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SAO PAULO - Jurgen Klinsmann didn't want to talk much about it on Tuesday, and maybe the reason was because he doesn't have many answers. Jozy Altidore's pulled hamstring is creating some obvious problems for the coach, including a reminder to everyone that he didn't include another veteran forward, Landon Donovan, on his roster.
'I don't want to go deep into details, because obviously we want Portugal to guess a little bit as well,' Klinsmann said. 'When one of your key players is not available, does it change certain things? Absolutely. We'll still field 11, you know. We're not a man down. We still have somebody coming in and we'll make it very, very difficult for Portugal in Manaus. We'll find solutions.'
Klinsmann said he was still hopeful Altidore would be able to recover quickly enough to participate in the World Cup, though that is extremely wishful thinking. Nobody wants to harp yet again on the coach's decision to omit Donovan, particularly after the uplifting victory on Monday over Ghana. Klinsmann maintained his Midas touch, the same one that rescued him from a budding player mutiny after a slow qualifying start in Honduras. Victory salves and solves everything. The Americans stand in good stead at the moment in Group G, and nobody on the roster is questioning Klinsmann's judgment.
The problem is that Klinsmann must now find a way to score goals without a proven scorer and with Clint Dempsey, who is learning to breathe without the use of a fractured nose and may require a mask of some sort against Portugal. Aron Johannsson has played a grand total of nine international matches with the senior national team, scoring twice, and appeared a bit lost against Ghana. Chris Wondolowski has never played in a World Cup match.
From a sheer tactical standpoint, both these players can fill Altidore's role as a target striker - or perhaps Klinsmann will go to a 4-5-1 formation with Dempsey alone at top.
Donovan would have represented a very different sort of attacker, a withdrawn forward, a dynamic creator on the wing. He knows how to complement Dempsey up top, has played with him many times before.
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There is no Donovan option, of course. Klinsmann's current little spat with Kobe Bryant, not exactly high on the coach's priority list, lends considerable insight into that decision.
Last December, in the New York Times Sunday magazine, Klinsmann questioned Bryant's $50 million contract extension.
'This always happens in America,' Klinsmann said. 'He gets it because of what he has done before. It makes no sense. Why do you pay for what has already happened?'
Here in Brazil for the World Cup, Bryant responded on ESPN with a reasoned counterpoint.
'One perspective he's missing,' Bryant said of Klinsmann. 'You want to be part of an ownership group rewarding players for what they've done, while balancing the team going forward. If you're another player in the future looking at the organization, you want to be part of an organization that takes care of its players while planning for the future.'
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The bones of that Kobe debate can easily be applied to the Donovan matter. Klinsmann didn't want to put Donovan on the roster merely because he'd scored five goals over the past two World Cups and is recognized as perhaps the greatest player in U.S. history. That philosophy isn't so much, 'What have you done for me lately?' It's more, 'What will you do for me tomorrow?'
Bryant might argue that Donovan has plenty more to give, and that other U.S. players, now and in the future, would feel better playing for a coach who rewarded a long, successful career. What are Dempsey, Tim Howard and Michael Bradley to think of their futures? Will they be discarded as coldly, as easily?
For now, it is left to the younger players on this team to deflect queries about Altidore and the manpower crisis up top.
'We have players who can come in and do different roles,' Alejandro Bedoya said. 'Aron is a good player who did well Monday under difficult circumstances. We couldn't get him the ball. Wondo also is a target guy. Both can move off the ball.'
They aren't Altidore, though, and they aren't Donovan. This is what you get when you put only one of those two on the roster.