United States soccer coach Jurgen Klinsmann said it would be "many years down the road" before the men's national team wins a World Cup. While Klinsmann doesn't expect to hoist up a World Cup trophy anytime soon, he sounded resolute in his determination to see the Americans win the tournament.
Klinsmann led Team USA to the knockout round in Brazil, and he expects his squad to do even better in 2018 and 2022.
"It will be definitely the goal, to win a World Cup, many years down the road," Klinsmann told the Guardian on Monday. "We learned how to advance out of the group stage [at Brazil 2014], the next step is to learn how to win knockout games at a World Cup. That has a lot to do with the mental aspect of the game. That's what it takes, that's our learning curve."
Klinsmann is under contract with Team USA until the conclusion of the 2018 World Cup. He's also the US Soccer Federation's technical director, which gives him the task of organizing America's soccer infrastructure - from the college level to the pro level.
"A lot of people see the game keeps improving and is growing. The tricky part within the US is that we haven't connected the pieces yet, from professional teams to other professional levels, down to the college level and the youth level," he said. "There are so many disconnected pieces floating around. The whole structure is not in place, like it is in a traditional football nation. But this is also a useful opportunity.
"This is pretty cool because you kind of have a clean sheet of paper and say: how are we going to do it? ... For us, we can change the youth approach and the curriculum of coach education and makes (sic) changes with the college coaches and talk to them about doing the season differently or the feeder system differently, then it can happen. We can have an influence, that for me is exciting."
Klinsmann is in England for USA's friendly against Colombia on Friday at Craven Cottage.