Impact sign new head coach - Marco Schällibaum

The headline has already written itself for when he gets fired by the impatient owner: Swiss Miss.

 

Never is a tough word.

The aforementioned Red Bulls former coaching roster includes Carlos Queiroz, Carlos Alberto Parreira, and Bora Milutinović. Chivas USA was led by Hans Westerhof at one point.

I would consider all of those coaches to be unambiguously successful outside the U.S. prior to coaching in MLS.

 

It's been a while though.

Those 3 Metro coaches were in the 90's and Westerhof was an interim situation.

Wonder when there will be another one.

 

This is rich considering how hard the Impact are trying to be a Serie A club from 2006.

Meanwhile this 'wannabe English club' has had Dutch, Scottish, Serbian/American, Canadian and now New Zealander coaches at the helm.

TFC has many, many problems. Trying to be English has never been one of them.

 

New coach Schallibaum brings European style, language skills to Impact


MONTREAL – As Marco Schallibaum met with the Montreal media for the first time on Tuesday it became clear why his predecessor as Impact coach Jesse Marsch never stood a chance.
Schallibaum, named coach of the second-year Major League Soccer club on Monday, answered questions in English and French and could have fielded more in Italian or German had any been asked of the 50-year-old from Switzerland.
The Zurich native came up as a player and coach in European soccer, and is a thoroughly European person. And that is the style the Impact, from president Joey Saputo to sporting director Nick De Santis, wants to lead the team.
“We always said we wanted to get a European,” said Saputo. “Getting into MLS, we were told that it’s different, that you need to have American experience, so that’s what we went for.
”We moved away from what we really believed.”

 

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/01/08/one-year-contract-no-big-deal-impacts-schallibaum

MS is on one year deal... Win or you are fired

 

correction. one year plus one year option it looks like

 

There's also the (perhaps lesser) possibility that MTL could win in 2013 and MS could still get replaced (or promoted/shifted elsewhere in the club).

 

Sorry if this has all been written but I had to vent. What a douche (pardon my French) Saputo is. Marsch's performance looks even more respectable given this strong anti-American sentiment trickling down on the club.

Way to take a crap on captain Davey Arnaud too - who is by all rights a legend in this league and gave heart, guts and soul whenever I saw him play for Montreal.

Few expansion MLS teams have looked as competent and mature in their first season as Montreal did - while deliberately incorporating some sophisticated global style and flair, and being (at home at least) both competitive and occasionally entertaining. That is a tall order in a league with such parity. I can't imagine how difficult and unlikely it is to get the formula right from day of launch - and it would be easy to have your morale and your season blown out of the water very early. I'd surely credit the competitiveness, talent, sheer grit and MLS savvy of Marsch, Arnaud, Sorber, Hamlett and Arnaud for some of those results which got them through a long season and kept them in the playoff hunt to the end.

While I thank Saputo for upgrading his club and stadium, joining MLS, bringing ambition, great fans and a wonderful city into this league - and I wish them success - I will hardly be surprised if their new "automatically-superior-by-way-of-being-foreign" regime shits the bed for years, like so many Backes and Winters and Gullits and Parreiras have done.

 

Because a coach who is "unambiguously successful" is usually a coach with experience at a top club in a top league, which means he's working with a large budget and can win by outspending his opposition. That's not a useful skill in MLS.

What MLS needs is a coach who maximizes the resources he does have, for example by coaching a not-too-wealthy club to a better-than-expected finish. That's something that will help you in MLS, but it won't get you labeled "unambiguously successful..." and if it does, it means MLS teams would be bidding against teams with much bigger pockets.

 

what did saputo say about arnaud?

 

P.S. I hope my fellow internet nerds will forgive me for pronouncing his name "Shalla Bal." And referring to this impossible dream of conquering MLS, and eurosnob affections, with Barca-style soccer and the prior decade's legends as "Shalla Ball."

 

If you were Arnaud, and the captain, and first poster-boy, and the emblem of professionalism and competitiveness - would you not feel that Saputo's major moves and remarks to the press devalued what you brought to the table?

 

Translation: "We got good advice that worked. I've decided to willfully ignore it."

 

http://www.socceramerica.com/article/49894/montreal-says-non-to-americans.html

Montreal wants to be Chivas USA v2. lulz

 

Does this mean we can pretty much lock up the bottom two spots in MLS for Toronto and Montreal next season?

 

You can add Chivas USA and New England to the mix as well! How simple the season will be knowing who the bottom 4 teams will be

 

Why stop there?

Add Portland to make an even 5!

We're like the EPL in reverse...

 

I've got a question: Much is being made of the fact that this coach can speak French. I've heard that Quebecois French is significantly different from the variety spoken on the continent. How different? Are we talking, say, a difference that doesn't get in the way at all, like Midwestern English vs. London broadcast English, or something more severe, like Midwestern vs. Mancunian?

------RM

 

French is French - everyone will understand everyone. Now if he goes to a bar around SS and chats with the patrons, that's another story!

The slang's the big thing, and not really something he'll deal with on a professional basis.

As for the talk about Americans, etc., I'll say that JS is in tune with the Montreal supporter base: fans feel Marsch brought it a bunch of underperforming MLS guys (most of them US), like Wahl, Gardner, Ricketts, Braun, Thomas and yes, Arnaud and Mapp. They appreciate what Arnaud brought to the table work-wise, especially for an expansion side, but now that we have a better feel for MLS and what does/doesn't work, we'd rather build with "our" guys. Some locals, some USers and some Europeans (+ Felipe!).

 

i live in Ottawa, a bi lingual area, two miles from my house is Gatineau , Quebec. I have not yet met a Francophone from anywhere, be it France, Tunisia, Switzerland or Cameroon who could not be understood in Quebec

 

Schallibaum brings European style to Montreal

 

I suspect a lot of people are going to have a very very good time watching these guys lose if Shallibaum works out as well as the "average" European coach in MLS.

Saputo better pray this guys is as good as Backe, who while he didnt set MLS on file dramatically overachieved compared to the average European hire.

 

Is Vancouver the only Canadian team that doesn't try to be European?

Or are they just luckier than the other ones?