By Mary Cunningham
Only three months after the 2014 World Cup that seemed to temporarily elevate soccer in the United States to the level that it enjoys around the rest of the world, a very public spat has punctured that happiness bubble.
Earlier this week, 2014 U. S., coach Juergen Klinsmann suggested ahead of a U.S. friendly against Honduras that U.S. stars Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey (photo above with Klinsmann) were going to struggle to remain in world class form if they continued to play in Major League Soccer instead of Europe’s top leagues.
Klinsmann also said he understood why they made the moves—both players are getting higher annual salaries than a European team would have offered them and playing positions they couldn’t hold on top European clubs. Bradley is receiving $6.5 million and playing central midfield for Toronto FC. Dempsey is getting about $6 million and a year to be Seattle’s target striker. But that doesn’t mean they are improving.
Bradley defended himself and his career choices, but the big pushback came Wednesday, when MLS commissioner Don Garber sounded off on Klinsmann in a conference call with reporters. Garber called Klinsmann’s comments incredibly damaging to his league, which has been trying to lure top players and become one of the world’s top soccer leagues by 2022.
Among Garber’s broadsides at the former German superstar:
Klinsmann “needs to think very, very hard about how he manages himself publicly.” Garber said it was unacceptable for Klinsmann to criticize Bradley in the media, a pattern that he said has been ongoing since the coach criticized and then cut Landon Donovan from the U.S. national team in May. Garber even demanded that Klinsmann stop making comments that are “critical of our players and damaging to our league.”
It’s hard not to read those comments and feel like Garber, a solid executive who has helped build MLS from the brink of collapse, doth protest a bit much. And that’s before even addressing the idea that someone in the U.S. should demand that someone else should refrain from publicly criticizing anything he wants to.
Say what you want about Klinsmann. Criticize his management style, his formations, his obsession with players who have been born and raised in Europe (preferably Germany), but trying to remove his rights under the First Amendment to say whatever he wants about any U.S. institution borders on silly.
The larger problem for Garber is that history and numbers aren’t on his side. The idea that playing against top competition is the best way to improve has been a central concept in sports for going on 50 years. Whatever goals Garber has to make MLS a destination for the best players in the world, the overwhelming majority of foreign stars who come to MLS still do so when they are past their prime. The league’s top goal scorer this year, Bradley Wright-Phillips, who has scored 25 goals for the New York Red Bulls, spent the previous three seasons as a middling forward in England’s second division. That’s an inconvenient truth.
Make no mistake—MLS is a terrific entity. It’s a legitimate professional league with team values that are growing and major U.S. cities begging to get a franchise. It’s providing a terrific first step for good, young U.S. players who know that college soccer isn’t the best way to maximize their skills. The games are often loud and exciting and in certain cities a terrific fan experience.
That doesn’t mean it is a great place for the best U.S. players to play. MLS is in a strange spot. It has enough money to pay the best 10 US players to stay here, but won’t be able to provide them with ample competition. It kind of stunk seeing Landon Donovan spend the bulk of his career in Los Angeles. Dempsey’s return seemed like a retreat. Watching him claw for goals against Arsenal and Chelsea and Manchester United was one of the great pleasures for American soccer enthusiasts.
Also, the last thing anyone should want the U.S. national team coach to do at the beginning of the 2018 World Cup cycle is allow anyone on the team to feel too comfortable. This is the moment to challenge players who were thoroughly outclassed by Germany and Belgium during the World Cup.
Also worth noting—Klinsmann almost never says anything in public that he hasn’t told a player privately before. He uses the public forum to make sure the point hits home, and to try to get a few other interested parties, like, say, the media and the fans, to hold his players as accountable as he likes to.
His mandate is to produce the best national team he can, not do public relations for MLS. He also understands the essential truth about solving problems—the first step is to recognize that you have one.
