The US national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann says that winning is all that matters when it comes to the World Cup. His team are expected to be one of the dark horses for progression to the latter stages of the competition.

However, they have been given a tough draw at the World Cup after being grouped along with Germany, Portugal, and Ghana. All three teams have the chance to finish in the knockout stages, which makes it difficult for Klinsmann. As a result, he has adopted a ‘win at all costs’ policy ahead of World Cup.

After going through a difficult period under his regime a few years ago, Klinsmann appears to have found the perfect combination in order to get the results. The US team will be coming into the World Cup after having suffered just one defeat in the last five matches. Their recent friendly match against one of the World Cup qualified teams – South Korea – ended in a 2-0 victory for the Americans. They have two friendlies scheduled between now and the start of the World Cup. It will be against Ukraine and Mexico.

Ghana will be the first opponents at the World Cup and they will be followed by matches against Portugal and Germany.
“We started to work on it as soon as I took the job on and we went into the final phase of qualifying for Brazil 2014 convinced that we’d have to score late goals to get results and away from home too. In football you need to have special players to get special results and if you don’t have those players, like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, then you have to look for a way of compensating, by working as a team and having a winning mentality,” said Klinsmann to FIFA’s official site.

The United States national team recently returned back to the country after a short training camp in Brazil, which has offered a lot of insight into the challenges that lay ahead of them according to manager Jurgen Klinsmann.

The US will be one of the teams participating in the World Cup 2014. They have been given a tough group in the form of opponents like Germany and Portugal.

Despite this, Klinsmann has been sounding confident of progressing to the knockout stages. The US have done well in major tournaments and Klinsmann says that it will hold them in good stead.

He has also revealed that he took numerous trips to cities hosting the World Cup where he had a look at the various facilities. Brazil have been criticised for lacking in the preparation for the World Cup. Klinsmann has acknowledged that the competition is going to be far from ideal for the players, but has said that it should not mean that they should get anger at the facilities. Heat and humidity will be a major test for the players in the location where the US team will be based for their matches.

Klinsmann has selected Manaus as the base for the camp and he says that apart from the heat, it is absolutely gorgeous place. He also said that the stadium was also equally good.

“It was really helpful these two weeks for the team, but also for everybody involved with U.S. Soccer to experience our team base hotel in Sao Paulo, to train at the Sao Paulo FC facility, to meet the people, to get around the city and get a feel for it. I personally went up to Natal, to Recife. I went on the way back to Manaus to check the facilities there. We have a much better picture now of what to expect and what will challenge us,” said Klinsmann.