In an interview with Reuters, the former Germany coach and striker said it could still be a long journey before Americans saw the desired results.
"We'd like to take the team from a reactive style to playing with a more proactive style. It's a huge change because in the past they were always used to reacting to whatever the big teams played against them.
"This transition will take time," he said near his home town in California before a three-week training camp with players who not involved in European club play.
Klinsmann, 47, who replaced Bob Bradley as head coach in late July, said it could be tough to explain the need for time to success-hungry fans.
"To tell the general American public that this is a long-time process is very difficult because Americans, like Germans, are impatient at times and they want to see results," said Klinsmann, whose team have won two matches, lost four and drawn one.
"So while always working with the players in changing their mindset, you've got to provide some results. It's a tricky one. You want to have the results while going through changes."
AMERICAN CULTURE
The former Inter Milan and Tottenham Hotspur forward is convinced his players are capable of taking on the new approach.
"Americans are not reactive types of people - it's not in their DNA. So why do you play a style that is not your culture?"
"We may never be able to play a truly controlling type of soccer against countries like Spain or Germany or Brazil. But we want to get closer to playing with them instead of just defending and hoping for a counter - that's not my philosophy and that's not the American philosophy."
Klinsmann says he is working hard to build new bridges between the disparate hotbeds of the sport in youth organisations and universities to newly created academies and the increasingly important professional league, Major League Soccer (MLS).
"It's still a bit of the 'Wild West' here because U.S. soccer is disconnected from college soccer and college soccer is disconnected from pro soccer," he said.
"Maybe we'll never be able to connect it all perfectly. But a lot is happening. Our goal is to connect the dots everywhere we can."
He said American players had made tremendous strides in the past decade, with most of his first team now starters in top flight European leagues. A decade ago most of the Americans playing in Europe were bench warmers. The next step, he said, would be for more U.S. players to be on clubs competing in the Champions League.
"It's difficult because there isn't the same mindset here the way European nations or big football nations have in terms of the social pressure they get wherever they go," he said.
THINK GLOBALLY
Klinsmann, who won the 1990 World Cup as a player and is fourth on Germany's scoring list with 47 goals, said it was also a challenge for Americans to think more globally about soccer.
"We have t
