U.S. heads to World Cup with players struggling for game time
U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann said Thursday he had been in touch regularly with the players he’s called up this week from the second round World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica, but called that an “important first step” to getting them closer to the match-day squad ahead of their trip to Trinidad and Tobago at the end of the month.
“The training staff obviously has been working hard every day for a week now, doing different drills and going over, and doing different things,” he said after his team’s 1-0 loss in San Jose. “I think at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of this week, we will continue to get closer.
“I can only speak on this game, we’ll see what happens in the next days. There’s only so many days left until the last game on June 22. We need to make sure we get our decisions right in this process.”
The U.S. lost its first two games of the qualifiers by identical 2-0 scores, but the next two — Panama and Costa Rica — have not been so tough and Klinsmann does not seem overly concerned about the pressure he knows is on him to give his players a shot at making the final 23.
“I believe that the team that is able to handle every moment of this World Cup is good enough,” he said. “I believe that the team that will show that on the night, that will play well in the most stressful moments of the game, in the most intense moments of the game, in the most physical moments of the game, those guys will be ready to play.”
The U.S. plays Panama in San Jose on Tuesday, then Costa Rica a day later in Panama City. The Americans also are playing El Salvador in Columbus, site of their next World Cup qualifying game.
Klinsmann, who has had his players watch film of Costa Rica so they can analyze it and study the way it responds in different situations, said it was more difficult to study Costa Rica’s game than it had been with the U.S.’ opponents in the past.
“We looked very, very intensively at Costa Rica, so I will not be surprised if the same thing will happen with Costa Rica.”
“We had to go out on the road, go out