US Soccer announced on Monday that Jurgen Klinsmann was relieved of his duties.
He was in charge of the national team since 2011 and complied a record of 55-27-16. One of the more notable accomplishments he had during his tenure as the coach was that he led the USMNT to the Round of 16 in the 2014 World Cup. The USMNT ended up getting knocked out by the Belgium team. Another thing worth noting is that he took them team out of the “Group of Death” as Group C consisted of Germany, Portugal, Ghana, and the United States. Before taking over as USMNT’s head coach, he was the coach of the German National team and Bayern Munich.
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While he did have valuable moments during his USMNT tenure, pressure for his dismal from the team started to build after the US lost 4-0 to Costa Rica on Tuesday during 2018 World Cup CONCACAF qualifying.
This followed a 2-1 loss to rival Mexico, 2-1 in Columbus, Ohio, on November 11. The losses to Costa Rica and Mexico would end being the first time that a country lost its two opening qualifying matches for a World Cup cycle.
US Soccer president Sunil Gulati did address the matter with some remarks. In a statement, Gulati said, “Many are aware of the historic victories, including leading us out of the Group of Death to the Round of 16 in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but there were also lesser publicized efforts behind the scenes.” However, the more interesting comments came later on as he was speaking. Later on, he said, “While we remain confident that we have quality players to help us advance to Russia in 2018, the form and growth of the team up to this point left us convinced that we need to go in a new direction.”
There are some rumblings that the person being mentioned to be replacing Klinsmann is former coach Bruce Arena. Bruce Arena was the USMNT head coach from 1998-2006, before venturing off to Major League Soccer with managerial stints with the New York Red Bulls and currently the Los Angeles Galaxy.
On Tuesday there will be a press conference. It will be interesting to see if anything new is announced about this situation and if Gulati names a new manager.