5 Ways Jurgen Klinsmann Can Make USMNT Better in 2015

Listening to Jurgen Klinsmann talk about getting to the World Cup semifinal in 2018 reminds me of everything that is wrong with youth soccer in the United States.

Travel soccer programs (one of which my eight-year-old son plays for) tacitly promise to make otherwise unremarkable young soccer players into athletes capable of playing in high school or even in college. Parents see their kids running around in Nike kits and think that a college scholarship cannot be far off.

It would be horrible business for the coaches in these programs to tell most of these parents the truth, i.e., that except for one or maybe two of the hundreds of children in the program, none of them are going to be playing college soccer. No amount of coaching can create an elite player from an ordinary athlete.

So it is with the United States men's national team. Klinsmann should come straight out and tell you that all of the training and coaching in the world is not going to transform a team full of good but not great players into a side that can confidently beat top-10 world powers. The USMNT is ranked 23rd for a reason.

But there is no future for Klinsmann in admitting that just making the knockout stage of the World Cup is a terrific achievement and that doing so again in 2018 would be a success in itself. He has to keep selling the dream.

Here are five ways that Klinsmann can continue to make you believe that the USMNT are progressing toward that World Cup semifinal berth in 2018.

Make a Serious Commitment to Younger Players

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Yedlin and players like him are the future of the USMNT.

Chris Wondolowski, who is 31 years old now and has nearly no chance to make the 2018 World Cup team, played the first half of the USMNT's most recent friendly against Ireland. That was playing time wasted; it could have gone to any number of the younger strikers Klinsmann needs to develop.

Jermaine Jones is going to be 36 years old in the summer of 2018. Klinsmann is trying to recycle Jones into a defender. Klinsmann would do better finding someone a decade (or more) younger and making a defender out of that younger player than trying to change Jones' entire style of play as he ages.

The national teams the USMNT is chasing are finding and developing young players, not trying to squeeze one more World Cup out of players who maxed out at losing in the round of 16 in the knockout stage.

Go All in or All out on Jozy Altidore

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Altidore's value as a player is more speculative than actual.

It is wrong to rip a player for getting injured, and that is not what this slide means to do.

But Altidore's injury in the 2014 World Cup had devastating effects on Klinsmann's plans for the tournament. Klinsmann was largely to blame for that. Had he picked, say, Landon Donovan to come to Brazil, the USMNT may not have missed a beat even after Altidore went down.

Instead, Altidore's injury caused serial positional shifts for star players like Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey. Neither man played his best soccer in the tournament, and playing out of position surely did not help either man's cause.

Not even six months later, Altidore remains a fringe player at Sunderland in the Premier League. Altidore is 25, so age is not the question.

His talent is.

Klinsmann needs to decide sooner than later whether Altidore is the striker to lead the Americans in 2015 and beyond. If he is not, Klinsmann needs to subtly diminish Altidore's role on the team.

Go All in or All out on Tim Howard

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Howard's self-imposed exile from the USMNT suits him, but it may not suit Klinsmann.

Tim Howard was not wrong to ask for a year away from the United States Men's National Team. It was his prerogative. He is 35 years old, and the wear of playing as Everton's No. 1 in the Premier League in 2013/14 and then as the USMNT's No. 1 through the summer that followed was very real.

The San Antonio Spurs regularly rest 38-year-old center Tim Duncan in hopes of getting the best of what he has left when he plays. Conservation of energy is becoming more acceptable for older athletes in a sporting climate that has become more realistic about what aging athletes can and cannot do.

But Howard's need to take time away from the USMNT to prolong his effective playing career may not sync with Klinsmann's need to create a cohesive unit in 2015 and beyond. Brad Guzan is the presumptive No. 1 for the USMNT in Howard's absence.

If Guzan plays well in Howard's absence (and he has so far), why should Howard get the job back when and if he deigns to return?

Play Matches to Win or Play Matches to Blood Young Players, Not Both

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More Julian Green, as much as you can give us.

The United States men's national team's results in their last four friendlies suggest that they were exclusively experimenting with young talent and not worried about winning or losing. If you watched the matches, though, you know that is not true.

Particularly against the Republic of Ireland, Klinsmann started a veteran side with the hopes of winning the match. The Americans lost 4-1.

Conversely, in friendlies against Ecuador and Honduras, Klinsmann had young players like Bobby Wood and Joe Corona on the pitch in situations where he should have been trying to salt results away with veteran presences.

Klinsmann needs to decide in 2015 whether he is trying to win these matches or to develop young talent. He is probably better off playing the kids and living with losing in the short term. No one is going to remember the results of these upcoming 2015 friendlies in 2018 anyway.

Step Back from the Audacious Goal of a World Cup Semifinal in 2018

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Klinsmann can explain away his comments as his mouth getting ahead of his brain.

The best thing Klinsmann can do to make the USMNT better in 2015 is to throttle back the expectations he himself set for 2018.

Maybe the Americans can make a World Cup semifinal in 2018. Probably they cannot. Either way, the thundercloud of those words will hang over this team until either the 2018 World Cup is over or, preferably, until Klinsmann takes those words back.

It need not be an unconditional surrender. Klinsmann need not admit that he was delusional or at all dishonest when he said that the USMNT's goal is a 2018 World Cup semifinal. He can just say that he was carried away by the emotion of making the knockout stage and hanging with Belgium for as long as they did.

Playing the matches one at a time is always good advice. Klinsmann should heed it now.