The work has just begun in Jurgen Klinsmann's overhaul of the U.S. men's national team
Even thousands of miles away, floating in over the airwaves, you could hear head coach Jurgen Klinsmann bellowing at his United States men's national team during its disjointed 3-2 loss to Chile in Rancagua on Wednesday night.
"Hold it!"
"Help out!"
"Move it around!"
In a lot of ways, a national team coach beginning his second World Cup cycle is akin to a president beginning his second term. He has delivered the goods and he's been reelected as his reward. Now, with a renewed mandate and a track record, he can really get ambitious. This is his last term, after all.
Klinsmann, likewise, commands a lot more authority now than when he took over in 2011. He did well enough in Brazil last summer in spite of a tough draw, and his re-upped contract now runs through the 2018 World Cup (no American coach has gotten a third cycle, by the way).
You could reasonably argue that now is his first opportunity to really coach, to implement the vision he's been telling us about for 3½ years. He has taken to this task with gusto.
In the Americans' first game of the new year, Klinsmann brazenly rolled out a 3-5-2 scheme, which is the formation du jour with the game's master tacticians – a group Klinsmann has never been accused of belonging to – but it would be foolhardy to draw sweeping conclusions from this affair. It was a meaningless friendly. And there were other extenuating circumstances.
This USA team is in its offseason and more than a month removed from the new Major League Soccer season. And it showed. The Americans put on a gamely performance in the first half but wilted in the second, when their reserves of energy quickly tapped out.
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Although the homecoming of so many Americans of late has upgraded the annual January camp from a get-together derided as Camp Cupcake and stocked only with fringe players and prospects to a real national team camp, there was a caveat there as well. With the under-23 team being assembled and readied for Olympic qualifiers later this year, Klinsmann had chosen to call a slew of eligible players into a senior camp, blending it with a team preparing for the summer's Gold Cup and the fall's beginning of 2018 World Cup qualifying. It made for a fragmented squad.
Chile, for its part, was without its many stars employed in Europe. Just five players on their roster, in fact, had more than four caps.
Given those factors, the loss to a deep program – diluted as it may have been on the day – still entitled the Americans to some credibility.
Early on, their quick transitions were encouraging. The outcomes in international soccer are increasingly dictated by a team's ability to shuffle through the margin from defending to attacking. The Americans, for a team lacking match rhythm, looked sharp in that regard whenever Chile surrendered its ample possession.
The new formation, meanwhile, also suggested that it could be of use down the line. The extra central defender, an area where the USA has long been vulnerable, helped clutter that space while the wing backs created overloads going forward.
In a helter-skelter opening phase, for instance, Brek Shea, who manned the left wing, bombed up the flank in the sixth minute. Defender Matt Besler hit a deftly measured ball through Chile's back line for Shea to run onto. The blond enigma loped onto the end of it and rifled a half-volley past goalkeeper Johnny Herrera and into the far side netting for the opening goal.
Yet the marking issues, which have marred the American defense for some time now, persisted. In the 10th minute, Mark Gonzalez got a cross by DeAndre Yedlin and guided it onto the head of Roberto Gutierrez. The Chilean striker had snuck between Jermaine Jones and Besler, where he rose and coolly nodded it behind Nick Rimando. Jones is newly converted to the defense – another Klinsmann experiment – but plainly lost his man.
Within 10 minutes, both the merits and the potential flaws of Klinsmann's latest schemes had been exposed. The Americans would recover. After half an hour, midfielder Mix Diskerud combined well with Yedlin to scamper into the box and cut the ball back to striker Jozy Altidore, who tidily slid his finish in at the far post to make it 2-1.
In the second half, however, things fell apart. The Americans, at a distinct fitness disadvantage, fell into a less adventurous formation and were overrun as Chile would get a well-deserved equalizer in the 66th minute. A combination sprung Gonzalez behind Yedlin, and the former Liverpool man cleverly used Gutierrez as a decoy this time to beat Rimando at his near post.
Not 10 minutes later, Chile got its winner. A sizzling shot from outside the box was parried well by Rimando, but Gonzalez was allowed to volley home the rebound, which seemed to take a deflection on its way into the net.
It could have been worse, certainly, as Rimando made a series of fine saves to erase a few defensive blunders like Jones letting himself get stripped of the ball outside his own box or the debutant Steve Birnbaum almost kneeing a lazy cross into his own net. It could also have been worse considering the fact the Americans were bailing out water for the last hour with a system that isn't much use on a sinking ship.
If he is forced to draw conclusions, Klinsmann might find that his new system produced enough flourishes to have merit. And that he has a lot of shouting to do yet.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
