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Donovan correct to say Klinsmann should go if U.S. loses to Mexico

Donovan correct to say Klinsmann should go if U.S. loses to Mexico

It's possible to be both spiteful and correct.

On Tuesday, retired United States men's national team legend Landon Donovan took an unexpected swipe at Jurgen Klinsmann, the incumbent head coach who ostracized him from the national team and denied him a last hurrah at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

"Around the world, if a player plays poorly and a player has a bad string of results, they get dropped from the team," Donovan said to ESPN FC. "Jurgen said many times he wants our players to feel pressure – so if they lose a game they can't go to the grocery store the next day. If they lose a game, they are getting hammered in the press."

"Well, the same holds true for the coach, and so we had a very poor summer with bad results in the Gold Cup. The last game against Brazil was probably the worst game I've seen them play under Jurgen," Donovan continued. "The reality is that now, anywhere else in the world, if this coach had those results, and they lose this game against Mexico [on Saturday], they'd be fired. I think if Jurgen wants to hold all the players to that standard, then he has to be held to that standard, too."

To many, it all sounded like sour grapes.

Maybe they were. But it should be said that Donovan has never struck anyone as a vindictive sort of man. He's the essence of California. He's about being centered and finding the joy and happiness in life. He retired at 32 because he just didn't want to play soccer anymore. He'd never been the kind of player who looked for slights where there weren't any, just to keep himself sharp. He confessed openly that he struggled to motivate himself for stretches of his career. He was unusually candid.

All the same, Donovan has every reason to be bitter. He had an unmatched body of work, was still playing well, yet was left off a World Cup team to make room for Julian Green, an 18-year-old with one two-minute senior club appearance and one national team cap. One who turned out to have an injury so severe at the time of his selection in favor of Donovan that he didn't see the field until the fourth and final game of the Americans' tournament.

But that's all beside the point. Because even if Donovan were just settling a score with the only U.S. coach not to treat him like the transcendent player that he was – one who smashed both the all-time national team records for assists and goals scored – that doesn't mean he isn't right.

Klinsmann's job would be in serious peril in just about any other country, whereas he faces no danger of being fired by U.S. Soccer at all. Never mind that his team's form has vacillated between poor and pedestrian – a slump masked somewhat by friendly wins over the Netherlands and Germany even though the U.S. was badly outplayed. Or that they flamed out unspectacularly and unacceptably in the semifinals of the Gold Cup. Or that if they lose to El Tri in a one-game playoff on Saturday, the Yanks will miss out on the 2017 Confederations Cup.

In fact, federation president Sunil Gulati said weeks ago that Klinsmann would be the manager regardless of the result against Mexico. That was a rather befuddling proclamation, yet of a kind with the contract extension through 2018 Klinsmann was handed before he'd even taken the team to his first World Cup.

In any other country the pressure on Klinsmann would be swelling to the point of being uncomfortable. But not here.

And Donovan also has a point about double standards. Klinsmann has asked for more scrutiny of his players. He wants them to be held accountable. It isn't unreasonable to apply this policy to him as well, because that's a two-way street. But here's where things get murky with Klinsmann, because he has systematically brushed off any criticism aimed at him or his methods as the assessments of the uninformed. Anybody that questions him just doesn't understand.

Some have questioned the timing of Donovan's proclamations. This too, feels a tad off. When else was he supposed to point out that the upcoming big game is a big game, and that in the rest of the soccer world, failure would probably equate to a firing? Months ahead of time? Or afterward?

Predictably, when a member of the current U.S. squad addressed the utterances of their former teammate, he was dismissive. "What the people outside say, we don't really care," veteran midfielder Jermaine Jones told the press on Tuesday. "We know we have a good group here together. We are going into that game to win. We don't think about what happens if we lose."

But whether U.S. Soccer and the national team are listening or not, what Donovan says has merit.

He might merely be giving his axe a good grinding – or is he? – but what he said probably needed saying. Donovan has credibility on the subject and is now at liberty to opine. And regardless of what happened between him and Klinsmann, his argument holds water.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.