The trouble for Jürgen Klinsmann in his new role as coach of the USA national team is that the Americans waited so long for their man, cultivating the idea that he had the most perfect credentials for the job – a mixture of grand footballing heritage and new-wave American ideas inside one person – that it didn't seem possible he might not work instant miracles.

Klinsmann has been in charge for five friendly games now. Results have not been spectacular. They have scored only twice. They savoured a welcome win over Honduras thanks to a fine Clint Dempsey match-winner last Saturday, but otherwise since his opening draw with Mexico they have lost 1-0 to each of Costa Rica, Belgium and, on Tuesday, Ecuador.

"It's a growing process," Klinsmann said. "There's a couple of knocks you have to accept."

It is a frustrating time but, fortunately for the coach and his players, Klinsmann has reserves of enthusiasm that are seemingly endless. As Michael Ballack, Germany's key player under Klinsmann, once put it: "I have rarely had a coach who is so incredibly positive and who can motivate people to such a degree. He has a gift which a lot of other coaches cannot find."

And so the atmosphere has changed. After their first win, Klinsmann came into the USA dressing room, picked up an iPad and flicked the music up. On Monday, he held a public training session (unheard of in the previous regimes) and took to a microphone to welcome the few hundred fans into the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey. Klinsmann likes to create an environment where the players feel they can be open and comfortable while they work. They appear to be enjoying the new vibrations.

But it is one thing altering the ambience, another transforming the entire approach to football in the US. This is a big job. When Klinsmann was coach of Germany he only agreed to take on the challenge in the first place if he was given carte blanche to revamp the organisation behind the scenes. The same applies with the USA, only there is a lot more in need of an overhaul.

Aside from the technical side of picking and training the squad, Klinsmann has been putting his foot down about the whole infrastructure of soccer in the US. For a start, he wants the MLS season to be extended in an attempt to make the players fitter, sharper and better prepared. At the moment the MLS campaign is two months shorter than that of the biggest leagues elsewhere, and takes place over a different time of the year. Klinsmann insists that should change. "Right now it's not competitive. If you have a seven-, eight-month season, that's not competitive with the rest of the world," he says. "If there's a national-team player, he has to do extra work. He has to do extra weeks, and he can't go on vacation even if he says: 'Well, but I'm supposed now to have six weeks off.' If he comes and says that, then I give him a hug and say: 'Have fun the six weeks, but don't come back here.'" The federation, US Soccer, is looking into how they can instigate the changes.

Lower down the football food chain, youth development in the USA is caught in a limbo between the college system and the clubs, and the lack of a coherent strategy is not helping the USA to produce enough high-calibre players. In his first press conference Klinsmann said: "I hope we find a way to find a Lionel Messi in the United States. That would be awesome." You can't fault him for optimism.

But even paying careful attention to youth development is a start. It still niggles that Giuseppe Rossi, who was not shown particular encouragement as a youngster, had an easy decision to represent another country (in his case Italy).

Klinsmann is hunting around for South American players whose ancestors may have been over-friendly with a US national in order to fast-track some team strengthening.

In the meantime, he is trying to teach his current squad how to play a faster passing game. In the major tactical adjustment Dempsey – the USA's best player – has been given a more central attacking role. Americans are waiting to see what will happen when Landon Donovan returns from injury, and how both may be accommodated. But worries remain about the defence, with players such as Carlos Bocanegra (32 last May) and Steve Cherundolo (who passed that mark in February) an age that puts their participation at the 2014 World Cup in doubt.

This project may not be an overnight success, but the Americans are confident they have a man in place who can give them every chance of improving. "He's come in and he's felt he's needed to change the landscape," the goalkeeper Tim Howard said of Klinsmann. "He's a very upbeat kind of guy, really positive. He's given us so much encouragement to say, look, you make mistakes. But play. Keep going. He believes, and we're beginning to believe, that the upside of controlling the tempo starting in the back will be a positive for us going forward."

Ronaldinho returns

If that free-kick to beat David Seaman seems like ages ago, it's because it was. Almost a decade has passed since Ronaldinho stunned not only English football, but the watching world, with a goal from an absurd distance at the 2002 World Cup. He rolled back the years with a sensational free-kick for Brazil in Mexico on Tuesday night. It was not unreasonable to wonder if the former world player of the year was winding down when he left European football, after 10 memorable years, to head back to his homeland.

Thirteen goals from 23 games for Flamengo have put his name back in the headlines, and Ronaldinho returned to Brazil's national team in August following a seven-month absence.

He was paired up front with the teenaged Neymar in a thrilling friendly against Mexico on Tuesday and the game was not going well when David Luiz scored an own goal and Dani Alves was sent off.

Up stepped the captain. Ronaldinho bent in a ferocious free-kick. It was his first goal for the seleçao in four years. Jogo bonito is making a comeback.

San Marino nil

Spare a thought for San Marino, ranked rock bottom of Fifa's world rankings. As if that were not enough for them to stomach, they have just finished the qualifiers for Euro 2012 as the only one of the 51 competing nations not to score even a single goal.

Uefa is quite proud of the fact that 27 of their 53 associations have qualified for the finals of the European Championship over the years, even if a team such as San Marino will never add to that list. Should Estonia or Montenegro, who play the Republic of Ireland and the Czech Republic, respectively, in their play-offs, come through, there will, however, be another new nation on the Euro map.