Asking the tough but honest question about Jurgen Klinsmann's USMNT

And so it's come time to sift through the blazing wreckage of the United States men's national team CONCACAF Gold Cup campaign, which crashed and burned when a gamely Jamaican side bounced the Americans in Wednesday's semifinals.

[FC Yahoo: Unruly behavior mars Mexico's win over Panama in Gold Cup semifinal]

Before the dust has even settled, you have to peer deep into the program's past to find failures as significant and painful as this one. The 2006 World Cup springs to mind. The 2000 Gold Cup does, too. In 2003, the Americans didn't reach the final of this biennial tournament either – the last time they had failed to, by the way – but back then they stumbled to special invitees Brazil in extra time of the semis. Which isn't the same thing as losing to Jamaica – the first time in 46 years, and just the second time ever, that a Caribbean team beat the USA on its own soil, per ESPN's Paul Carr.

[FC Yahoo: Watch Jamaica's goals in its 2-1 Gold Cup semifinal win over the U.S.]

The Reggae Boyz had managed to beat the USA just once in 22 previous attempts – although they came very close in a World Cup qualifier two years ago – but they were hardly undeserving of their victory. They played the game to their strengths, sitting in and nabbing the goals they would need for the 2-1 win on set pieces.

The failure to win a second consecutive Gold Cup means the Americans must now partake in a playoff with whoever winds up winning the thing: Jamaica or the winner of Wednesday's other semifinal between Mexico and Panama.

But the real concern is a far bigger one.

The questions that induced mockery from many just a day earlier must now be asked earnestly: Are the Americans progressing? And if not, might it even be that they're regressing?

It would be unfair to say that the USA regressed on the mere evidence of Wednesday's game. Bad luck was at play, after all. Darren Mattocks' headed goal was a blind backwards attempt, capitalizing on a defensive lapse from John Brooks, which then bounced off both posts before skipping in. Giles Barnes' goal off a free-kick, meanwhile, came off an unusual – but correct – call on American goalkeeper Brad Guzan, who threw a ball upfield as his arm drifted just outside of his penalty area. The U.S., meanwhile, had created far more clear-cut chances.

But if you take the larger sample size of the entire tournament, you'd be able to build a much stronger case that tangible growth – the very thing head coach Jurgen Klinsmann and his whopping salary were sold to us back in 2011 when he was appointed – has been elusive.

If the Yanks were merely unlucky on Wednesday, they were wholly unconvincing during the group stage when they limped to a 2-1 win against Honduras, lumbered to a 1-0 victory over Haiti and stumbled to a 1-1 tie with Panama, following a second-half rally. That was, of course, followed by a 6-0 annihilation of a Cuban team that had no business being in the quarterfinals.

[FC Yahoo: Gold Cup Live – Look back on United States vs. Jamaica]

But such has been the trend throughout Klinsmann's term, which is just a week shy of its fourth anniversary. Flashes of real promise – recent friendly wins in and over the Netherlands and Germany – are followed by long swoons in which pedestrian CONCACAF opposition reduces any ideas that the Americans might finally belong among the sport's elite to so much fevered folly. Certainly, there are no easy games in CONCACAF, a region of wily foes, but then the U.S. never makes it easy on itself either.

Going by the results, and by the visual evidence as well, Klinsmann's national team is not demonstrably better than any of its previous incarnations. The revolving door along the back line continues to give away results. The midfield remains incapable of imposing itself consistently or nurturing the ball with the care it requires. And the front line is a grab bag of shoulda-beens, might-one-day-bes and never-weres.

Klinsmann said that this Gold Cup should be won. He assembled his squad accordingly and demanded peak performance and total concentration in every game. In his failure to deliver a first Gold Cup title with the full A-team present – unlike in 2013, when the tournament coincided with World Cup qualifying, as it does in every second edition – Klinsmann has failed to deliver on his own expectations, those of the growing and ever more demanding fan base, and doubtless those of his employers as well.

He can't point to a rebuilding effort in an attempt to formulate an excuse. Because while Klinsmann fielded a raft of younger players throughout the tournament, he had selected a veteran-laden team. They were there to be plugged into the lineup. And he could have made six roster changes between the group and knockout stages but chose to make only three. He persevered with a struggling pairing of central defenders – Brooks and Ventura Alvarado, who are, at 22, the two youngest players on the team – even when they were ultimately directly responsible for three of the four goals surrendered in this tournament. He made other choices you could question.

And that brings us to Klinsmann's apparent impunity. He was handed a mandate to make sweeping changes. He has made them, in all kinds of ways. Ranging from nutrition and fitness to training methods, formations and attempted playing styles, he has shaken things up. But when the particles of the program landed from all of that upheaval, it's hard to say that they came down in better places.

Still, with his rich contract extended through the 2018 World Cup not so long ago, his job is in no apparent peril. But the fact is that when his predecessor Bob Bradley was fired – to make way for Klinsmann, not coincidentally – he had just lost in the final of the Gold Cup, rather than the semifinal. And both Bradley in 2011 and Klinsmann in 2015 are coming off very comparable round of 16, extra-time eliminations at a World Cup.

Klinsmann, in other words, has performed worse than the guy who was fired to make way for him – unless you somehow insist on counting friendly wins as real and weighty achievements.

At this point, that should probably lead to more questions.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.