Dear England FA,

After this week’s shambolic loss to Iceland and Roy Hodgson’s resignation as your national team’s head coach, I understand you are on the hunt for a new boss.

You had the whole world to consider, but quickly a name rose out of the mire: Jurgen Klinsmann, the Teutonic golden boy currently doing big things across the pond.

I say to you, England FA: Don’t you dare take away our Jurgen.

Take my eyes but not Jurgen Klinsmann. What would American soccer do without him? We’d be adrift. We’d be lost. Without Klinsmann’s leadership and guidance, American soccer players would be roaming around the Great Plains, endlessly kicking clumps of sod into gopher holes until they all starved to death.

You think I’m exaggerating? Before Klinsmann became this nation’s coach, Geoff Cameron was living under a bridge. Aron Johansson was Icelandic. Brek Shea was the guitarist in My Chemical Romance. We were lost.

It was Klinsmann, sweet Klinsmann who righted the ship. Who showed us the way. It was his tough talk that finally let American soccer fans understand that European Leagues were more competitive than MLS. We had no idea until that point. I personally thought Columbus Crew were the champions of the world and that Mike Magee was this generation’s Pele … until Klinsmann showed me the light.

Tactically, he’s been a revelation. Yes, the team might appear to play in the exact same way it did under Bob Bradley, but you need to look deeper. You have to see that before Klinsmann, Graham Zusi played on the right. Now, sometimes, he plays on the left.

So please, England. Don’t do this to us. Without our dear leader, this country’s soccer program would descend into chaos. We need his genius. His cunning. His vision. His ten-point plan. We are nothing without the ten-point plan. Before he got here, we only had a three-point plan, and two of the points were about what restaurants the national team should eat at after matches. (“Point 2: Chili’s. Point 3: But maybe Outback?”)

If you hired him, would England immediately win the next six World Cups and also every other game they played? Probably. I’m no soothsayer, but that seems most likely. But it’d be selfish of you. You can’t hoard all the soccer genius in the world.

Don’t do this to us, England. Clint Dempsey has come too far to go back to work in the coal mines.

Sincerely,

An American Soccer Fan