I never said or believed that either. But believe whatever you want, it's tiresome to spend my time swatting at flies. I'll take this opportunity to say I don't have an 'Ignore' list, and never will. I'll let anyone say anything to me they want no matter how dishonest or benighted. My purpose in coming here is to have an exchange of ideas, hopefully made in an entertaining way, but at least without mindless venom. It's obvious you do not share my belief in either entertainment or ideas.
I want to chime in on the JK sucks team. Leaving Landon off and bringing multiple injured forward/winger types in his place is the worst coaching decision in my decades of fan experience across multiple sports. He should have been told that either Landon was going to Brazil or that the Fed would spill the beans.
LOL - you seem upset and shouldn't be as it's an internet message board. The point of this thread is not to stifle opinions but rather to find a home for the re-litigation of the JK vs. LD/MLS/USSF issue. This central repository is the place for you and others to deeply opine here on the relative merits or harm of JK's tenure but hopefully not in other threads where it's not as pertinent. For example, you've engaged in the similar JK-related debates in the following threads: It's official: Berhalter hired Italy vs. USA [R], 11/20/2018 - Post-Mortem Thread Rob Stone: US Manager shortlist is Ramos, Tata Martino, Marsch, Berhalter, Friedel, Osorio & Vermes. USA vs England 11/15/2018 The debate is fine but I (and perhaps a few others) think that this is the place for it rather than the above threads. Feel free to ignore.
I think he was a disaster. Picking fights that were meaningless, knew zero tactics, constantly changing line-ups so there was little continuity. Talked big, delivered chaos. No Donovan was icing on the cake of his incompetence. He was/is a bad coach. Notice how little interest there has been in him. Phillip Lahm was correct.
So MPnumber9 attempts a more high road approach and IMO genuinely soft peddles the JK debate in the GB thread and then patrick167 throws down for team “JK rules”
Scoring points for arguing the same points over various threads is Honore de ballsac. Listen, I was against cutting LD too but, man, let it go. Or at the very least, put all your comments here instead of every thread you post on Rob Stone: US Manager shortlist is Ramos, Tata Martino, Marsch, Berhalter, Friedel, Osorio & Vermes. It's official: Berhalter hired
Did you just copy one of my posts from another thread and paste it here to criticize/simulate that I was making similar points in other threads? And gosh, how do I do it? You know, mention the previous coach in threads about the new one?
I did do that with no intent other than to contain the JK hatred to one spot. One can discuss GB without constantly bringing JK (and JJ, Cameron, etc. into it)
I'm nodding my head in reading the first part of this as I now better understand and agree with your point that just because someone is a great player they can still learn from someone who wasn't a great player. The end of this is ridiculous. There are very few BS posters who immediately trash all things related to MLS and I first stated the "MLS sucks and is bad for the USMNT" is a ridiculous perspective. So is your trashing of JJ, who is clearly one of the best USMNT players of all time. If i'm picking my all-time USMNT best XI, I start with JJ. TL;DR it's not "discrediting everything American/MLS" to acknowledge that there are better teams and leagues (and MLS is not equivalent to the bottom half of the top 8 leagues). JuveChelsea may be wrong in his perspective on coaching/playing but he doesn't appear to be anti-MLS.
Indeed it is not discrediting everything American/MLS to acknowledge that there are better teams and leagues. Its pretty obvious that's the case and FWIW I already acknowledged(?) that myself. There's a big difference between "trashing" and "automatically discrediting." A lot of US fans fall into that second trap - and thereby might "think," for example, that a veteran of two World Cups with 50+ caps... ...who came within a whisker of the WC semifinals, ...who won one MLS Cup as a player, and got to another as a coach ...who's been coaching pro soccer for 8 years after a 14 year pro playing career in the US and abroad ...who has his USSF Pro coaching license ...could teach nothing to an 18 year old American forward who's been in Germany less than a year and had yet to play a minute of Bundesliga. BECAUSE EUROPE/NOT EUROPE. THAT is automatically discrediting everything American/MLS. And that mentality, that streak of insecurity, that reflexive assumption that American product is lesser will haunt us something fierce. How often are we going to hear people questioning and second-guessing and scoffing at Gregg Berhalter coaching Christian Pulisic - because they're basically Eurosnob idiots? * * * And, really, JJ is the first name on your US Best XI list? Hookaayyy... we are not going to agree on much.
Absolutely first. By the way, in your construction of Europe/non-Europe, Wolff played in Europe so how does that prove your point that people are biased against MLS? It’s really a. B2 vs major league argument.
