FINALLY! Jurgen Klinsman named US Soccer Men's National Team Head Coach. This morning at Nike Town in NYC, Klinsman was formally introduced by US Soccer's Wizard of OZ - Sunil Gulati. Klinsman, better known as "the European coach who lives in Laguna Beach" brought some interesting comments on his start with the National team set-up.
Regarding our players:
“I think there are a lot of different challenges ahead of us, especially on the foundation level and the foundation is youth; how they should be trained, how often they should train, how much time they should spend with the ball, how they should develop their talent, and it all feeds into Claudio [Reyna]’s new role here. This is really important to be addressed from the beginning because I think this is what is really missing compared to the leading soccer nations around the world, the first 10-12 nations around the world, is the amount of time kids play the game. If you have a kid that plays in Mexico 20 hours a week, and maybe four hours of organized soccer but 16 hours of unorganized soccer just banging the ball around in the neighborhood, but if he gets up to 20 hours it doesn’t matter how he plays it, with his dad or with his buddies in the street, this will show later on with his technical abilities, with his passing, with his instinct on the field and all those things, and I think that’s certainly an area where a lot of work is ahead of us. If you look at MLS, they took major steps forward. It’s come a long way, but it’s still a hectic style from the college game, which slowly we have to get it more on a technical level, we have to get it on more comfortable level with the ball, and so there are developmental issues. I think there are pros and cons. It’s come a long way, but we have a ways to go still to break into those top 10 in the world. We need to be realistic that we are not belonging there right now, or not yet.”
1 - When asked about naming Assistant Coaches, said he will search for the next few months to "...find the right fit..."
2 - stated that both Claudio Reyna and Tab Ramos (both former US players and now involved as the US Soccer Youth Technical Director, and the U20 Head Coach - respectively), will be around the full National Team as much as possible as assistants whenever possible
3 - feels that the team needs to be a reflection of the changing US culture, both in style and in the players who are from immigrant descent
Last weekend at the Surf Cup in San Diego, the Beach FC GU16 White and GU18s, played in front of hundreds of college coaches. Surf Cup stated that there were over 190 schools represented, with over 350 registered coaches. Those numbers do not reflect the growing number of coaches who do not sign up, or who sneak in under the radar as club coaches already there with the teams. Once again - the class of the tournament was the Gu16 MVLA Lightning and the Breakaway GU17s. Every major program was represented when these teams played their matches.
