Earnie = Silent Bob?

This is what I'm praying for. No one interviewed. Berhalter top and only candidate. Are we in the Twighlight Zone?

 

All Philly Union fans told you Nat only fans that this would be the case. You're not going to hear a peep from Earnie until the press conference to announce the new coach. This is his SOP. If you haven't noticed, all of the coaching candidate "news" hasn't been coming from the USSF, but from MLS sources and coaches.

 

Based on his previous, I would say that's what Earnie wants to do. Thus, the lack of official statements and the small size of the hiring committee. The centralizing of operations in Chicago is probably partly related to that goal as well.

However, I would doubt whether he'll be able to fully achieve that goal. The USSF is not Philly Union - bigger, broader, with more connections and a pre-existing organization, over which Earnie has less control. It leaks like a sieve. There's a limit to how much Earnie can keep under his restraint. While things like the decision-making process can be kept among his inner circle, when he needs to share info with and request services from other parts of the organization, that's where things will leak out.

There may be a possibility that Earnie has a secret up his sleeve, but he'd need to be undertaking some extraordinary measures to keep it hushed up. If he's about to sign John van den Brom, then he'd need to be flying to Holland in secret (or flying van den Brom to the USA in secret), and meeting privately with van den Brom and his agent and a lawyer who's also a close friend to draw up the contract, and not telling anyone else in the USSF what he's doing - like secret agent stuff.

Barring that, if they truly are targeting someone that we don't know about, then that would suggest they're still in the early stages, when Earnie's inner circle are the only ones involved in the process.

And personally, I don't even see the need to be so ultra-secretive. Sure, you don't want to tell the public every detail about your deliberations, but how does it affect anything if the media knows you're conducting interviews or you've got a shortlist or you're meeting with so-and-so and so-and-so's agent? It might affect contract negotiations if another FA who's hiring knows you're going after a candidate, but the candidate's agent would leak that information anyway just for leverage. Other FA's around the world seem to get by without enforcing "need-to-know" policies - even releasing public statements on their progress. It might even help as a PR move, showing that they're not sitting around twiddling their thumbs. And, I might add, they've all gotten their coaching searches done much faster than we have.

 

The problem with that way of doing things is that in the absence of information, people will assume the worst, which is what MNT fans are currently doing.

 

If Earnie = Silent Bob, who in USSF is Jay?

 

I think assuming the worst when it comes to USMNT is not only a product of no information...it often happens with a little information, medium information and a lot of information as well....

but i agree, i dont like the top secret methods.

i think its just about damage control....and image maintenance...which, if they (and by they I mean Earnie, in this instance) truly understood the dynamics at play here they would realize they have nothing to gain by keeping everyone in as much dark as possible.

EDIT: now that Crew didnt flunk out of the playoffs im expecting a berhalter announcement any day now.

 

Will be interesting how this is actually announced. A USSF press conference, or breaking news during an MLS production (like national team roster releases have been for some reason). That will be telling as to SUMs reach into all of this!

 

SUMNT owns and profits from the USMNT - and they control everything about it and the sport of soccer in the USA - no matter how the next coach is announced.