Feilhaber takes issue with Klinsmann's selections to US team
MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Although Benny Feilhaber is coming off the best season of his lengthy soccer career, he figures he'll never get another chance to play for the US men's national team under coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
Feilhaber doesn't know exactly why he can't catch Klinsmann's eye, but he isn't a fan of the coach or his plan.
The Sporting Kansas City midfielder leveled frank criticism at Klinsmann on Tuesday when asked about his US future during an interview promoting Major League Soccer's upcoming season.
"I don't think that Jurgen calls in the best players available to him," said Feilhaber, a finalist for the MLS MVP award. "I think that's an issue."
Feilhaber, who turned 31 on Tuesday, has made 41 appearances for the US team, participating in the Beijing Olympics and the 2010 World Cup. But he has appeared in only three games since Klinsmann took over the program in 2011 with a mandate to rebuild the U.S. system.
Klinsmann's tactics in executing that mandate have put him in conflict with top American players before. He infamously left 32-year-old Landon Donovan off his roster for the 2014 World Cup, earning widespread ire for his apparently dismissive treatment of the most accomplished player in U.S. history.
The U.S. team began its January camp last week at the National Training Center in Carson, California. Klinsmann's chosen players are preparing a few miles from the hotel where Feilhaber spoke about the team he would love to rejoin.
Feilhaber believes his age and MLS career work against him with Klinsmann, who has spoken dismissively of the top North American league in the past.
"Based on what I see, I think that Jurgen takes some players in MLS and uses the fact that they're in MLS to not call them up," Feilhaber said. "You look at some of the top players that played this year. These guys aren't getting an opportunity."
Feilhaber cited Sacha Kljestan, Dax McCarty, Matt Hedges and Eric Lichaj as other deserving U.S. players getting no chance from Klinsmann.
"Just like myself, those other players realize it doesn't matter how well I play," Feilhaber said. "I'm not going to get called in. Is it a problem with the national team? I would think so."
After the 2014 World Cup, Klinsmann said he was worried about the age of his player pool projecting to June 2018, saying the team needed to get younger. Klinsmann favorite Jermaine Jones, who would be 36 at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, was invited to the current US camp, but Klinsmann also did not include veterans Clint Dempsey, who would be 35, and Kyle Beckerman, who would be 36.
Roughly half of the players chosen for the current U.S. camp are candidates for the Under-23 team hoping to qualify for the Rio Olympics.
Klinsmann's attention to youth in that context is understandable, but the Americans also have World Cup qualifying matches and the Copa America Centenario this season - and Feilhaber would love to help.
"He'd rather put young guys on the team that could potentially be someone important on the team and he leaves out players that could help the team now," Feilhaber said. "To me, that's not the No. 1 job for a national team coach. ... He doesn't do his job because there's players within the player pool that do not get called in. It's not based on on-field performance. I don't know what it's based on, but it's not based on on-field performance."
The Brazil-born, US-raised Feilhaber first made the team in 2005, turning down an opportunity to play for his grandfather's native Austria along the way. He got his first US start under coach Bob Bradley in 2007, scoring the winning goal against Mexico in the Gold Cup final that year.
He hasn't scored a goal for the U.S. team since.
The UCLA product played in Europe before transferring to the New England Revolution in 2011. He has been with Kansas City since 2013, and he racked up 10 goals and 15 assists last season as a stellar playmaking midfielder.
It got him no closer to a red-white-and-blue jersey.
"For me, personally, I think I've accepted the fact that Jurgen is not going to call me," Feilhaber said. "If I played the year that I played this last year and I don't get a call, I'm not getting the opportunity under Jurgen. That's something I just have to accept. It's (not) frustrating. I'm almost sad, because I feel like I'm playing the best soccer of my career, but I don't get the opportunity to play for my country."