Former MLS and US Under-20 national team head coach Thomas Rongen made it plenty clear what he thinks Jurgen Klinsmann’s fate should be if the US national team lose to Paraguay and fail to qualify for the Copa America Centenario quarterfinals on Saturday (7 pm ET; FS1, Univision, UDN).
Rongen told CBS Sports Radio’s Amy Lawrence earlier this week that he thinks US Soccer should dismiss Klinsmann if the USMNT falls in Philadelphia this weekend.
“In all fairness, I’ve been fired several times in MLS. I’ve won an MLS Cup as well. That’s the way it goes,” Rongen said. “[Klinsmann is] under pressure, he’s handled the pressure very gracefully right now, and I still think he’s a guy that eventually can stay on and do well. But you’re judged on results. At the end of the day, if they don’t make it out of group play, if they lose against Paraguay, I really think a change is inevitable and needs to be made.”
Rongen, who currently works as a soccer analyst for CBS Sports and served as an MLSsoccer.com analyst during the 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs, said that if US Soccer makes a coaching change, they must do it after the Copa America in order to give enough lead time for a new coach ahead of the 2018 World Cup.
The former Tampa Bay Mutiny, New England Revolution and D.C. United manager also commented on the state of the USMNT program, telling Lawrence that he thinks the current crop of national team players aren’t good enough to implement Klinsmann’s vision and that the German’s reign has created “a little bit of technical chaos.”
“We’re a young soccer country. I don’t really think that we have identified a real style of play,” he said. “That takes decades. Players and coaches give you certain DNA. Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley [were] two American coaches that did well with those teams that were hard-working, which, the US players are always hard-working. They’re very fit, they’re very athletic, they were mentally strong. But technically and tactically, [they were] always inferior to most high-level opponents. So we played low pressure, we tried to counter, we tried to be good on set pieces and tried to win games that way.
"Jurgen Klinsmann is trying to change that mentality to make us a better football nation. But I just don’t know right now if he understands that his players, with all due respect, aren’t good enough to execute the way he wants to play. It’s become a little bit of a technical chaos, I hate to say so, under his regime.”
The US will take on Paraguay in their final Group A match at Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday. A win would put the US through to the Copa America quarterfinals and a draw would also likely see them through to the knockouts, while a loss would end their run at the tournament.
