The Athletic: With three MLS coach openings, here are the top domestic candidates Houston now joins Real Salt Lake, who fired Mike Petke, and the Colorado Rapids, who fired Anthony Hudson, as teams with interim coaches at the helm: Freddy Juarez at RSL, Conor Casey in Colorado and now Davy Arnaud in Houston. What a half-assed list... of all the coaches in USL, Anthony Pulis, really??
Jordan: "...must understand our culture" Translation: Must speak Spanish or gtfo. Cause that's important....
O'Conner and dos Santos are safe I think. O'Conner has gotten Orlando up to 1.2 PPG so far and has got them close to the playoffs (unless they collapse) on sort of a rebuild year. Vancouver knows that they can't jettison dos Santos yet since it just makes the whole FO look more incompetent than their fans already think they are. The only person in the West that could end up getting canned would be Heath. Yes, I know they are in third right now. But the way the West is right now they are a mini-slump away from being out of the play-offs. Depending on their result tonight they could be anywhere from 2 points clear of FCD or 5 points clear (they'll both be on same number of games played and FCD is the one outside the play-offs on PPG).
Firing Vermes would mean not only needing to hire a new head coach, but also a Sporting Director and Technical Director. Vermes is SKC. I don't Garde getting the boot, he's got Montreal in a good spot considering they were without their best player for the majority of this season. Now, could Garde bolt to go back to Europe? Could certainly see that. I'd swap Vanney and Dos Santos though. MDS has had little to work with, though, and Vancouver's I/O's aren't exactly known for their soccer competence. Vanney could certainly be out at the end of the year if TFC miss the playoffs. He isn't Curtis' guy, and they spend the most $$$ in MLS on their roster.
Also think they will see what SJ, ATL, and LAFC have done and probably go big on a head coach. Feels like that is the last evolution for that club currently.
I agree. But he still has to be on the list. He's definitely using up a lot of his slack right now. To be honest, it would take the ownership to swing back to its original willingness to lose money spending ways to change the team's current trajectory.
The question, and earlier referenced article in the The Athletic, specifically talked about American-born black coaches.
Exactly. MLS generally gets good annual grades on diversity in front offices and amongst technical staffs, but we're in our 24th season and I don't think there has ever been a non-interim American born black head coach. I think Cobi Jones was an interim head coach in Los Angeles for a week or so back in 2008, but I don't think he was ever a serious candidate. Especially during the Beckham era.
ben olson coaching tree is pretty wild when you think of the level of mediocrity thus far achieved by him. he seems the definition of replacement level
The American born bit is silly. Robin Fraser and Denis Hamlett weren't born in the US but have spent most of their lives here. They should qualify as American.
I'm not saying there have been a lot of black coaches in MLS, I'm saying Fraser and Hamlett should count as American.
Yes, they should: Fraser and Hamlett are American citizens. Fraser has 27 appearances for the U.S. national team.
I agree all US citizens should count, I was simply answering the question that was asked. I guess it's too much to expect for people to fully read and comprehend comments that are A DOZEN WORDS long...