Klinsmann “1,000 percent sure” US will reach World Cup, calls for patience

By Charles Boehm for MLS Soccer.

Jurgen Klinsmann fired back at his growing ranks of increasingly harsh critics in remarks published by Reuters on Sunday.

The US national team coach has come under intense scrutiny over the past week as his team stumbled out to an 0-2 record in their first two matches of the Hexagonal round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying. Friday’s narrow 2-1 home loss to Mexico in their heretofore impregnable fortress of MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus, Ohio was closely followed by a humiliating 4-0 thrashing at Costa Rica.

But Klinsmann professed to be unshaken from his course after attending a state dinner in Berlin with (among others) US President Obama and host Angela Merkel, chancellor of Klinsmann’s native Germany.

“It’s important to put this in the right perspective,” he told Reuters’ Erik Kirschbaum, who also wrote “Soccer Without Borders,” a book published earlier this year that narrated and praised Klinsmann’s work with the USMNT.

“We lost the two opening games and played the two best teams right away,” said Klinsmann. “We have eight more games to get the points needed to qualify. We’ve always reacted strongly when things were nerve-wracking.

“This team is always capable of reacting. We’ll correct this with the two games in March [qualifiers vs. Honduras and Panama] and we’ll take one game at a time from there to get our points. I’m 1,000 percent sure we’ll qualify.”

Klinsmann acknowledged the criticism aimed in his direction of late, but said it could detract from the long-term development of his team, calling for patience and levelheadedness instead.

“When things go slightly wrong, there are some people who come out and are ready to chop your head off,” he said. “In the long run, that’s going to make the development of the team difficult. It’s important to stay calm and be patient.

“There are definitely issues to be addressed but there is no reason to exaggerate them or panic … It’s important to have the end result in mind. And the big picture is the overall development of the team in the four-year cycle between two World Cups. You have to be ready to take some setbacks during that phase.”

Klinsmann also said he received verbal support from Obama when the two met. Read the full Reuters story here.