Shockwaves sent as Klinsmann leaves off Donovan

[GM_Tood]

U.S. men's national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann announced his 23-man roster late Thursday afternoon, and it was full of surprises.

 

http://www.espnfc.com/blog/_/name/unitedstates/id/83?cc=5901

 

 

Wow..a really young squad headed to the WC.

[wiuhusker]

Absolutely did not see this one coming at all. Figured he was a lock to at least go.

[ZRod]

Don't think I can really agree with this decision, and I feared it was coming with Klinsmann's talk earlier this week.

[zoogs]

A theory I've seen floated is that they are privately not expecting the team to make it out of group play this year and the heavily youth-laden roster is planned with 2018 in mind.

 

I don't like that idea at all; these things only come around once every four years and you want to give it your best shot each time.

[HSKR]

A theory I've seen floated is that they are privately not expecting the team to make it out of group play this year and the heavily youth-laden roster is planned with 2018 in mind.

 

I don't like that idea at all; these things only come around once every four years and you want to give it your best shot each time.

 

Considering we have the #2 and #3 ranked teams in the world in our group, that may not be a bad assumption. Maybe it's time to change the rule that you are required to have 3 goal keepers on the team. Two keepers I could see but keep that last spot open for someone who could actually play.

[ZRod]

A theory I've seen floated is that they are privately not expecting the team to make it out of group play this year and the heavily youth-laden roster is planned with 2018 in mind.

 

I don't like that idea at all; these things only come around once every four years and you want to give it your best shot each time.

I honestly don't expect us to make it out, but that doesn't mean you don't bring your leading goal scorer and most veteran guy.

[tschu]

Holy crap, couldn't believe it when I heard this. Part of me knows why he did it; most of me is sitting here going WTF??

 

I'll trust Klinsmann, obviously he knows his team a whole hell of a lot better than I do.

[StPaulHusker]

Its not like the US won any World Cups with Donovan on the team. I doubt they will do any worse without him.

[QMany]

Its not like the US won any World Cups with Donovan on the team. I doubt they will do any worse without him.

Quite the logic there.

[Creighton Duke]

Klinsmann pulled a similar stunt as the manager of the 2006 German squad and they performed very well....and then he GTFO. May be planning a similar stunt here. Pisses me off.

[Something Clever]

A theory I've seen floated is that they are privately not expecting the team to make it out of group play this year and the heavily youth-laden roster is planned with 2018 in mind.

 

I don't like that idea at all; these things only come around once every four years and you want to give it your best shot each time.

 

+1 I've heard this many times during the build-up, but who knows what the landscape will look like in 2018?

[Creighton Duke]

 

A theory I've seen floated is that they are privately not expecting the team to make it out of group play this year and the heavily youth-laden roster is planned with 2018 in mind.

 

I don't like that idea at all; these things only come around once every four years and you want to give it your best shot each time.

 

+1 I've heard this many times during the build-up, but who knows what the landscape will look like in 2018?

 

[EbylHusker]

It's not a big deal (at least not nearly as big as many are making it out to be) and it won't make much of a difference, if any at all. None of the players the US has are good enough to make the kind of difference American soccer "fans" seem to dream about.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/should-landon-donovan-be-going-to-the-world-cup/

 

Nate Silver's blog, FiveThirtyEight, weighs in on the issue:

 

 

 

On Thursday night, the head coach of the U.S. men’s national soccer team, Jurgen Klinsmann, decided he would not be taking Landon Donovan to the 2014 World Cup. Given that Donovan is one of the most decorated and long-standing soccer players in U.S. history, the news came as a shock to many American soccer fans.

But for those who follow the sport closely, Donovan’s omission from the roster wasn’t so surprising. Klinsmann and Donovan got off to a rocky start in 2011, when Klinsmann first took the head coaching job and Donovan decided to take a break from soccer. Since then, Donovan has been working to get back into Klinsmann’s player pool, but nagging injuries sidelined him for much of 2013. At age 32, Donovan appeared to have lost some of his pace and ability to finish. Since scoring Oct. 6 of last year, he has taken 32 shots with the LA Galaxy and men’s national team, but he hasn’t scored a goal.

 

The article, by Allison McCann, goes on to give a few graphs detailing goals per MLS games, average performance in MLS games, his performance in prior World Cups, and the amount of scoring chances everybody on the 23 and Donovan created in the past year.

 

Sample size is going to be an issue, regardless. You can go ahead and look at Landon's entire body of work, but how representative is that of how he might perform in Brazil? Since there really isn't any empirical work investigating the temporal relationship between form and performance, all a person can do is set an arbitrary cut-off; 1-year seems was a reasonable cut-off to the author. With that in mind, Landon has struggled in the MLS in his 7 appearances.

My problem with this selection is that it looks at MLS performance and uses that to represent possible performance with the national team, which is composed of better quality players than your typical MLS squad. I would have looked at his performance on the national team in the last 2 years.

But, Klinsmann should know how this team operates and who operates it the best. I trust in this gamble, and am eager to see if it pays off in Brazil.

[HSKR]

It will be interesting to see what he does the rest of this MLS season. If he continues to play like he has as of late, then Klinsmann will look smart. If he goes on a tear then in the MLS and we fail miserably in the World Cup, which we likely will anyways, then this story will continue for some time.