Ryan O’Hanlon, ESPN.com writerJul 10, 2024, 08:00 AM ET
CloseRyan O’Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He’s also the author of “Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution.”Jurgen Klopp has won everything there is to win at the top levels of club soccer. Could he be persuaded to coach the U.S. men’s national team for a chance to win a World Cup? Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Deep within the hivemind of the U.S. men’s national team fan base, there has always been this lingering thought: “What if? What if we just hired one of the best soccer coaches in the world to coach our soccer team? That would be what puts us over the top.”
It already happened once — sort of. In 2006, Jurgen Klinsmann led a reenergized and rebooted Germany to extra time of the semifinals of the World Cup. The former national team star brought fresh ideas and a new perspective to a program that was seemingly being held back by tradition.
After the tournament, fans decided that he was the guy to lead the USMNT, and so too did the U.S. Soccer Federation. But talks eventually broke down much to the disappointment of almost everyone, and Bob Bradley was appointed the interim and eventual-full-time coach. Bradley then led the team through perhaps its most successful modern period: winning the Gold Cup final against Mexico for the first time in 2007, taking down all-conquering superpower Spain in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup in 2009 and winning a World Cup group that included England in 2010.
Eventually, though, Klinsmann did come, replacing Bradley in 2011. It’s just that he turned out to be more of a salesman than a savior. He talked a big game about getting players out of their comfort zones and reconceptualizing how this country viewed soccer, but there was no progress.
The team got out of its group at the 2014 World Cup, before hanging on for dear life in an extra-time loss to Belgium. In 2015, the Americans were eliminated in the semifinals of the Gold Cup by Jamaica, and after an unlikely run to the semifinals of the 2016 Copa America bought him some more time, Klinsmann was fired later that year with the U.S. at the bottom of the World Cup qualifying standings.
Now, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to think that this process was right in theory, but wrong in practice. As the succession of post-USMNT failures suggests, Klinsmann is simply just not a good coach. And with the USMNT’s disastrous group stage exit under Gregg Berhalter, plenty of U.S. fans and former players are now telling themselves that the team hired the wrong Jurgen.
So, let’s just say that U.S. Soccer went out and actually hired arguably the best coach in the world: former Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp. What would it look like, and what might actually happen?
How U.S. Soccer lands Klopp
Let me preface this: Don’t get your hopes up!
Ignoring how expensive it might be to actually hire Klopp, doesn’t it just seem pretty unlikely that the U.S. would go from Berhalter, previous manager of the Columbus Crew, to one of the — I don’t know — five or 10 most legendary coaches in the history of the sport? If Klopp is a realistic option, then wouldn’t one of the, what, 100 or 200 other coaches with a better track record than Berhalter be coaching the team right now?
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But OK, sure. Berhalter did get hired when his brother was a top-ranking executive at U.S. Soccer, and it’s not like large institutions are immune to irrational biases when hiring people in positions of power. And fine, Klopp did recently post on Instagram about how much he enjoyed Liverpool’s preseason trips to the United States. “U.S. fans are electric!” Klopp said in his post.
Klopp has also talked about feeling burnt out from the constant pressure of day-to-day training and club management. Managing the USMNT would scratch the management itch while not requiring him to train every day and live and die with multiple kicks of the ball, multiple times of the week.
So, let’s say this actually happens. Let’s see how it would look …
U.S. Soccer decides to dig into its cash reserves, or Jerome Powell decides to mint a Klopp Coin that allows the federation to pay the German coach more than any soccer coach has ever made.
On Aug. 1, U.S. Soccer announces that it has hired Jurgen Klopp on a short-term deal through the end of the 2026 World Cup. LeBron James tweets something about how this was all part of his plan when he became a micro-minority owner at Liverpool 15 years ago. Klopp sits at the podium at his opening news conference, flashes those veneers and talks about how this is the biggest challenge of his career.
“At Liverpool, I only had to turn a city from doubters to believers. Now, I must do it with an entire country,” he says. He pinches both hands together on either side of his head and makes an exploding motion with both hands. “Phwoah! But I know, if we trust each other, we can do it.”
In a nation steeped in the gruff, performatively rude coaching styles of Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, sports fans across the country immediately fall in love with Klopp’s emotional intelligence, his endearingly imperfect English and the fact that he seems to genuinely care about his players. A nation wonders: Are coaches really allowed to do that?
The Klopp era of the USMNT begins
The dilemma for all national-team players, coaches and executives is that there simply are not enough competitive matches to truly understand the quality of your team.
Studies have shown that it takes about 10 games in the Premier League for a team’s past performance to become predictive of future results. And even that takes a little more nuance to understand.
