Pekerman!?!

I’m not so sure I like this.

With Pekerman at command, the US team could become the most dominate soccer team in the world.

Argentina shouldn’t give it’s secrets to the enemy.

In all seriousness, it’ll probably be the BEST move US soccer has done in their lifetime.

What about building/improving the entire US soccer program (outside of just the national team)? Who would be better for that job?

Posted from  United States

I agree with se7en. Who would you want to emulate, england or argentina? Ill leave history to decide the answer. Plus USA soccer is so boring. Their game in the world cup was so predictable, not including dempsy. Just take the ball down the flanks, kick the ball into the box, and head or kick it in the goal. That was their strategy the whole campaign towards the world cup..If pekerman impliments argentinian style of play….they would be wayyyyy more fun to watch.

I guess, according to the LA Times, it won;t be Pekerman.

pekerman is good at what he does but can he make the team of USA into something special come on look at the history.

Posted from  United Kingdom

In order to play like Argentina, don’t we need a Riquelme?

As the saying goes, you cannot get blood from a turnip.

Posted from  United States

Klinsmann might be the next coach after all… Hope so.

I’m real high on Klinsmann. He really emphasizes pressure and scoring points - something the U.S. Side needs more of! That being said, Pekerman is an intresting prospect and an excellent choice. I have faith that Gulati will put the man in place that gives Americans the best chance of being competitive in the next World Cup, without letting the candidate challenge the Team about money.

Posted from  United States

Pekerman is fresh off Argentina’s poor performance at the WC and the US wan’t him? Silly.

I agree with most of you and would like to see Klisman get the job.

Pekerman led a poor performance for argentina? Is that what you say? Id say it was an improvement from at least the last world cup if not the previous…at least they werent hitting wood work, but scoring goals.

I don’t know how anyone can legitimately argue that Argentina put in a poor performance at the WC. In fact I’d say they looked like the best team that I saw. Unfortunately they had to play the host country and their goalie got injured which limited their substitutions. I would have to say Pekerman has proven himself to be pretty badass. But, we’ll see. I’m not convinced they won’t hire Klinsmann. This seems like just a rumor. And perhaps it was a rumor put out there so that Klinsi would jump on them and take their offer? Who knows, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Posted from  United States

@sean….”Who would you want to emulate, england or argentina?”

I believe that to be a false choice simply because Klinsman is German. Now of the question is who I would like the US to emulate Germany or Argentina than my answer is without question Germany.

Look at the history of the world cup and the most success has come from Europe. I’m not simply talking about championships but second, third and fourth place finishes. Germany record of success is only superseded by that of Brazil and Italy, nice company to be in.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying the hiring of Klinsman will transform the US into a powerhouse football nation. My argument is that I would like the US playing football “European Style” which I consider to be the most complete and beautiful way to play the game.

Again I don’t mean to come across as disrespecting Argentina. They are a great team to watch and produce some very good players. It just comes down to a choice of philosophy and how to play the game and I come down on the side of Euro ball.

Neocon, I don’t mean to be disrespectful here. In fact I think too much of that has been going on. But, I must make mention of the fact that I fail to see any coherence in what you just said. First of all, the history of european and south american soccer is completely irrelevant. By, that logic we should go after the former Brazilian coach because Brazil has great history. But, he clearly stunk. Secondly, although this is of course a matter of opinion, I highly doubt many football fans would agree with you about the beauty of soccer being in europe. A team like Germany for example, usually plays a brand of football that is not terribly beautful. In fact I would say, save for this last WC, they are about the last team I would want to watch. South America has more beautiful futbol than England or Germany. Within europe, the most beautiful soccer is clearly Portugal (if you neglect all the horrendous diving). Anyhow, the point is not how beautiful you play but how well you play. No one really plays exceptionally ugly soccer at the WC. Winning is what’s crucial.

Posted from  United States

Adam let me try to be more articulate in this post. I think we can agree that Europe and South America generally play different styles of soccer. Europeans generally play a defensive style with counter attacks and S. Americans generally rely heavily on an attack oriented game. My position is that the US should adopt a Euro style of play. I say this because I believe it to best way to play and win.

As you said “Winning is what’s crucial”. So I pointed out if you look at the history of World Cup the continent that has had the greatest success is Europe. So I would think the US would want to emulate a style of play with the greatest success. Hence my support for Klinsmn over Pekerman. Yet somehow you find this logic irrelevant? That fact that you consider this “irrelevant” I find puzzling.

