Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Telly Halkias, an award-winning freelance journalist. It originally appeared in the Bennington Banner.

Mark it down: This week is the first time in six years that I will gloat in a column.

It’s never been my style to say “I told you so” after seeing something I’ve written come to pass later on. But sports do crazy things to our rational selves.

And so last week I beamed when the United States Soccer Federation fired men’s national team coach Bob Bradley and replaced him with German star Jürgen Klinsmann.

I had advocated for that move a little over a year ago in a column on these pages, following the Americans’ tepid showing and ouster from the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Apparently, it took the USSF that long to finally agree with me, particularly after our loss to Mexico in this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup final.

The reasons I wanted Bradley out and Klinsmann in have not changed.

For the last 16 years, the U.S national team has been coached by Steve Sampson, Bruce Arena and Bradley. None had played or coached overseas; all three are products of the U.S. college game and then MLS.

Such backgrounds couldn’t maximize the increasing talent on our roster, one manned mostly by players with considerable time on foreign teams. Rather, nepotism and favoritism seeped into the squad’s culture, mostly because Bradley had followed Arena at three previous coaching spots.

Enter Klinsmann.

He starred as a prolific scorer for the German World Cup champions in 1990, and coached the German national team to a third-place finish in 2006. He is a resident of California, fluent in English, promotes an attacking style and knows the American game and its players. His resume isn’t only impressive; it’s tailor-made for taking over the U.S. team.

As an outsider, Klinsmann has three major advantages. The first is that his relative experience to any American coach would command immediate and complete respect by all the current players. When he speaks, they will listen — intently.

Next, Klinsmann will improve game-day tactics as well as roster management. The best players with the hottest feet will be on the field; he stresses performance, not reputation. Under Bradley, we were faced with questionable formations and playing assignments. Such machinations might have passed domestically, but, as we saw in last year’s World Cup, they exposed glaring weaknesses.

Finally, the U.S. coaches always played favorites to a certain cohort of players, or at least it came across that way to the game’s cognoscenti. Klinsmann’s hire promises to end all that.

But one man isn’t a panacea. The USSF must do its part and start weaning itself off of the antiquated and internationally unsuitable high school/college model of feeding the pros. Instead, we should start looking overseas to the sophisticated methods of youth development as practiced by the Dutch, particularly Ajax Amsterdam.

There, players enter youth development programs from as early as age 5. They drill and play daily. Almost all skip college. They drill some more; in fact they drill more than they play. They emphasize number of touches with the ball, which is how to build the ball handling skills known only to a handful of America’s top-flight players.

But even with all this emphasis on training, foreign soccer academies have their kids playing far more competitive games annually than their American counterparts, and doing it year-round. The best players tend to debut in the pros as early as age 16. By 22, they are veteran stars, while our guys are just getting out of college, years behind in skill and experience.

So until we start closing those gaps, nothing will change. Klinsmann is a good first step, and his influence will undoubtedly trickle down through all levels of U.S. soccer. The question is not whether the national team will be significantly better under him. We should expect only minor improvement.

The issue is whether the USSF finally gets serious about a real youth development program in the mold of Ajax. The time to do it is now: We have the right guy at the top of the pyramid, so we should take advantage of his expertise.

And because I used up my gloating quota for the next six years.