It’s not that past results are predictive of future results. Instead, the most predictive metric of future results is a team’s expected-goal (or xG) difference.
For the uninitiated, xG puts a conversion percentage on every shot a team takes and concedes, based on a historical database of thousands of shots with similar characteristics. Over time, most teams and players will regress toward their xG so their actual goals line up with expected goals. Some outliers will overperform or underperform over a large sample, but the degree of over-or-under-performance is still relatively minor.
So, you need a decent sample of games to know how good you are, and you need to understand that results don’t really matter when compared to the underlying performance. National teams never get 10 matches in a row of consistent lineups and consistent opponents. And the nature of the competitions themselves don’t allow for much long-term thinking. You’re eliminated from competition well before your results catch up to your performances.
This summer’s Copa America for the USMNT was a perfect example of both problems. The team played only three games, which means that things like poor goalkeeping, inaccurate finishing, great finishing from your opponent, bad refereeing, a one-off bad game or an out-of-nowhere red card can have an outsized effect on your results. And well, pretty much all of that happened for the USMNT.
Ricardo Pepi attempted seven shots worth 2.27 xG at the Copa America … and he scored zero goals. This has nothing to do with bad coaching, and it also doesn’t say anything about Pepi beyond “he just didn’t score.” Seven shots isn’t anywhere close to enough shots — think, like 500 — to have any confidence in Pepi’s finishing ability. And yet if, say, he converts his wide-open header in the 81st minute against Panama, the U.S. probably wins the game and definitely gets out of the group.
Each attempt is sized by its xG value — the bigger the circle, the higher the xG:
In the second game, Tim Weah’s red card forced the U.S. to play a man down for 70 minutes against an inferior team — essentially leveling the playing field between the two sides. Panama didn’t really even create that many great chances: just 0.77 xG across the match.
Based on where the shots ended up on the goal frame, we can estimate the likelihood that all of Panama’s attempts would lead to a goal. The four shots that hit the target would typically lead to 0.93 goals, per Stats Perform’s model. The combination of Matt Turner and Ethan Horvath in goal, though, allowed those attempts to turn into two goals.
And then, in the last match against Uruguay, the referee was simply in way over his head. The USMNT didn’t play particularly well, but who knows how things might have gone if there were a more experienced official who controlled the game and didn’t, say, let Uruguay have a breakaway while the referee was giving a yellow card to Chris Richards.
All of these problems are now amplified by the current situation, where, as hosts and automatic qualifiers, the USMNT doesn’t have many competitive matches before the 2026 World Cup. There are, of course, friendlies, but these aren’t competitive games that you’re supposed to win.
Klopp knows this. At Liverpool, he would constantly change lineups across friendlies and frequently swap out nearly an entire eleven at halftime. Results were not the point.
So, what would the early days of Klopp’s tenure with the U.S. men’s national team look like? Well …
Across his first three matches as USMNT manager, Klopp experiments with a number of different lineups and player configurations. There’s one where Christian Pulisic plays as a midfielder. There’s another where Yunus Musah plays right back. Malik Tillman starting over Gio Reyna? Sure. Jordan Morris back in the fold? Why not?
Burnley’s Luca Koleosho commits his future to the USMNT and makes his debut against Canada in September and then features against New Zealand a few days later. Thanks to Klopp’s constant tinkering and heavy rotation, the USMNT loses to Canada and draws with New Zealand. Then, with USMNT fans desperate for revenge against Panama in an October friendly, the U.S. goes into halftime with a 2-0 lead, but then draws the match 2-2 after rotating nearly their entire lineup in the second half.
With no wins from his first three matches, some fans and commentators begin to wonder whether Klopp actually “gets” American soccer. Doesn’t he know that we want to win every game that we play? Some fringe commentators and former USMNT players wonder aloud whether we really should’ve hired someone who never played for the team before.
Klopp is asked about these comments, and the news conference eventually has to be canceled because he can’t control his laughter. Every time he attempts to speak, he starts to giggle even louder. “The Klopp Challenge” becomes a thing on TikTok as Zoomers everywhere try to figure out how to activate a sense of humor that unleashes a string of organic, unstoppable laughter that lasts for at least five minutes straight.
In November, the first “competitive” games of the Klopp era are played: the Nations League quarterfinals. In a rematch against Trinidad & Tobago from the previous tournament’s quarterfinals, Klopp chooses a similar lineup to Berhalter’s preferred set up in the Copa America. The main differences: Koleosho steps in for Gio Reyna as part of the front three, Tillman replaces Yunus Musah in the midfield, and Weah starts at right back.
