results, and they lose this game against Mexico, they’d be fired.”

Is this true? Get ready for an extremely un-spicy take: Kind of!

If the USMNT had won this summer’s Gold Cup, they would have qualified for the World Cup warm-up tournament directly. But because Mexico won the North American title, Klinsmann’s team has to face them in a one-game playoff to get in.

Confederations Cup is very important to Klinsmann. “Our approach for putting together the roster for this summer’s Gold Cup, which is very, very important to us, is obviously to do everything possible to win this competition,” said Klinsmann when his Gold Cup squad was released, omitting a number of talented young players that fans wanted to see get a chance. “Winning it would qualify us for the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, so putting the pieces together is very crucial.”

He doubled down on this a few days later. “It’s not about developing players for the next couple of weeks, it’s about winning that Gold Cup and qualifying for the Confederations Cup 2017,” said Klinsmann. “So we’ve got to put the development side on the back burner for a few weeks, and then we’re going to pick it back up because the only way we can develop the players and get them better and better is by giving them opportunities.”

Klinsmann openly admitted that winning the Gold Cup was very important to him, and that he picked older players over younger players because of that. He lost in the semifinal.

The last time that the United States failed to make the final of the Gold Cup was in 2003. They lost to Brazil in the semifinals after extra time. Their other pre-final losses in the professional era are to Brazil again, and Colombia on penalties. The last time the USMNT was knocked out before the Gold Cup final by CONCACAF opposition was in 1985, when there were no knockout stages. Klinsmann’s Gold Cup performance was by far, and indisputably, the worst of any USMNT manager ever.

As Bill Connelly pointed out after the Jamaica loss, Klinsmann’s record is pretty good. I’ve updated it with the three games the USMNT has played since he wrote it.

Bradley’s last 4 years: 9 wins, 12 losses, 6 draws (33 ‘points’ in 27 matches, 1.22 per match)

Klinsmann USMNT career: 21 wins, 13 losses, 9 draws (72 ‘points’ in 43 matches, 1.67 per match)

Context is important -- a lot of Klinsmann’s wins are in friendlies or against trash teams and Mexico was in full meltdown mode for a bit. But he’s still won a lot of games, against good teams, and his team finished on top of the Hex.

Klinsmann sold Sunil Gulati and other people at U.S. Soccer on a vision of the future. He was brought in to reform the youth national team setup, do some work on the development academies and create a pipeline from the Under-17s to the senior side. Even if you think he’s more words and smiles than actions in that regard, it’s still a big part of his job, and so far, it’s going pretty well.

The Under-20s performed very well at the World Cup this summer and a number of those players have taken the step up to the Under-23 Olympic qualifying side. There are a lot of players who have played Under-20, Under-23 and senior national team games since Klinsmann’s appointment. And there’s quite a bit of talent going to the Under-17 World Cup that the Under-20 coaches are excited about bringing in,

Maybe it’s coincidental, but youth national teams have gotten better since Klinsmann showed up. That probably earns him a bit of a pass in Gulati’s eyes.

Here’s a list of teams that had a reasonable expectation of making the World Cup knockout stages, then didn’t fire their coaches after failing to do so: Spain, England, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Ghana and Portugal. Though, it should be noted, further poor performances in Euro and Africa Cup of Nations qualifying led to the dismissal of the coaches of the latter four teams. Still, they all got a second chance after failing to do something Klinsmann accomplished. It’s fair to speculate that they would have been given even more time after the World Cup had they made the knockout stages.

Donovan’s statement needs a big caveat. Any other team that had unlimited money and didn’t care about throwing it away would fire Klinsmann. He has a contract through the 2018 World Cup and he has no reason to negotiate a buyout. If U.S. Soccer wants to fire him, it’s going to be really, really expensive. Wouldn’t you rather they spent that money on youth development, or lowered ticket prices, or paid more than 24 female players a living wage?

The Mexico result won’t change anything. Klinsmann isn’t a good first team head coach. He has failed to reach the goals that he set. He’s also not getting fired, nor should he get fired, unless the good Samaritans of the Internet are going to pay his buyout.

SB Nation video archives: Landon Donovan’s five biggest moments (2014)