Pressure is mounting on USA coach Jurgen Klinsmann after his side were ruthlessly dismantled 4-0 by Costa Rica, to leave them bottom of CONCACAF’s six-team qualifying stage for the 2018 World Cup.
Four days after a home defeat to Mexico, Klinsmann’s men were thrashed in San Jose, and now face an uphill battle to qualify for an eighth consecutive finals place.
They now sit bottom of qualifying without a point from their opening two matches, after their worst qualifying defeat in 36 years.
And US soccer president Sunil Gulati was non-committal over Klinsmann’s future post-game.
“We won’t make any decisions right after games,” Gulati said. “We’ll think about what happened today and talk with Jurgen and look at the situation.”
Former Germany and Bayern Munich boss Klinsmann – who had been linked with the England job – has been allowed relative autonomy in his running of the USMNT since replacing Bob Bradley in 2011.
However the 52-year-old has come in for growing criticism over the last 18 months, and while four of the six teams in ‘The Hex’ qualify for the finals, there is growing concern that the US could miss out on a spot in Russia.
US chiefs haven’t sacked a coach during a qualifying campaign since 1989.
But after Klinsmann changed formation for the defeat against Mexico – and stuck with it in Costa Rica – calls for a change continue to grow, with the US not playing again until March, and veteran coach Bruce Arena’s contract at LA Galaxy expiring at the end of the year.
“It’s definitely the defeat that hurts the most in my five years, for sure,” admitted Klinsmann after the game.
“It’s a bitter moment for us. There’s no doubt about it. We didn’t imagine we’d start the Hexagonal with two defeats right at the beginning.
“We knew it was going to be difficult playing Mexico and Costa Rica in the first two games. But obviously you want to have some points.
“This is definitely a moment to reflect on what happened in the last 10 days. I said to the players it won’t be the only 4-0 defeat in their career.
“But hopefully they’ll take some lessons from this. Definitely it’s bitter because we wanted to do far better than we did.”
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