Aston Villa finally sacked Paul Lambert yesterday; something that was well overdue as the manager wore out his welcome with the Birmingham outfit. Points per match and goals per match declined heavily for Villa year by year under Lambert; to the point that Villa have 0.48 goals per match in the current EPL season.
This once again sprung the coaching carousel rumors to life. Tim Sherwood, who has been favored to take every team over this season on the news of sacking, is unsurprisingly favored to be next in line as Villa manager. The surprising candidate that isn’t far behind in garnering heavy consideration: U.S.Men’s National Team Manager Jurgen Klinsmann. Both ESPN and The Mirror are reporting that Klinsmann is a top candidate for the Aston Villa job.
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Klinsmann has managed the German National Team and Bayern Munich before venturing over to the states for a “challenge”. He led Germany to third place in the 2006 World Cup, but not without controversy. Klinsmann pushed for a youth movement off the heels of a disastrous Euro 2004 campaign, which included replacing all-world keeper Oliver Kahn with up-and-coming Jens Lehmann. He also restricted media access to the team and opted to establish a more run-and-gun style as opposed to the stout defensive formations previous German teams imposed. The public lightened up after the extraordinary World Cup run, but the German manager did not renew his contract.
In the Summer of 2008, Jurgen Klinsmann took over German powerhouse Bayern Munich. There, he continued to his commitment to young player development. Despite making it to the quarterfinals of the Champions League, being three points off the pace of first in Bundesliga with 5 matches left was viewed as a failure. Klinsmann left as a result of “differences with the club’s board of directors”.
The German mastermind has been the manager of the US Men’s National Team since July of 2011. He has done a great deal of work, from pushing youth development to guiding players on which leagues to join, in order to potentially get the best out of them. Once again, he’s been in the spotlight for controversially bashing MLS; challenging many USMNT players to ply their trade in Europe among the bigger clubs rather than toil with a developing domestic league.
Would these differences really push him away from the US Men’s National Team though? It seems that the idea Klinsmann would take such a job is preposterous. Is it really?
It’s no secret, as mentioned above, that Jurgen Klinsmann has differences with fans and MLS commissioner Don Garber alike. It was issues like this between himself and the German media that exhausted him and ultimately pushed him out of Germany in 2008. Furthermore, Villa could be ready to throw the kitchen sink at Jurgen. Money talks and the club is ready to right the ship, both for the team’s sake and for it’s owner’s perception.
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Al Lerner, the Aston Villa owner, is already disliked by the fans of the American football franchise he owns, the Cleveland Browns. He is driving Aston Villa into the ground as well and needs to pull a rabbit out of his hat with the next manager that is hired. Is it possible that he will not only ruin an American football franchise, but also the fabric by which the United States Men’s National Team is building?
While the thought of Jurgen Klinsmann jumping ship is scary, the chances of it are extremely slim. He signed a 4-year extension in December 2013 that will take his contract to the end of the next World Cup cycle. Additionally, the other stops Jurgen made were not patient with his developmental system.
Klinsmann was never able to see out the record-breaking success Bayern Munich have had the past few years along with the World Cup Champions Germany won this past Summer, which can be attributed to his youth development. The foreign perspective Klinsmann brings to United States development and training is invaluable, as it has undoubtedly been successful for European sides. In a country that is arguably the strongest and most athletic in the world, it’s the training regimen and time that needs improvement in the United States.
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Furthermore, Klinsmann has a home and family he is raising in California. It is highly unlikely that he would take a job with a struggling club and commute the way he did when with the German National Team. If that is something he wanted to do, he could have jumped ship when offered an opportunity with Tottenham a year ago. The United States Men’s National Team is giving Klinsmann the chance he never got with Germany or Bayern; the opportunity to implement his development and see it through. When U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati extended Klinsmann, he vowed to the German that the US will let him finish the job.
"“One of the reasons we hired Jurgen as our head coach was to advance the program forward and we’ve seen the initial stages of that happening on the field and also off the field in various areas. In the past two years he has built a strong foundation from the senior team down to the youth teams and we want to continue to build upon that success.”"
In the end, Klinsmann is not expected to leap to the other side of the pond, but it is a situation worth monitoring. We’ll have more here on Playing for 90.