At home, the U.S. destroys T&T in the first leg 4-0, then they win 2-1 in the away match. Rather than acknowledging that the U.S. outshoot Trinidad 26-1 in the home matchup under Berhalter and that the only real difference between the two away legs is that an injured Sergiño Dest wasn’t sent off for punting a ball into the stands under Klopp, fans and commentators hold up these games as clear progress for the program.
A few months later, the U.S. does what it always does: wins the Nations League, for the fourth time in a row. By winning the thing that they’ve never lost, Klopp’s USMNT has American soccer fans dreaming bigger than ever before ahead of the World Cup.
A World Cup with Klopp managing the USMNT
The dirty little secret of international soccer is that managers can only do so much. That’s also the dirty little secret of club soccer — or any sport, really.
In October 2019, Klopp said as much: “In football, there are two ways to improve. One is to sign good players and the second is training.” After a string of disappointing results midway through his first Liverpool season when a few key players were out injured and/or playing poorly, Klopp said, “I am not David Copperfield.” He might have to be, though, to match the expectations that would come with him taking over the USMNT.
If training and signing players are the two ways to improve a team, then there’s really not much he can do. Outside of convincing a handful of dual nationals to play for the United States, the player pool is the player pool. Your two best players are goalkeepers? You can’t transfer one out and bring in a striker with the funds. Klopp wouldn’t be able to acquire Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, and Alisson in consecutive transfer windows, like he did at Liverpool.
And as USMNT manager, Klopp wouldn’t really be able to improve the players much, either. These guys are all spending the vast majority of their time getting trained and coached by people who are not the coach of the USMNT. If we accept that coaches can improve players and most of that improvement comes at the training ground, the managers of AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund and PSV Eindhoven will have a far bigger effect on the quality of the U.S. player pool than Klopp would with his 20 or 30 training sessions a year.
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Klopp to manage USMNT: It’s not impossible
Herc Gomez says “it’s not impossible” to see former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp managing the USMNT.
The quality of managers in international soccer is way lower than in the club game — mainly because it doesn’t pay as well and the best coaches want to be training every day and signing new players — so maybe a great coach has a bigger marginal impact internationally than he does in the club game. But from a pure managing perspective, international managers have less of an influence on team performance than club managers. And club managers don’t have as much of an influence as you think.
Don’t take it from me, either. “I’ve said it many times: We, the managers, are overrated in our influence” — that’s a quote from none other than Pep Guardiola, the most influential manager of the 21st century. Or how about the most influential manager of all time, Johan Cruyff: “If your players are better than your opponents, 90% of the time you will win.” And what about the guy who just won the Champions League for a record fifth time, Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti?
“The most important role is never that of the coach,” he said in April. “I am very clear about one thing, and that is that there are two types of coaches: those who do nothing and those who do a lot of damage. I try to be the first. The game belongs to the players and you can tell them a certain strategy, convince them, but then they decide their quality and commitment. A technician has to focus on making the group understand the importance of teamwork.”
Most analysis suggests that a great manager can improve a team by a couple points per season, and that lines up with the economics of the sport. “A few points per season” is generally the value of the best players, and salaries for the best managers are in line with those of the best players.
Were Klopp able to have the same kind of impact with the USMNT, it wouldn’t even be perceptible in the same way. Although he’s been the coach (mostly) since 2018, Berhalter has only managed 45 competitive matches for the U.S. — just slightly more than a full Premier League season. If Klopp added, say, five points to the USMNT’s performance over a 38-game sample when compared to Berhalter, that’d be less than two-tenths of a point per match. On a game-to-game basis, Klopp’s influence would be a barely perceptible increase in a few percentage points of win probability.
Klopp, again, is fully aware of this. So, let’s check in with how our alternate reality is playing out …
With the USMNT’s golden generation almost all firmly in their primes, the dominant Nations League performances, the games at home and Klopp on the sideline, even some non-Americans are convincing themselves that the USMNT could be a dark horse to go all of the way in the 2026 World Cup. The manager, though, tries to pump the brakes a few days before the tournament starts.
“When you look at the talent of France and England — even my Germany — it’s not realistic to think that we could compete with those countries. Look at Germany: they win it all then don’t even get out of the group at the next two World Cups,” Klopp says. “Anything can happen in knockout football, both good and bad. You see Belgium’s super-super-talented players — so many superstars, at so many big clubs, [Eden] Hazard, [Mousa] Dembele, [Thibaut] Courtois — never make it past a semifinal at a major tournament. You also saw Morocco make the semifinals in Qatar. We shouldn’t be judged on three or four games, but I understand this is how football works. All I can guarantee is that we’ll give it our best.”
