USWNT COACH 2.0 DISCUSSION

Of course they shouldn't, or rather in ALL cases NT compensation should be enough to cover all cost it may cause and a bit more but not something you should and can make a living on.
But I am European so raised in a culture where the clubs raise, develop and pays the players and NT duty is honor and perhaps a nice extra income but never a way to make a living.

 

Obviously I am based in Europe and football is not always the same as in the USA, but the recent discussion I had with coaches from different nationalities at club and international level mixed with what I saw in Cyprus suggest pressing the ball high and set the defensive block high was the flavour of the year.

It is true that it leaves teams open to a simple diagonal/long ball between the center backs and full backs but any quick defender who can read the game, will be able to deal with those balls.

 

more than they're already doing?

the wnt attendance and sponsorships are propping up the nwsl! they're the only reason the nwsl got off the ground at all. nobody goes to and nobody pays high ticket $$, nobody follows, pays interest in, or even knows nwsl exists (I know, I know, except in portland, a paltry few in some cities, and on this board) compared to the wnt.

wishing it would be different is nice. but notwithstanding jan balk's and other euro notions, weekly pro woso is essentially unsustainable and unprofitable in this country.

yea, yea, yea, we all agree. but money pays the girls bills, and nwsl has no way of doing that.

the contract system is the best system for developing good soccer players into their 29th year or thereabouts, and then we just have to send them on their way when they're not good enough.

until we have 5 or 6 or 10 more port lands in the nwsl, let's just work the contract system properly, and we can still win the wc.

 

then you didn't see the japan algarve game. instead of them stealing the ball from us all the time and keeping it, we kept stealing the ball back from them, and preventing them from possessing it the way they normally do. ts also had us stealing the ball in such dangerous positions that we were able to challenge the Japanese goal way more than they challenged ours. THE FORWARDS WERE JUST WASTEFUL!

we shot 20 times to their 8. not just shots from distance. many were good scoring chances. shots on goal favored us 8 to 4.

we also dominated possession in the Sweden and Denmark games.

it would just be nonsensical to reverse the advances we have made under sermanni. just GET THE FORWARDS TO SHOOT ACCURATELY! there's no reason to panic, YET.

 

To support a anyone that plays in the USWNT it are and have been for some time.

NWSL would have to be compensate some other way to survive.

 

Given the U.S. habit of unceremoniously dumping male coaches of the WNT, perhaps a woman coach should be considered?

 

Solo's ego thought she was better than Briana, could stop Marta but had no problem with Ryan being a man. Wambach seems to have a problem with male coaches (Lyons and Sermanni) shot calling.

 

Here is my point. The US arguably has the best women's football talent in the world. By that I mean just go to any suburb in the US of A and see how many soccer fields there are and how many young girls are playing this game.
Almost every college in this country has a varsity women's soccer team. I've heard statistically women's soccer is the biggest growing sport in the country and has been for a while.

So having said that, why is it that our turnover on the USWNT is so slow? Is Carli Lloyd the best at her position for the past 10 years? Is Megan Rapinoe so good that no one in this country can take her place until she decides to retire? Is there not a tall forward out there in this country that is better then Abby right now or has a better future then Abby?
You can't tell me that we can't find or there isn't as good players as some of them in this soccer rich country in the women's game for however long they have been on the team?

I believe there are as good or better players then the above mentioned (and others on the team), but they never get a chance to prove themselves because, first, the National Team contracts, second, the power that these "veterans" have over the Fed in marketing, interest groups, etc., in my opinion.

I'm also tired of seeing some of these "veterans" acting like they own the USWNT. That's my perception.

I personally feel that win or lose in the upcoming World Cup, I can't wait to not have to see some of these "Old Hens" on the USWNT field anymore.

 

Excellent post but you wouldn't give up your 200k salary either. I posted Dunn would earn over 2M during her NT career without one sponsor and people on here laughed at me. Now, take in account I made the post before Sauer's 275K salary was posted.

 

I agree with you on most of your points. There are, almost certainly, 19 and 20 year olds out there who can play as well or better than current members of the US NWT squad. Teenagers do well in every other sport and we see them on many other national teams. Why not U.S. women's soccer?

One problem is that soccer is not statistics-driven. You can't evaluate soccer players as easily as, for example, a quarterback or a power forward or a home-run hitter. Thus, we have wild swings of disagreement about who is a good player and who isnt -- and our opinions are based on sparse data. (An exception may be forwards and goalies who can be evaluated better with stats)

The vets have got a good gig going. They all (probably) make more than $200,000 per year -- and few of them are going to find jobs with comparable pay outside the NT. By contrast, I read a few years ago that the Mexican NT women players get $400 per month and Canada seems to have a problem finding money to pay its players. You can't blame the women vets for hanging on to their jobs as long as possible.

Here's an idea. Why not arrange a few games between the USWNT and the US u-23s and U-20s? That would be a good test to see how the youngsters perform. And, perhaps, put a little fear in the hearts of the vets when they get smoked by a 19 year old.

 

I agree. I'm not even sure it's possible to evaluate forwards or goalkeepers either. All we kept hearing from a certain minority last year is that if Leroux and Press were given the same opportunities as Morgan they'd tear up strong competition as well. IMO, if we do find a unique talent we shouldn't just assume that there are 10 more out there that can replace them on a drop of a hat. Same thing applies to someone like Lloyd, Solo, Wambach, etc.