I think we have different definitions of beautiful football. I thought the best game of the World Cup was Italy v Germany and I’m not just talking about the last two minutes of the game. Watching them go back and forth, the match ups, the tactics employed ,simply beautiful. Other people think the 6-0 game Argie v SM was great. That’s not great football to me.

We cannot bring Brazil into this discussion. Brazil is a freak of nature and you cannot copy their game. They simply continuously produce so many top players that they can just go out their and attack.

So in the end we can agree that “Winning is what’s crucial” but I think we have the best chance with Klinsman and the Euro Style.

Neocon, I agree with most of what you are writing. But California Klinsi does not implement your typcal Euro~Boring-Style. With his rather offensive play (South America???) he won over the hearts of many fans. And being a German living in the USA, I do believe I understand the American mentality and have observed that Americans enjoy a good attacking game. And JK has done just that. That was the first anti-German thing he has done. The German press did not believe in him and I for myself have to say I have never seen the Germans play as exciting as during WM 2006 (watched the WM since 1966). This California Klinsi style would bring a lot of dormant US soccer fans out into the great wide open.

Posted from  United States

I agree with LA fan, and that’s precisely what I meant when I said the history of soccer is irrelevent. It is irrelevent because Klinsman does not play a typical euro style of soccer. He plays (what you classify) as a more south american style — attack oriented. So, it is not accurate to say that Klinsman is the model of how europeans plays soccer and therefore Klinsman is better than Pekerman. You see your logic breaks down due to the fact that you are making gross generalizations. You are not looking at the individual coaches but you are saying they are apart of this country’s history. Then, in a second generalization, you say that this country is apart of this conitinent’s history and you are arguing between 2 different continents instead of 2 different people and coaches, which is what you should be doing. Thirdly, just like Brazil isn’t the norm in S.American, neither is Argentina! Argentina is regarded just under Brazil and most analysts believed that Argentina would do better than Brazil this WC. Fourthly, the whole defend and counter stradegy is exactly what the US had been doing, and doing quite poorly (except for the Italy game where they took it to them and played their best soccer). This is exactly what the US should go away from in terms of stradegy and luckily neither Pekerman nor Klinsman employ this stradegy. So, it looks like we will be in good shape with either coach.

Posted from  United States

I believe that with either Klinsmann or Pekerman, the probable winner will be american soccer.
They are both excellent managers, both are highly educated and know the sport in and out. They both are true gentlemen who have respect and care for their players.
They have praised each other for their style, and this was before WC’06.
If we look at it closer, these two are not that different from each other.
In my humble opinion, the issue is not which of these two coaches is better.
My point is that with either of them, american soccer has a lot of work to do, to hopefully one day, be competitive at the top level.

Posted from  United States

Forgot to mention. I think the system should adapt to the players and not the other way around.
So from that point of view, we don’t really know what any of them would do with team USA.

Posted from  United States

i want Klinsmann to coach it because for the simple fact that he talks english and besides i think pekermen will be the manager of ac milan

Posted from  United States

gollllazo I have heard the names of Lippi and Rikkard associated with a Milan move but not Pekerman.

Did you read abouth this somewhere? I would be interested to know since I am a big milan fan.

Thankfully Sunil Gulati (USSF president)reads my posts. It has been reported that Klinsmann will be the new US Manager.

Reported where? Interestingly Dolo already told the German media that Klinsmann was hired a week ago. If that’s true I wonder why it hasn’t been announced. Also, I don’t think anyone disagreed that Klinsmann would make a great US coach!

Posted from  United States

Pekerman to Milan? Not in a million and a half years. Coaching Arg. NT is one thing but that does not qualify him to coach AC MILAN!!

Marc i don’t think Pekerman is going to coach Milan either, but not for the reson you gave.

Adam I know most people agreed that Klismann would make a great coach, however most didn’t have my insight as to why he would.

Regardless he’s here now and I am looking forward to seeing him manage the US.

Haha, what insight? You gave backwards logic whereas many others said we need a young, vibrant, attack-minded coach who can also develop the youth program and instill confidence. That was both obvious and much more insightful than saying we need a european coach (which there are a million of) so we can defend and counter which Klinsmann doesn’t do. Although, in the knock out rounds EVERYONE plays it a bit more safe except for teams like Ghana who have nothing to lose and we saw what happened to them.

Posted from  United States