Klopp knows that his organization and motivation can only take his players so far. When he took over in 2024, various estimates put the talent level of the team at somewhere between the 15th-to-30th best in the world. The overall estimated market value of American players is the 16th highest in the world, while the consultancy Twenty First Group ranks the 25 best American players as the 30th-best group in the world.
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2:31
Klinsmann: Jurgen Klopp would be an ‘unbelievable’ hire for the USMNT
Jurgen Klinsmann discusses the importance of U.S. Soccer picking the right name for the USMNT job after a group stage exit at the Copa America.
Come 2026, there’s been internal improvement among the American player pool. Gio Reyna has stayed at Borussia Dortmund and churned out a couple 1,500-minute seasons in a row. Folarin Balogun has become one of the best strikers in France. Sergino Dest has recovered from his ACL injury and is once again attracting interest from the biggest clubs in the world after another great season at PSV. Malik Tillman has become a starter at Inter Milan.
At the same time, not everything has panned out. No center back has emerged capable of filling in for Tim Ream, who is 38 when the World Cup starts. Matt Turner has moved back to MLS after a rough stretch with Nottingham Forest, and there’s no clear successor in goal, either.
Then, in the lead-up to the World Cup, Tyler Adams injures his hamstring and is ruled out for the entire event. If there’s one criticism to be had of Klopp, it’s that he pushes his players too hard in training, and it finally backfired for the USMNT after his first prolonged training camp with the team.
Given the internal improvement among the attackers, the respect for the coach, and the potential for home-field advantage, the U.S. enters the tournament as the 12th-biggest favorite to win it all. With an easy group thanks to the expanded field and its status as a seeded team, the USMNT has no trouble advancing from its group. After an opening 1-1 draw against Egypt that pitted Klopp against his former star player, Mohamed Salah, the Americans win their next two matches, 3-1 against Albania and 2-1 against Paraguay.
In the round of 32, they brush aside Canada, 2-0, after Jesse Marsch’s team qualified as the third-place side from Group B. This sets up a round of 16 match with … France.
Winners of Group G, France are flying high under new manager Zinedine Zidane, who has empowered more of the team’s attacking talent than previous manager, Didier Deschamps, ever did. Kylian Mbappé has just scored 40 goals in LaLiga for Real Madrid, while the midfield of Warren Zaïre-Emery, Eduardo Camavinga, and Aurélien Tchouaméni is looking like one of those trios we’ll be talking about for decades. Behind them, new Real Madrid record signing William Saliba is universally considered the best center back in the world, while his more passive style is matched perfectly by the aggression of Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konaté, who finally stopped getting injured after Klopp left the club.
In the match, the USMNT goes up early, when a clever diagonal ball from Dest finds Pulisic, who beats Jules Koundé to the endline, and then squares for Balogun, who nips in front of Konate to slide the ball past goalkeeper Mike Maignan.
One of the things that have made Klopp such a great manager is that he doesn’t suffer from the conservatism that afflicts most coaches across most sports. His teams create chances and score tons of goals by embracing risk. And this holds true even after they score — Klopp’s teams don’t try to hold onto one-goal wins by going into a defensive shell. No, they know that their best path to victory is taking that lead up to two. In the long run, it leads to more wins and more trophies — even if it doesn’t always work out.
After taking the lead, the U.S. continues to attack against France, but without Adams to clean everything up, Mbappe continues to find space on the left wing after the French midfield gets up a head of speed once they break through the USMNT’s press. Mbappe scores one right before half to tie the score. In the second half, the U.S. keeps attacking — and then Mbappe scores again. And again. France win 3-1, and the USMNT is eliminated in the round of 16 for the second World Cup in a row.
While some applaud the Americans and their attempt to keep attacking France, most commentators and fans in the U.S. see it as a kind of fatal naivete. They tell Klopp that this isn’t Liverpool, that Sadio Mané and Virgil van Dijk aren’t walking through that door. They convince themselves that, for all of his success at every other team he’s coached, Klopp actually wasn’t the right fit for this team.
Commentators and fans don’t see any progress in the team’s results. All that the best generation of American soccer players is left with: two round-of-16 exits at the World Cup, one under Berhalter, one under Klopp. And as it always does, the disappointing results fall at the feet of the coach.
Klopp’s contract expires, and he moves back to Germany. Commentators and fans alike quickly move their attention elsewhere. If Klopp wasn’t right, then this guy has to be it: Following a yearlong sabbatical after his contract expired with Manchester City, Pep Guardiola has said he’s finally ready to get back into coaching.
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