Official “Is Brad Friedel bad at his job?” Thread

On one hand I am not impressed with what he has done. As the Who would say Meet the new team same as the old team. On the other hand he inherited a sub par team that is mismanaged by incompetents. I honestly think Pep Guardiola could walk in to this position and get the same results with this team and ownership. This is a team that will continue to wallow in the stye of mediocrity for eternity

 

I just wonder how much of the locker room he has with him at this point. It's one thing when you are new and want to change some of the 'character' of the team -- whatever that means. But when it becomes a housecleaning and one which doesn't bring in different talent to move the team forward, you really begin to lose credibility. That's where I am. I am also still willing to say it is too early to get conclusive about Brad, but I certainly agree it seems like an eternity since we were consistently good and there is nothing I've seen so far that says anything is about to change in the future.

 

I'm still in a wait-and-see mode, but since we're quoting songs, I'll go with Steel Pulse and "I and I patience have now long time gone."

While Rome was not built in a day, the new acquisitions seemed to suggest that it is a different day, and while we might not be contenders this year, the new guys would clearly make us better. But then came the squandering of assets, either letting good players go for nothing* or letting them rot, forever out of favor, with no one better to step in to take their place.

*I know we got non-player assets in return for Kamara, Nguyen, and Nemeth, but when we use the TAM/GAM, whatever to pay down salaries so high-priced players are not DPs instead of using it to acquire new, top-tier players, it defeats the whole point of making those moves. If those guys didn't fit the "system," I'll give Brad the benefit of the doubt to move them and replace them with guys who do, but so far, we are missing the second part--new guys who can actually play.

 

Friedel's positives have been bringing in some internatoinal talent with some actual upside (Penilla, Caicedo, Zahibo) and has managed to maximize the talents of Teal Bunbury, which at this stage of Teal's career I thought was impossible.

Beyond those positives, Friedel has struck me as Heaps 2.0 - a "one idea" coach (Heaps: the 4-2-3-1, Friedel: the high press) with no clue how to adjust once teams have figured out that tactic, and no idea how to properly utilize substitutions. At least with Heaps, he was attempting to make the Revs play attractive soccer. Friedel's "one idea" is much more cynical and harder to watch as a fan, which is why I have largely tuned out the Revs this year.

I also feel that actively ostracizing Nguyen instead of trying to convince him to stay was a major failure of his time here, and his continued cold shoulder to Rowe is probably really poor for morale.

I'm willing to give him one more year on the condition that Burns is fired. If not, I'll probably stop actively following the team.

 

Well, I said at the beginning of the year that Friedel would probably take the Revs one step back in order to take two steps forward. For awhile, it seemed I was wrong, but that was just a mirage. The 2018 Revs will finish with less points than the 2017 Revs.

If anyone doubts this was a complete roster overhaul, consider that the 6 of the top 10 salaries from last year are all gone, with three more on the outs:

Code:

Player . . . . . . . Salary Status
Kei Kamara . . . . . 1M . . Traded to VAN
Krisztián Németh . . 900K . Traded to SKC
Xavier Kouassi (DP). 840K . 2018 option declined
Claude Dielna (DP) . 780K . Not part of gameday, on the way out?
Benjamin Angoua. . . 600K . 2018 option declined
Lee Nguyen . . . . . 500K . Traded to LA2
Juan Agudelo . . . . 425K . Free agent after 2018
Antonio Delamea. . . 400K . on the way out?
Gershon Koffie . . . 250K . loan expired
Teal Bunbury . . . . 205K . Regular starter

Now here are the replacements so far:

Code:

Cristian Penilla . . 500K
Wilfried Zahibo. . . 474K
Gabriel Somi . . . . 391K
Luis Caicedo . . . . 300K
Cristhian Machado. . ?
Michael Mancienne. . ?

It's tough to say without knowing what Machado and Mancienne are making, but it seems like they still have a lot of cap space (sorry, salary budget) to work with here.

There is a lot more work to do, let's hope Friedel and Burns are up to it.

For song quotes, I'll go with "The waiting is the hardest part".

 

I'll just add - Players talk among players. Agents talk among agents.

