For those who follow el fut this seems to be important news. I'm not at all familiar enough with the game to know the reasons why, so this is an honest (as opposed to a smartass) question: What signficant difference will this coaching change make?
Supposedly Klinsmann is getting more control over the national team system than ever before. You may not notice any significant changes for several years. A good MNT takes upwards of a decade to really come together. I'm talking about youth academies, specifically the one kept in Bradenton. There should be new coaches, new tactics, etc. etc. This was a sticking point last time Klinsmann talked about taking the job and Gulati's insistence on him not having an influence on it was the reason he wasn't hired.
The most immediate changes will probably be in friendlies, where the youth should get more time. I believe we have a friendly scheduled with Mexico in less than 2 weeks. We're almost to 2012, which is pretty late in the World Cup cycle to have any serious impact on the team which will try to qualify for the WC in 2014.
I think Bradley got kind of a raw deal and am not convinced that Gulati is cut out to run the USSF. But at the same time, he was Bruce Arena 2.0 and that hasn't gotten us anywhere but #30 in the world, which as far as I'm convinced isn't much different than #150 or #200. Those rankings are meaningless, except to point out that we're not competitive with the world's elite. I'll wait and see what Klinsmann does before celebrating, but I believe this is at least a baby step in the right direction.