 

most of those girls are from the run fast and kick soccer school. they don't really have soccer skill of the international level.

and most college players can't play international level soccer. the vast majority can't even make an nwsl team.

because uswnt players are indeed the best players in the world. They had an outsized effect on their nwsl teams last year.

have no idea. but she's one of the best in the world somewhere in the attacking middle and I wouldn't toss her out just because she's old. more importantly, the people who feed their families evaluating these high level players seem to think she is very good. name me someone better.

don't know when she'll decide to retire. but for now, notwithstanding her poor algarve performance, she's the best. she came in midstream and immediately raised the level of the reign last year. tymrak may be better in a year or two, and should continue to get called in. but she couldn't even nail down a starting position on the u23s. so for now I prefer pinoe.

name one. any nwsl team would kill for just one right now.

i like hagen and stengel myself. but bring them along slowly while you ease abby out. abby still has value.

don't get me wrong, I understand your point. like you said before, the contracts are a double edged sword. without them girls will give up the game in much larger numbers than they already do, because weekly pro soccer is not sustainable in this country.we just have to use the contract system to develop the best until they are past their best, and then let them go when someone better comes along that we can invest a contract in. it's tricky. but it's what they're trying to do right now. some girls with contracts now will not have them by wc time.

my disagreement with them is just over which ones. but that will never change regardless of who the next coach is or if sunil or dan flynn are replaced. i'd just be fuming quietly over different players.

 

I think that each person's perception may be different here. What you saw as domination in those matches I saw as regression. I still remember the 4-1 romp of Japan back in 2012 where we completely dominated them in all aspects of the game. I felt that the team played for each other and we worked as a unit. During the 2014 Algarve Cup, all Rapinoe did was get dispossessed by the Japanese midfield (not to mention all the breakaway chances we gave up against Denmark). It's also true we did miss some good chances in front of goal, but I also believe the 20 shots are a bit misleading. I felt like I was seeing France out there where they'd take shots from all over the field instead of making that extra pass. Just look at the highlights against China. Early in the first half Lloyd makes a great play by intercepting the ball from a midfielder, made a great pass to Leroux, and then got wide open on the right flank calling for the ball. However, Leroux proceeded to take the lesser percentage shot herself. Same thing with Press where as soon as she receives the ball near the arc, she fakes left then right and takes a blind shot with her back to goal. It's Sermanni's job to take control of the team and preach passing to an open player instead of taking the more difficult shot. Like I mentioned before, in 2012 our forwards had over 30 assists in as many matches, but this year they only have 2 in 8 matches. How can a coach preach possession ball when everyone is trying to make things happen individually?

Again, I don't mind the team learning a better possession style, but not at the expense of our game devolving in other areas.

 

True in the men's game IMO, but not in the women's-- field size is pretty much the same, laws of physics the same, but the players aren't as quick or fast.

 

1.For any player in or close to USWNT standard it isn't hard to get a pro-contract. But unless something change that would probably not be in the US. [This was not true ten years ago]

2, Losing the USWNT allocated players would however destroy NWSL. Redistributing most of the money USSoccer pays the NT's with to NWSL (with some rules that they must use them to pay US players) would probably keep the league in business and raising the paylevel (the cap would have to be adjusted of course).

 

Speaking of the contrast between oldsters and youngsters, I recall (perhaps not correctly) the Canada game earlier this year when an 18 year old defender named Buchanan dogged Abby and was in her face all game long. Buchanan is not especially large or strong, but she's quick, can jump, aggressive, and is a lot faster that Abby.

Now, if an 18 year old can successfully guard Abby Wambach, maybe there are a few other youngsters out there who can do the job.

Sermanni seems to have been looking for youngsters -- and he may have found a keeper in Brian.

 

The only question I have is with respect to the amounts paid out to each player with a contract. For instance, from the list posted a while back I noticed Sauerbrunn making around the same amount as Morgan. Are all 27 players with contracts clustered together as far as their salaries are concerned? For instance, with Dunn receiving a contract is she now making 95% of what let's say Lloyd makes? If that's true then perhaps more contract slots can be opened by lowering payrolls for recently signed players or someone like A-Rod if she's only used as a sub. I could be wrong in my assumption, since I just saw a couple of numbers in that list.

 

That is for true (that is true at least for almost all, very few of them could get as good pay elsewhere less than a handful is my estimate).
That part of the main Question here, is the money best used to keep the USWNT well-paid or is it some other way it would be more useful to develop American women's soccer (and would it be used for that).

 

I agree with luvdagame. I thought the US played well against Japan--I liked a lot of their play against China on Sunday too. They're working the ball around on the ground more than I ever saw with Pia. The problem seems to be finishing. Leroux, for example, had two gimmes against China and hit both of them right at the goalie.

The problem you're describing sounds more like a lack of team harmony. Consider the broken team Pia inherited after the 2007 WC. She had a similar amount of time to get that team to bond before the Olympics in '08. Not only did the team go on to win gold, they did it after Wambach broke her leg too. It's premature to dismiss the US' chances of winning in Canada. There's plenty of time to work on team chemistry AND shooting.

 

Lair would be a good coach for a lot of reason but the team would never accept him and the language barrier is a big problem.

 

They r yearly contracts. They could clear the whole bunch out any December if they werent terrified of fan reaction. The problem is theyve tied ticket sales to player popularity and not team popularity. Not sure what they do about that one.