Last Thursday, Klinsmann cut Landon Donovan, the best soccer player in U.S. history. Never before has there been so much attention paid to a USMNT roster decision. Most of the reaction has been outrage, but there has been a know-nothing minority applauding Klinsmann.
JK's decision was indefensible.
JK leaving LD off means that he believed Player #23 was more valuable to
us in Brazil than LD. I think Player #23 is Brad Davis, but others
think it's Wondo or Green or whoever. I'll use Davis. (And I have
nothing against Davis -- I actually think he's a good guy and a little
underrated.)
Here's what could happen in Brazil:
1. We advance, and we would have advanced regardless of whether LD or Player #23 were on the team.
2. We advance, and we advance because Player #23 was there instead of
LD. In other words, we would not have advanced with LD on the team.
3. We don't advance, and if LD were there instead of Player 23, we would
have advanced. In other words, Player #23 kept us from advancing.
4. We don't advance, and it would not have mattered if LD were there instead of Player #23.
If you think the chance of 2 is higher than the chance of 3, you bring
Player #23. If you think 3 is higher than 2, you bring LD. I've not
heard a single persuasive argument that 2 is higher than 3, i.e., that
Brad Davis makes our team more likely to advance than Landon Donovan.
JK's decision to exclude LD was either personal or irrational; either
way, it was the wrong one.
The above's my boring Vulcan way of expressing displeasure with Klinsmann. Over at
Soccer by Ives, some dude named Oliver (who I've never met) produced the following epic post, which I reprint here almost in its entirety, because it's just that awesome:
"First some disclaimers. Of course this is
partly about sentiment. Sports is always about sentiment. If I weren’t
sentimental about this team and these players, I would be rooting for
Brazil. More likelihood for a positive outcome....
I also acknowledge that Landon Donovan is not as good as he used to
be. In my opinion, probably Bedoya and definitely Zusi are ahead of him.
They’re younger and more rugged and certainly better bets for going 90
minutes in the heat. But that’s not really the choice here is it? No,
the choice is between Landon Donovan and one of Julian Green, Brad
Davis, Chris Wondolowski, and a few others. We’re looking for a guy to
maybe start the middle group game, or sub in for the final thirty
minutes, if we need to hold on to a lead or score a late goal. By what
plausible standard would you not want Landon Donovan to be there? And I
get it, maybe Wondolowski has lights out form right now and he has to be
in. Fine. But then someone else should be staying home.
Wondolowski is an interesting case of course, since I feel like we’ve
seen this movie before, most recently at the last Gold Cup. Remember
that? He scored a bunch of goals in the opener. It was all aboard the
Wondolowski train. Then when the competition stiffened, he couldn’t
score. Finally, Klinsmann stopped using him. In the end, who scored the
most goals (5) and had the most assists (7) in the tournament, carrying
the team to victory while winning the player of the tournament? It was
the guy who made this inch perfect 30 yard one-touch pass after playing
82 minutes of soccer. (Hint: his initials are LD) This isn’t some ancient history, by the way. It happened just under a year ago.
And it’s not like he stopped at the Gold Cup. No, in the game in
which the US qualified for the World Cup, a 2-0 victory over Mexico,
Donovan had a goal and an assist. Think about that for a second. We had
two goals. Donovan scored one and assisted on the other. This was late
last year.
Now we are supposed to believe that Landon is not the player he once
was? The player he was just over six months ago, when he was the best on
the field for the US in a game we needed a result in for qualifying?
Those last six months must have been pretty hard on him.
Of course, if you want to you can make pretty good arguments against
just about anyone. Let’s try that. Jozy Altidore: one goal in the entire
season and sent to the bench repeatedly by a collection of discarded
and prospect forwards. Clint Dempsey: hurt and out of form for the
better part of the last year, ineffective even on Fulham team that was
just relegated, and just got suspended for a game for punching a guy in
the nuts on the field. You think Donovan has lost a step? How are we
going to do down a full man after our captain gets red-carded? Aron
Johannson: he hasn’t been playing well the last several months and is
coming off a bum ankle. Omar Gonzalez: out of form for his club team,
and gives up goals in friendlies, watching the runs of guys he’s
supposed to be marking. Deandre Yedlin: he just got benched by his MLS
team because for all his speed, he can’t figure out where on the field
he’s supposed to be.
Of course, all that is ridiculous. I am fine with any or all of those
guys going to Brazil. They are certainly among the best US soccer
players, and I feel bad for picking on them, they don’t deserve it. The
point is, you can make a bad argument against just about anyone. The
question is, what is the relative merit of the players within the
limited U.S. pool. And I am fine with it if a guy like Green was
promised a spot. Only 11 guys get to start, and you only get six
substitutes. You can afford to offer a guy a spot on the World Cup even
if you have no intention of using him. And I certainly cannot imagine a
scenario where we put an 18 year old whose sole claim to fame in US
soccer is that he cannot run around on a manicured lawn for 30 minutes
without falling over and hurting himself for several months. It’s not
like he’s an 18 year old Michael Owens, scoring goals in bunches for
Liverpool.
