Jermaine Jones responds to Tim Howard’s fighting spirit comments

United States national team goalkeeper Tim Howard recently made some comments about the player pool and passion.

“What I think (Bruce Arena) will add is this ability to truly believe in the shirt and I think we lost that a little bit over the last couple of years,” the American goalkeeper told USA Today. “Jurgen Klinsmann had a project to unearth talent around the world that had American roots. But having American roots doesn’t mean you are passionate about playing for that country.”

Some people liked what he had to say, some people did not like what he had to say.

Fellow national team player Jermaine Jones, who happens to know a thing or two about passion, has some thoughts of his own in response to Howard. He told ESPNFC:

"People, especially in this country, they always try to figure out what [are] the mistakes," Jones said, noting the contributions some German-Americans made during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

"Now, where everything goes wrong and we lost the first two games, we say maybe the German-Americans are the problem.

"But when we played the World Cup, I scored. [John] Brooks scored, and it's 'oh, the German-Americans are American boys.'

"We played two bad games, yes. That's a fact. All the criticism that comes from outside, that's good. That's soccer. It has to be like that.

"But you have to see the bigger picture, and that's the whole team. There's not an American guy and a German-American. The whole team played bad, so that's the fact. To put it on this guy or this guy, I think it's not correct from nobody."

Howard seems to have started something whether it was intentional or not. He has since tried to clarify his position on dual-national players to include everyone.

Are you worried about two active national team players going back and forth in the media like this? Or is it just a healthy discussion?