After the Laughter

Because the best and biggest tournament of our lives is about to crest, so this is the absolute perfect time for that, I know.Fut 14 Coins I admit I'm an extremely easily manipulated person, and I'm particularly vulnerable to what nowadays are being called Hot Takes! - sports opinions that are put in, and belong in, nutshells. Our community is currently embroiled in a controversy that will last throughout the 2018 World Cup cycle (which, for our purposes, began Tuesday evening), and it is very susceptible to such Hot Takes! Viz., what to do and how to feel about Juergen Klinsmann.

We can't even form opinions based on results, because our expectations of what the results should be are completely inconsistent. Should we have made the Round of 16? Should we have made it even farther? Reasonable and unreasonable minds differ - but those same minds differed between May and today, too.

Now, I was so pessimistic I asked for, and received, a picture of Klinsmann piloting the Hindenburg with Ian Darke making the "Oh, the humanity!" call. The picture was awesome, too. But then we beat Ghana, and I still have the shin bruises from hopping on the bandwagon. So I believe Klinsmann did a Good Job. Guess I should have paid attention to Nate Silver and not the sports books after all.

But there were things I didn't like, at all, about how Klinsmann managed the team.

Thursday, June 26: US To Launch All-Out Offensive In Last 16, Says Klinsmann

"But whoever we face now, we are going to take it to the them. Now we can put this behind us and, as we know, when the group is done, another tournament starts and that is a whole other ball game."

Wednesday, July 2: Klinsmann: We Show Too Much Respect

"I think there is a little bit too much respect when it comes to the big stage - why not play them eye-to-eye? I don't know how many years that takes to change but it's something we have to go through. The players have got to realize they have to take it to the opponent."

The nice thing about parking the bus is that it's right there handy when you want to throw your players under it.

There are at least fifty-seven things wrong with this. Let's go over them in painful detail - well, on second thought, let's try to nutshell them into Hot Takes!

We started one forward against Belgium, if that many. He had broken his nose two weeks before. He wasn't listed as a forward on the roster, probably because he isn't one.

Klinsmann, more than any other man, woman or child on the planet, was in a position to tell the US players that he wanted them to go forward. If this was a team full of independent-minded malcontents, the example of a certain World Cup ESPN commentator would have served as a handy example. It's possible the US practiced a 2-3-5 for Belgium and then just forgot about it when the whistle blew, but I wouldn't bet what's left of my farm on it.

It's also just BARELY POSSIBLE that Germany and Belgium have better teams than us. Teams capable of preventing snot-nosed upstarts from "taking it to them." I think it would have been acceptable under such circumstances to tell the world press that the other team had the talent to disrupt the game plan. The US wasn't able to "take it" to either team until extra time in the Belgium game, and only then after Klinsmann put in Julian Green AND Belgium parked the Le Car.

I know the Le Car wasn't Belgian.

I also know saying "the Le Car" is like saying "ATM machine."

So if I were a US international, and I read such nonsense the morning after the most intense, emotional and disappointing game of my career, well, I'd probably be a little bit frosted about it.

HOWEVER. I am not a US international - otherwise, well, the results wouldn't have been even as good as they were. Mind games such as this are acceptable if the players are motivated by it. Or if Klinsmann can convince those same players that these remarks were intended for the grist mill of idiot bloggers only.

Well, fine. We'll all take a deep breath, wait to see which scrappy underdog of Brazil, Argentina, Germany or Holland ends up winning the tournament, then cheer on Sporting KC as they try to defend their title or make an equally considered and informed decision not to. read more:FIFA 14 XBOX ONE Coins