THIS IS LONG!!
Summary: US Soccer’s #1 priority is not winning, it is money.
START:
US Soccer supposedly fired Klinsmann for starting off the 2018 cycle with 2 losses.
1) We lost at Azteca 🇲🇽.
2) We lost 4-0 in New Jersey (NYC area) to Costa Rica 🇨🇷 (who were the best team in CONCACAF & had the best player in CONCACAF, Keylor Navas).
-Both of those games were expected losses, but a 4-0 loss was not expected.
3) After Arena did not lead the team to qualifying in 2018, U.S. Soccer expected Arena to stay on as manager, but he quit* because he knew that he had failed.
*If Bruce Arena was telling the truth in his recent Kate Abdo/Clint Dempsey+ interview.
4) MLS owners have a massive influence over US Soccer and how they want things run. They didn’t like the following…
5) Klinsmann told the U.S. media that players needed to get over to Europe as soon as they could go.
-Pulisic went through the US Development Academy and then went to Dortmund at the age of 16 (Croatian passport) in 2015.
-Weston McKennie led FC Dallas to two Development Academy national championships, but refused to sign with FC Dallas so that he could go to Europe asap after turning 18 (2016).
-Kelly Acosta was featuring for FC Dallas before falling out with FC Dallas because they wouldn’t sell him to Europe.
-Haji Wright was a U.S. Yourh National Team star and LA Galaxy Academy product who didn’t sign with the Galaxy due to wanting to go to Europe asap, so he signed with the NY Cosmos to get paid a bit in 2015 and then jumped to Europe as soon as he could in 2016.
Klinsmann was a fairly shitty game manager, but he knew what shakeup American soccer needed to get better, but that was costing MLS owners money, so he had to go.
6) MLS teams headed to the suburbs or expansion went to “suburban-esque” cities:
Chicago, Dallas (went to quaint suburbs)
Austin (rather than San Antonio), Denver, Nashville, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, Vancouver, Minneapolis… (though Atlanta, Orlando, St. Louis have more grit to them).
7) USWNT was long nearly all white with long hair. Latinas were told that they may want to explore other options (translation: “Perhaps playing for Mexico would be a good idea.”)
Now that the world has caught up to and passed the women’s team, the player pool is looking more diverse.
8 The “Soccer moms” have been a segment of society talked about since the ‘90s and these ladies’ households seem to be where US Soccer/MLS have tried to cultivate into the primary incubators of their future fan base since the ‘90s. They want those middle class families as their fan base.
US SOCCER is not “In it to win it.” They are in it for the Power & Money.