So, by what standard are players being picked for this team? Clearly
it’s not club form, or Jozy would not even be invited. Is it dedication
to the program? Then how the heck is Timmy Chandler there? It’s not help
in qualifying, since that would have to include Donovan, who did more
than many (see above Mexico game.) It’s not a youth movement, since Brad
Davis is just as old as Donovan, and never had the step that Donovan
has so tragically lost. But it’s not experience either, since Yedlin,
Brooks, and Green are on the team. Is it attitude? Well Jermaine Jones
just left his long time club team in acrimonious circumstances. Is it
because of some great tactical plan? Well, no, we bring in this guy
whose best claim to fame is his set pieces and crosses, but do not bring
the strikers (Johnson and Boyd) who could most take advantage of that.
Is it ability to stop Christiano Ronaldo? Well, that would be nice, but
if that’s really the criteria, they’ll have to cancel the World Cup
altogether for lack of participants. No, there’s a completely pliable
set of ever-changing criteria that somehow magically exclude the best
player in US history, a guy that has contributed regularly and recently
and has more World Cup goals than the rest of the roster combined.
I could go on singling out the flaws of other guys, but it’s clear to
any sane observer that Donovan deserves to make it on merit. Even if he
was borderline, which he is not, it would be altogether appropriate to
include him in the 23 as a sending off in preference to someone else, in
recognition of his literal decade and a half of devotion to the
program.
Instead he is cut with a bunch of mealy-mouthed nonsense about other
guys showing a tiny bit better than he did. Well, that’s not good
enough. It’s not close to good enough. It cannot see good enough with
powerful binoculars.
If this is all there was, it would be enough to be outraged. But now
we get to the infamous tweet. Now, I understand about 17 year olds. I’m
two and a half decades removed from that age, and I still live with a
foot in my mouth perpetually. But in the rush to excuse this as just an
embarrassing misjudgment of youth, we have never received an
explanation. If Jurgen’s son had wrecked the family car or posted a
picture of himself taking bong hits, I would join the chorus of people
saying we should make an allowance for youth. But unless the hip thing
for high schoolers today is to make fun of Landon Donovan, we need an
explanation, not an excuse. He did not say “These seven people are
losers: Marice Edu, Terrence Boyd, etc.” He called out Landon Donovan.
Why? Where there’s smoke there is fire. Klinsmann the elder owes us an
explanation. To be clear, I call on Donovan here and now to be
magnanimous and forgive the son, but that does not mean we should forego
a demand for an explanation from the father.
Am I just some crazy person? Well, maybe. And maybe Bruce Arena is
biased, he always liked his own players too much, that was part of his
weakness as a coach, but the guy has won league championships. He’s
right that if we have 20 players better than Landon Donovan (a guy who
has twice been part of teams that have advanced from the group stage at
the World Cup) we are a threat to win it all.
Of course we don’t and of course we aren’t. Even with Donovan, we
have only an outside chance of making it out of our group. But Donovan
makes our team better. To not bring him is a betrayal of his teammates,
the program, the fans, and the United States. Sunil Gulati should tell
Klinsmann that he’s going. Either Klinsmann should fix this, or he
should be gone."
You know what, Klinsi? Screw you. If we advance in Brazil -- and I hope we do -- it will not be
because you left Landon Donovan off the team. It'll be because the other guys on the team were good enough to overcome your epic fuck-up.
FF
Wondolowski is an interesting case of course, since I feel like we’ve seen this movie before, most recently at the last Gold Cup. Remember that? He scored a bunch of goals in the opener. It was all aboard the Wondolowski train. Then when the competition stiffened, he couldn’t score. Finally, Klinsmann stopped using him. In the end, who scored the most goals (5) and had the most assists (7) in the tournament, carrying the team to victory while winning the player of the tournament? It was the guy who made this inch perfect 30 yard one-touch pass after playing 82 minutes of soccer. (Hint: his initials are LD) This isn’t some ancient history, by the way. It happened just under a year ago.
And it’s not like he stopped at the Gold Cup. No, in the game in which the US qualified for the World Cup, a 2-0 victory over Mexico, Donovan had a goal and an assist. Think about that for a second. We had two goals. Donovan scored one and assisted on the other. This was late last year.
Now we are supposed to believe that Landon is not the player he once was? The player he was just over six months ago, when he was the best on the field for the US in a game we needed a result in for qualifying? Those last six months must have been pretty hard on him.
