Jurgen Klinsmann gets 5 1st place votes for FIFA Coach of the Year

Jurgen Klinsmann didn't win FIFA Coach of the Year. He wasn't even a finalist. But he wasn't completely shut out of the award. He got five first place votes.

FIFA Coach of the Year voting is done by each national team manager, captain and member of the media, as is the case with all FIFA awards. The Bahamas' coach and captain, Anguilla coach and captain and Guyana coach all gave Klinsmann their first place votes, showing some sort of CONCACAF loyalty.

It's tough to make much an argument for Klinsmann to win the award. The U.S. did make it out of a very difficult group at the World Cup, but they won just one match there and went 6-5-4 for the calendar year. Klinsmann has said that he wants to build the national team program and that it's a process so it's not a surprise that the team is still a work in progress. Where he and the U.S. is after the 2018 World Cup will be a much better barometer of the job he has done, but the five first place votes are still funny.

On the plus side for Klinsmann, Joachim Löw did win the award. Löw, who led Germany to the World Cup title, was Klinsmann's top assistant at the 2006 World Cup and Klinsmann voted for him to win the award.