AL-RAYYAN, Qatar – Eight years after leading the U.S. men’s national team at Brazil 2014, Jurgen Klinsmann stepped back into the World Cup spotlight in a very different role on Saturday.The charismatic German-American is one of the headliners on FIFA’s latest “Technical Study Group,” a group of former players and managers convened to analyze the action in Qatar, present its data aspects to teams and fans alike via cutting-edge analytics technology and glean observations about the sport’s future.Klinsmann joined legendary manager Arsene Wenger, who chairs the TSG, to present an overview of their work and field questions from reporters at the FIFA media centre in suburban Doha. And the final query of the session took him back to his old job, as he praised both MLS and the USMNT’s talented generation of youngsters for the growing profile of U.S.-reared managers like Jesse Marsch and Gregg Berhalter.“Personally, I think it has changed a lot over the last 10, 12 years, how the world looks at American soccer,” said Klinsmann, who later reeled off the list of U.S. players contributing at high-level European clubs as he tipped the USMNT as a team to be reckoned with in a chat with German-language media. “The world looks at America as not only from a national team perspective, but also from a developmental point of view, with Major League Soccer now being there over 25 years.“So I think there’s far more respect now, not only for the players, which now play in Champions League teams in Europe, but also from a coaching perspective, where you see coaches coming through, coaching in different countries in Europe. It has improved a lot.”The ex-USMNT boss also predicted “a tournament of bravery and high quality” in Qatar over the next month. Noting that European-based players will arrive at the World Cup from their clubs in midseason form, Klinsmann reasoned that the event’s compact size and carefully cultivated playing surfaces will make for aesthetically pleasing soccer.“You take them out of their club system and you go right away into the tournament,” he said. “You don’t need to kind of build them physically anymore, their clubs are in full swing. So it’s more down to the mental aspect of the game, to get them really zoomed in, to get them focused, to get them the right balance of energy, and then obviously, to have a positive approach into the tournament.”He also foresees “room for surprises,” with non-traditional contenders rising in comparable fashion to the upsets of the 2002 World Cup, the event’s only other Asian locale to date.“If it’s maybe an African nation, if it’s an Asian team, if they’re courageous, I think you can go actually far in this tournament,” he said. “This is not a tournament to kind of just sit back and defend. I think it’s a tournament that really invites you to go to be courageous to go forward. I don’t think that you go far if you just have a very defensive approach in this tournament now, because the teams are fit, the teams are hungry and they want to get going.”
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