It was an earned "hate". I had hoped he was the real deal [yes, I was naive..and congratulations to Suyunty for clearly predicting from the start what would unfold] and when it became so painfully obvious he wasn't I then hoped the USSF would act [after the WC] to not allow the mistake to fester.... instead they let it all fester, and fester, and four years later we are sure paying for it. On a more individual note, I believe that both Klinsmann and Arena II [ the feds are a lost cause in this regard, I think] would have done us, and themselves, a world of good just by having faced, honestly and with rigor, their own responsibility in how their tenures went wrong. Rancor tends to fade when truth, and not party power, is what is honored.
At the end of the day, there's no one size fits all answer for every player. As a general rule, I think players are better off going to Europe as long as they'll be able to play regularly and are in a league that's at least as good as MLS (or perhaps even a Celtic/Rosenborg type club that might play in a slightly inferior domestic league but offers the opportunity for regular CL/Europa League games). Mexico is a good option too although I never like seeing guys who are dual nationals go there unless they're already cap-tied.
I don’t hate Klinsi. I can’t. Wasn’t he the only coach to lead us to victory at Azteca (granted, a friendly)? And he tied them there in qualifying. He brought in Morris and Morris beat Mexico in a friendly. I really do not like Mexican soccer. Also, didn’t we actually win in Europe a few times under Klinsi? That was so rare up to that point. Also, is it just a freak coincidence that we’ve had several young US grown players getting a legit chance in Germany the past several years? I think that maybe he somehow had helped open the door to Germany by having pushed more German-Americans to the Nats, thereby giving US soccer in general more exposure to German coaches and teams. Now, the Landon thing, for that he deserves wrath. Inexcusable, utterly inexcusable. And the run up to 2018, just so horrible beyond words. But I can’t hate him. He was only mostly bad, not 100% bad.
[moved from another thread, like God intended] This is what i think every time posters [frequently] complain about the LD cut (which I was against, for the record). Given that we exceeded expectations or, at a minimum, met them in Brazil (notwithstanding a terrible travel schedule that was the most of any team, a devastating injury to our primary striker who was just peaking at the time, and no minnows in our group), what's the issue? He made a call to remove a player that IMO was clearly still an impact player because IMO, he thought he was undermining the coaches authority.* Results are what matters and the team pulled a rabbit out of the hat. JK would have been justly shanghai'd if we went three and out after cutting LD but we didn't. The counter-factual that we would have done even better with LD in the squad is dubious at best and certainly nowhere near a fact. * JK would have been equally justified in booting Cameron after the GC if he thought he was a bad fit for the locker room and undermining his authority
I think I was the only one predicting Klinsmann was not going to take Donovan. It made sense: we went there to survive (defend a lot) and the only guy who had as much clout as the coach was LD. Klinsmann needed unity of purpose and clear leadership. So we went there, became the second team with fewer chances created after Iran in the group stage, and saved our honor thanks to Howard in the R16. It was the smart thing to do, and JK is an intelligent man. Of course, with a WC in the Americas and considering the players we still had, one could rightfully wonder whether we could have done better. Or we could have gone three-and-out playing less ugly soccer. But all that is just a bunch of hypothesis we cannot test. Water under the bridge.
He was still making the right noises, even though it was evident he was in over his head in the tactical. There were many around here who wanted him to finish the cycle. The man has the gift of the gab.
Results in tournaments are too fickle. I judge on the process and decision making. As to undermining, what was the evidence of that? LD went to the Gold Cup and let Klinsy ride him like a rented mule, right to victory. turning in 90 after 90. It's not a dubious counterfactual to say we would have been better off with a fit Landon than with an injured, hernia carrying Johanson. That's a very reasonable inference.
In many ways, JK's tenure was no different than that of dozens of other coaches world wide. It looks like a parabola. It goes up and then comes down. As others have noted, JK came in and made some positive impacts. We saw some nice results on European soil and at Azteca and things appeared to be going in the right direction. But it all peaked at the same time it started to decline: at the 2014 World Cup. We saw our team over-perform in that it made it out of the first round despite zero creativity in the midfield. At the same time, JK blew it by openly disrespecting the most respected player in the U.S. player pool, who ironically was also our best midfielder. If you all remember, Chandler had blown the team off repeatedly and yet kept getting call ups. Landon was crucial to putting this team on the soccer world map of respectability going back to his 2002 World Cup performance and yet got publicly humiliated. Terrible call by JK. It exposed one of his major flaws - one which proved an impediment to allowing the USMNT hit full potential. JK let his ego get in the way. The downward slide continued from there. Landon goes down in U.S. soccer history as a legend. JK goes down as a coach who made his mark, but nothing special: no World Cup performance as strong as Arena-coached 2002 or as impressive as Bradley coached Confederations Cup 2009. JK had his run. He made his mark. Then it was time to go. Landon is a USMNT legend. .