Of course, if you want to you can make pretty good arguments against just about anyone. Let’s try that. Jozy Altidore: one goal in the entire season and sent to the bench repeatedly by a collection of discarded and prospect forwards. Clint Dempsey: hurt and out of form for the better part of the last year, ineffective even on Fulham team that was just relegated, and just got suspended for a game for punching a guy in the nuts on the field. You think Donovan has lost a step? How are we going to do down a full man after our captain gets red-carded? Aron Johannson: he hasn’t been playing well the last several months and is coming off a bum ankle. Omar Gonzalez: out of form for his club team, and gives up goals in friendlies, watching the runs of guys he’s supposed to be marking. Deandre Yedlin: he just got benched by his MLS team because for all his speed, he can’t figure out where on the field he’s supposed to be.
Of course, all that is ridiculous. I am fine with any or all of those guys going to Brazil. They are certainly among the best US soccer players, and I feel bad for picking on them, they don’t deserve it. The point is, you can make a bad argument against just about anyone. The question is, what is the relative merit of the players within the limited U.S. pool. And I am fine with it if a guy like Green was promised a spot. Only 11 guys get to start, and you only get six substitutes. You can afford to offer a guy a spot on the World Cup even if you have no intention of using him. And I certainly cannot imagine a scenario where we put an 18 year old whose sole claim to fame in US soccer is that he cannot run around on a manicured lawn for 30 minutes without falling over and hurting himself for several months. It’s not like he’s an 18 year old Michael Owens, scoring goals in bunches for Liverpool.
So, by what standard are players being picked for this team? Clearly it’s not club form, or Jozy would not even be invited. Is it dedication to the program? Then how the heck is Timmy Chandler there? It’s not help in qualifying, since that would have to include Donovan, who did more than many (see above Mexico game.) It’s not a youth movement, since Brad Davis is just as old as Donovan, and never had the step that Donovan has so tragically lost. But it’s not experience either, since Yedlin, Brooks, and Green are on the team. Is it attitude? Well Jermaine Jones just left his long time club team in acrimonious circumstances. Is it because of some great tactical plan? Well, no, we bring in this guy whose best claim to fame is his set pieces and crosses, but do not bring the strikers (Johnson and Boyd) who could most take advantage of that. Is it ability to stop Christiano Ronaldo? Well, that would be nice, but if that’s really the criteria, they’ll have to cancel the World Cup altogether for lack of participants. No, there’s a completely pliable set of ever-changing criteria that somehow magically exclude the best player in US history, a guy that has contributed regularly and recently and has more World Cup goals than the rest of the roster combined.
I could go on singling out the flaws of other guys, but it’s clear to any sane observer that Donovan deserves to make it on merit. Even if he was borderline, which he is not, it would be altogether appropriate to include him in the 23 as a sending off in preference to someone else, in recognition of his literal decade and a half of devotion to the program.
Instead he is cut with a bunch of mealy-mouthed nonsense about other guys showing a tiny bit better than he did. Well, that’s not good enough. It’s not close to good enough. It cannot see good enough with powerful binoculars.
If this is all there was, it would be enough to be outraged. But now we get to the infamous tweet. Now, I understand about 17 year olds. I’m two and a half decades removed from that age, and I still live with a foot in my mouth perpetually. But in the rush to excuse this as just an embarrassing misjudgment of youth, we have never received an explanation. If Jurgen’s son had wrecked the family car or posted a picture of himself taking bong hits, I would join the chorus of people saying we should make an allowance for youth. But unless the hip thing for high schoolers today is to make fun of Landon Donovan, we need an explanation, not an excuse. He did not say “These seven people are losers: Marice Edu, Terrence Boyd, etc.” He called out Landon Donovan. Why? Where there’s smoke there is fire. Klinsmann the elder owes us an explanation. To be clear, I call on Donovan here and now to be magnanimous and forgive the son, but that does not mean we should forego a demand for an explanation from the father.
Am I just some crazy person? Well, maybe. And maybe Bruce Arena is biased, he always liked his own players too much, that was part of his weakness as a coach, but the guy has won league championships. He’s right that if we have 20 players better than Landon Donovan (a guy who has twice been part of teams that have advanced from the group stage at the World Cup) we are a threat to win it all.
Of course we don’t and of course we aren’t. Even with Donovan, we have only an outside chance of making it out of our group. But Donovan makes our team better. To not bring him is a betrayal of his teammates, the program, the fans, and the United States. Sunil Gulati should tell Klinsmann that he’s going. Either Klinsmann should fix this, or he should be gone."
You know what, Klinsi? Screw you. If we advance in Brazil -- and I hope we do -- it will not be because you left Landon Donovan off the team. It'll be because the other guys on the team were good enough to overcome your epic fuck-up.
FF