 

Prosoccerusa reported mancienne's salary: https://www.prosoccerusa.com/mls/new-england-revolution/michael-mancienne-revolution-mls/

1.3M for 2018 (prorated) and then dropping to 880k in 2019, then increasing to 1M if the revs use his option years in 2020 and 2021

 

Lets see.... the title here is “Is Brad Friedel bad at his job?” Not how much does this one or that one make. What is Friedel doing to make us better? My ANS - Nothing hes done has worked. We are on track to finish worse than we did under Heaps. So weve changed all kinds of people but the end result is we are not really any better... marginally better if at all. So we are stuck with Friedel for at least another year. I don't think we will do better unless we go on a major hiring spree. Based on what weve seen, I expect us to do next to nothing as far as hiring the talent we need.

So Friedel will limp along until Burns fires him. Nothing will really change. Maybe Brad will realize he's been sucked in by Burns but by then, it will be too late for him. This has been the pattern for many coaches now

 

Friedel will be here as long as he decides. If he does well and turns this team around by next year, he might have a chance for a better gig. If not, he’ll slog through a few more years like Heaps did and we’ll all be moaning about another 5 years wasted again. The Revs don’t fire coaches until 2 years after it’s obvious.

 

Coaching the Revolution has to be the sweetest Coaching job in MLS. There are absolutely no expectations from ownership all the way down to many fans posting here.

Coaching the Revolution has to be the worst Coaching job in MLS. There is no ownership/front office support. This is a one and done top-flight coaching job. No chance to prove you are good enough to move on to another team or a superior league.

Is Brad good at his job? Absolutely not. And he has soooooooooo much help being bad too.

From my perspective, a team with any ambition would be saying, “Hey, we fired the last useless coach several games before the end of the season. We had more than ample time able to hire the new guy, come up with a (potentially multi-year) improvement plan and implement some signings/trades in time to expect that the first year would show some improvement and promise for the future (like more than 90% of ownerships in the world would expect).

Instead, I’ve read the hypothesis here (and sadly it rings true) that it is just fine to show no improvement or promise for the future. Rather it is okay to be no better and potentially worse than before. It is further okay that the (potentially multi-year) plan implementation includes destroying the value of players already on the roster before trading them and even letting some well paid and probably relatively more talented players rot, not even included in the roster (travelling or at home). Rowe, Dielna, Somi - none of these guys are being used as depth to their, I’m certain (sarcasm), far superior replacements.

So he is setting himself up to “complete his roster overhaul” by getting maybe 75 cents on the dollar (Nguyen, Kamara, Nemeth) to 0 cents on the dollar (all the free transfers/options declined or upcoming free transfers listed in an earlier post) and/or proving to all foreign players that you don’t want to sign here (Kouassi, Dielna, Somi, Delemea)? This is where their careers go to die.

His replacements are different than Heaps’ preferred players, which on the surface is fine. But his system and his new players function no better than before. Little threatening offense is created. The defense continues to strangely break down. Same old stuff.

I think all of that is a litany of failure. But, apparently it is just the first important step in rebuilding the REVs into a championship caliber team.

Right, I believe that.

Notes:
1. Promise for the future is NOT “hey Penilla/Caicedo looks good...”. It is, rather, that a detectably better unit (team dare I say) is fielded and plays detectably better than the prior crap achieved by the prior crap coach.
2. Penilla, Caicedo and Mancienne signing here just proves that there is still a fool born every day (them and/or their agents). It doesn’t prove (to me) that foreign players and agents in general are not concerned to reluctant when it comes to dealing with the REVs

 

OK, fair enough. My answer would be, yes it appears so, but it is still too soon to tell.

The only caveat would be that Friedel is less than a year in, so he hasn't had a chance to show his multi-year plan. Bill Belichick was 5-11 his first year in Foxboro, after taking over for Pete Carroll, who went 7-9. Should he have been fired for not showing improvement that first year?

My only point in the post above was that he has decimated the Heaps roster, and hasn't finished rebuilding it yet. This winter will be key to knowing if he is capable of that rebuild or not.

Of the players he has brought in so far, only Somi could be considered a bust, so I think he has earned one more transfer window to prove himself.

I do share your concerns about devaluing players. Hopefully once he gets all his own players, that trend will stop.

