USMNT Finish Worst Gold Cup since 2000, Questions Linger

from: static.republika.com
Jurgen Klinsmann has had four years, has his USMNT gotten worse?

The #USMNT fittingly fell in PKs to Panama, the team it defeated to win the tournament in 2013, to finish fourth in this year’s Gold Cup.  This is the USA’s worst finish since losing in the quarterfinal in 2000 to Colombia in a much tougher tournament format that featured invitees Colombia, Peru and South Korea.

The modern edition of the Gold Cup features only teams from CONCACAF and is generally rigged to pit Mexico and USA in the final.

The only problem is, this year, the US failed to show up.

Although arguably Mexico’s form has been more questionable than the USA’s, el Tri managed to navigate its way to tonight’s final where it will face upstart Jamaica.

However, USA’s last two performances were arguably its worst two under Klinsmann and falling to Panama, even in a game that had very little meaning, is never acceptable for a team who Klinsmann hopes to be competing for World Cup titles.

Now, I could live with the horrible performance at this year’s Gold Cup if it meant that we were developing players who could help in this World Cup cycle, but that isn’t what happed.

Klinsmann brought a mixed bag of backliners and had Damarcus Beasley brought into the squad, dropped young backliners in favor of Beasley going into the final stages, and continued to play Dempsey and Bradley in featured roles.

The squad did not feature young talent like Bobby Wood who starred in the friendlies against the Netherlands and Germany, nor Julian Green.  Instead, Klinsmann alienated Jozy Altidore in favor of journeyman striker Alan Gordon who simply isn’t part of any USA future.

This tournament had to be about winning or development, but when you play the fence, you generally do neither.

We still don’t know who will be the faces of the 2018 World Cup squad, we can’t find consistency in the backline and even, in goal where the USA has been solid for years.

Despite the fact that Brad Guzan did play pretty well, he will be 34 years old and probably not the starting keeper.

Supporters of Klinsmann have stated that he hasn’t really had his squad in place, it’s been four years, how much longer will that take?