U.S. Soccer fires Jurgen Klinsmann as men's national team coach
Jurgen Klinsmann has been fired as the head coach of the U.S. men's national soccer team, U.S. Soccer announced Monday.
The decision comes less than a week after the U.S. lost 4–0 to Costa Rica in a 2018 World Cup qualifying match. It was the worst shutout loss in World Cup qualifying since 1957 and ensured the U.S. began the final round of qualifying with no points for the first time since the CONCACAF region moved to its current format.
Klinsmann was named the head coach in 2011 after several attempts by U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati to hire him in 2006 and 2010. In December 2013, he signed a contract extension that ran through 2018 and was also named technical director of the men's program.
Under Klinsmann, the U.S. won the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup and reached the round of 16 of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, falling to Belgium in extra time. The U.S. also reached the semifinals of the 2016 Copa America Centenario, where it fell 4-0 to Argentina and then again to Colombia in the third-place game, settling for fourth.
On the flip side, the U.S. lost in the semifinals of the 2015 Gold Cup–falling on home soil to Jamaica–and proceeded to fall to Mexico in the inaugural CONCACAF Cup playoff for the region's place in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. The consecutive losses this month to Mexico and Costa Rica put the Americans in an early hole and have raised the possibility of missing the 2018 World Cup as they sit at the bottom of CONCACAF's table.
The next World Cup qualifying matches for the U.S. will be in March against Honduras and Panama.
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