 

The whole problem I have is that he ditched a lot of useful players (or guys how could have been useful) without getting better guys in to replace them. If, for example, he brought along Heriveaux, who was high on the depth chart, to take over the role from Nguyen, and then moved Lee to LAFC so for TAM/GAM to pay down someone's salary so no money would come out of Kraft's pocket, then that would have been a "plan." So far though, the "plan" is working no better than the South Park gnomes' "plan."

Give him another year to see who he brings in. They spent a lot of time and effort to get Machado, who they could have had at the start of the season. After all that, they better be using him, or I will revise my thinking that foreign player acquisition is something Friedel will do better than Heaps.

 

One take on what might be behind what we are seeing:

...is that Brad would strongly prefer to be adding multiple impact players in parallel with his slash and burn campaign on the current roster. However, he has been constrained by FO/ownership such that he must do these things sequentially. i.e., self fund new acquisitions only by getting rid of existing salary; i.e., no incremental salary spend..

-----------------------
​

If that is the case, I hope it is clear to his bosses that this approach will cost them their "Playoffs!" marketing tag line this year.

If the bosses do understand this, then that is perhaps a little bit of a baby step in a philosophy change. e.g., I suspect that Jay **never** felt like he was "allowed" to miss the playoffs.

 

I'm not buying your theory. Friedel has said he's got the resources/approval to get players, and I believe him.

I think Friedel did a good job of getting the Revs off to a good start. Then the defense crumbled, which really sabotaged the team's chances. The defense *should* have been better - Toni was nearly perfect last season, Dielna has good size/experience and should have been better, Anibaba was better than expected, Somi played well for a while, then his deficiencies became exposed - and Farrell, ... I'd like to say he's regressed, but he's always been erratic, and that hasn't really changed.

Is some of that Friedel's "fault"? Sure. My point is that the need to rebuild/rework the defense derailed what was a positive turnaround. So, two steps forward (two, because I feel like this roster has the potential to do much better than last year's), one step back.

 

My point on this is we are on year 4 of trying to "rebuild" the defense with different people. I agree we've needed updates in those positions: Tierney was getting older, and we had zero cover for motivation and injuries, Heaps playing Rowe playing back there. And I agree Farrell is really just a frustrating Farrell.

But I would really like to see the Revs do - is upgrade in FRONT of those back 5. Update the Midfield and Forwards, take pressure off the backline, scare other teams because we are so dominant at the front end of our formation and quit just recycling guys in the back.

I think Friedel is trying by bringing in Penilla, Caideo, and Zahibo....but it is not quite meshing and being dominant, even though it started out that way.

That is on Friedel now too - he has to scout, coach, and bring in players - and put them in positions and tactically to do what he thinks will win games. How much they buy in and how he man manages everyone determines his success.

I was surprised Friedel as a former pro, did not demand a stud player right away to help implement whatever he was trying to do, be another leader in the locker room. Instead it seemed like went the route of lots of "unknowns" (no disrespect) and try to just coach them - might have bitten off more than he could chew in his first professional season since it is not like U18 National Camps that just meet for a couple of weeks and play some games.

If he was given the backing and funds as he says he was, then this might have been a mistake and over confidence on Friedel's part, in my opinion.

I think Friedel is hitting a learning curve right now too - but like others note - I think it is too early, as frustrating as this is.

 

You may be right, maybe he really does have what he needs. Then it is still puzzling if so that Brad's improved-roster-this-year team but with a crumbled defense has ended up with worse results to date than Jay's crumbled defense on the yet-to-be-improved-by-Brad team, last season.

I'm not there yet on Brad. He comes across as straightforward on a number of items, but then there's been a few over-the-top "suspension of disbelief" items along the way.

Friedel on whether he wished he had Nguyen available tonight: "No. Diego has won the #10 role fair & square, and I wouldn't have taken off my #10 in a game like that in a million years. If I wanted to do that, I would've brought Zach Herivaux off the bench."

— Brian O'Connell (@BrianOConnell21) April 15, 2018

And you suggested a while back not to take Brad literally, which I agree is a good guideline.

So, I'm not ready to take Brad's "we have resources we need" literally. Not all was revealed during hiring/contracts talks, neither by candidate nor the Revs org hiring him - both sides are doing a little marketing to each other during that dance.

