Football
ESPN staff 8y

Banner calling for Jurgen Klinsmann to be fired flies over U.S. game

A banner calling for the United States to fire coach Jurgen Klinsmann flew over the Americans' World Cup qualifier against Guatemala on Tuesday.

Klinsmann has been under pressure since the U.S. finished fourth in last summer's CONCACAF Gold Cup, and his situation intensified after Friday's defeat in Guatemala.

That result made Tuesday night's contest in Columbus, Ohio, a must-win, or Klinsmann's team would be in serious danger of failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

The banner, trailing a plane around MAPFRE Stadium before kickoff, read: "#FIREKLINSMANN HE'S A TINY LITTLE BIT BEHIND."

The words echo a phrase commonly used by Klinsmann when explaining why certain players made the national team over others, most notably when Klinsmann left Landon Donovan off of the World Cup squad in 2014.

"This is certainly one of the toughest decisions in my coaching career," Klinsmann said in May 2014, "to tell a player like him, with everything he's done and what he represents, to tell him that you're not part of those 23 right now because I just see some other players slightly ahead of him.

"I have to make the decision based on what is good for this group going into Brazil. And there, I just think that the other guys right now are a little bit ahead of him, and I told him that."

Earlier on Tuesday, Donovan -- not for the first time -- also called for Klinsmann's firing if the team failed to defeat Guatemala.

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