NOAH DAVIS - I wrote a little story about Clint Dempsey for Run of Play. He’s the best example of what American soccer needs because he’s simultaneously skilled and pissed, talented and terrifying.
The piece was penned before Sunil Gulati went out and fired BoB, but it’s even more true now.
Jurgen Klinsmann can talk all he wants about creating an American system – and he does – but that won’t solve what ails the US right now. What the Stars and Stripes need is some anger.
They don’t need a “latino-infused attack,” an “attacking style,” or any other ridiculous adjective clauses. That is in the future. That is for Klinsmann and his vision of an American utopia, the same vision that Gulati sees from his post at US Soccer House in Chicago.
That all needs to happen. And it will.
But this is the present, and the view is not pretty; it’s not filtered through a sepia instagram.
The American team is struggling. (Hence, you know, the new coach.)
They need to start winning. (See Brent’s comments on this elsewhere on the site.) They need to start playing better. They need, right now, to follow Dempsey into the fire.
I want to say that before the last world cup we had a great side against TnT. The USA had a player that coach bradley shouldn’t have left off the side.
This player is Franke Hadjuk. We need him BACK on the USA side. As a right defender he gets the crowd involved and PUMPED UP. The same as he does for the team.
COACH Klinsmann PLEASE BRING BACK FRANKE HADJUK.
GEAUX USA, GEAUX USE, GEAUX USA.