So, he may still now be learning all of the subtle detailed internal org policies/pressures that he must operate within. Those should be becoming clearer to him as his first season progresses. Hopefully, they turn out to be closer to his early statement about having what he needs.

 

I'd give Brad a break. Anyone coaching the Revs is fooked. The Kraft's idea is to put no more money into this operation than is necessary to prevent the Revs from being kicked out of the league.

 

1) I think a coach wouldn't say it or would avoid answering it if they didn't believe it was true.

2) I wouldn't say any amount, but certainly serious DP money. I certainly believe he can spend the 2018 equivalent of Jermaine Jones money (because the Krafts already showed that they were open to that kind of investment).

I think the answer to your 2nd part that I quoted here is the first that I quoted: it's up to Friedel (and his scouting staff) to find and sign that stud player.

I'm a big believer that continuity is critical to success. The number of changes make short-term results an even bigger challenge. It takes time ...

I'm so glad you found and reposted that tweet - it's the one that is used by some to suggest that Friedel thought/said/believed that Zach was better than Nguyen, when the actual tweet shows that such conclusions are taken totally out of context.

 

Of course Friedel is a bust. Heaps was a bust. There were, and are, a bazillion experienced managers that Maestro Burns could have hired. But he didn't. ...Again.
Of course no manager of any real distinction would touch the Revs job with a ten foot Lithuanian. (No offense intended to actual Lithuanians),.In the world of football the Revs name is poison, and justifiably so. It's been true since the league was formed, and is now so rooted in the sport's culture that they have no shot at any player or manager who's worth spit. It will take decades of wise, careful, meticulously planned and executed care in all phases of the team's operation to repair the damage already done. How likely do any of you expect something like that to happen?
(Crickets.......)

 

Riga Tony would be deeply offended, but he's Latvian, so he'll let it slide.

The problem with the Revs is that Friedel probably was the best they could have done.They interviewed Savarese, but no one knows whether they offered it to him or he had certain things he wanted, or whatever. I remember Burns saying they had talked to a lot of people, but who knows, it could have been reference checks or referrals. Or candidates who wanted the club to give him more of what he needed to be successful. We don't know. But it sure seems like the only people who would take this job are guys who are looking to get their foot in the door for their first gig, or an assistant trying to move up to a head coach job. IOW you're not going to get a guy with good coaching pedigree and contacts to take this job, no matter how much money you offer him.

 

I want to believe that if DC United can muster up the ability to turn their image around, so can the Revs. It's a dead horse that's been beaten 500 * XVI times, but a new stadium, complete re-branding, and a some good ol' cash can turn this boat around. Until then, I'm not expecting anything beyond the bare minimum from this franchise.

With the new age MLS, we should actually be happy we still have a team to support and that it isn't being ripped away from us like Columbus. I honestly fear waking up everyday to a news report that the Revs will be re-located.

 

This may sound naive, but at what point do we just say it's the players on the field that win and lose games. I honestly think sports fans put way too much accountability on coaches, as if Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, and Alex Ferguson could walk in together and make this team win games.

It's borderline ridiculous, a coach never touches a ball, a coach never looses his mark on a free kick, a coach never makes a bad pass. He just decides which 18 of his 23 players are the best for the day, which 11 of those 18 should start and where they should stand, and which 3 players he should sub on/off. All of his decision start with the 23 players he has.

If Jay Heaps and Brad Friedel had Taylor Twellman, Steve Ralston, Clint Dempsey, Shalrie Joseph, and Matt Reis, we would be praising them for their winning tactics. Bullsh*t, they have better players who play better, and win. Was Jay Heaps an amazing coach in 2014, or did Jermaine Jones carry his sorry ass all the way to MLS Cup?

Michael Burns is the problem, he's the common denominator that has plagued this franchise for years, and fans want to once again throw the coach under the bus which only protects Burns. I wish I could fire other people to save my own incompetent ass. If Jurgen Klopp was hired as our new coach next year, we would still not make the playoffs. If Jurgen Klopp was hired as our GM we would compete for MLS Cup. We need people who can better identify talent, even under the stringent budget that the Krafts gives us.