A dominant discussion around the United States men’s national soccer team in the past three years has concerned the dwindling number of Americans playing abroad. Since 2013, partly because of aggressive recruiting by M.L.S., a core group of national team players who had established a toehold in Europe — players like Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey, and later Jozy Altidore and Alejandro Bedoya — has migrated home.

United States Coach Jurgen Klinsmann has sent mixed signals on the trend, alternately criticizing and supporting the decisions of his players to leave top European leagues for what he considers less challenging competition. In an interview with ESPN last week, he placed some of the blame on young American players themselves, lamenting a sense of “contentment” in youth national team players who seem unwilling, or unable, to force their way past older pros and onto the field.

The discussion is more than a simple matter of debate, however. Finding challenges and playing time for young players has important ramifications for the national team, both in the current World Cup qualifying cycle — which continued Tuesday night with a 4-0 victory by the Americans over Trinidad and Tobago in Jacksonville, Fla. — and beyond.

“We would have loved some young ones to be further than they are right now,” Klinsmann said in an interview with ESPN last week, although he added, “There are a lot coming through different pipelines.”