Fire TBD! - New Coach Discussion

The Timbers didn't qualify for the playoffs at least twice during his 5 year tenure. He also failed to qualify a US team for the Olympics. There's been quite a few failures to go with his success.

 

Interesting you focus mostly on his weaker seasons and almost completely ignore the height of his wins. If that's your definition of wildly inconsistent, I'll take it.

3 playoffs and one MLS Cup every 5 years, on average? Who here wouldn't take that?

You are also ignoring that he did it in Portland. LA has built in advantages over Portland that should help a coach be more successful.

And as far as our NTs go, I don't think the coaches are the problem. The players are largely hopeless in the modern world of international soccer.

 

Given that the Galaxy are a blip on AEG's balance sheet, I very much doubt that the performance of the Galaxy is a significant criteria upon which Dan is evaluated on. IMO, Klein should be evaluated on this but as they said in the COG, some members of the FO seem protected. Perhaps because of the fact that they make money.

I did some additional research and found out that I was wrong. Without accounting for every nickel, it looks like the Galaxy probably made full use of all of their funds which totaled around $8.4 mm not including DP salaries over the cap..

 

Why actually look for a good coach? That's hard. And besides Dom is already here....

 

I'm just pointing out that out of a total of about the last 6 years, he's failed half the time. And yes, that's my definition of inconsistent. That concerns me. Was his MLS cup winning season a flash in the pan? Who knows. Yallop won an MLS Cup with small market San Jose and later came here and produced completely unacceptable results. And I still have nightmares about our Steve Sampson period where we brought him in to supposedly shake things up when we had a consistently mediocre team. In hindsight that destabilized us for years and Porter would be coming into a similar situation now as Yallop did in 2006.

I also think the resources available to the USMNT dwarf those of the programs of the overwhelming majority of the other nations in our region, as does the talent pool. Failure to qualify for any major tournament at any level should be viewed as an abject failure by the management which in 2011/2012 was Caleb Porter and his staff at the U-23 level.

I guess in my opinion the jury is still out on Porter. My thought though is that with his connection to Kline and with the past behavior of our FO being used as a predictor for the future, Porter is exactly what we're going to get. I hope he can be successful with us more than half the time.

 

No I'm not. Let me repeat: "3 playoffs and one MLS Cup every 5 years, on average? Who here wouldn't take that?" That covers the good and the bad. So would you take it or not?

No, I didn't say that anywhere. 2 botched seasons out of 2 is not as good as: 2 botched/2 decent and 1 smashing success out of 5.

Good, some balance finally!

There you go again, focusing on the bad.

That's not much to celebrate, and it certainly wasn't in evidence this past cycle.It's trending to be more difficult to finish in the top 4. And would be nice to qualify for the Olympics once in awhile. I guess at least the youth qualified for the last Youth WC, so perhaps there is hope for the future. But the 2010 decade was largely a washout except for a decent showing at the 2014 WC. Face it, the US players are further behind the rest of the world to where they were 20 years ago.

 

So you're including this season where he didn't coach at all as a failed season, huh? Interesting.
Given that he has only had one MLS coaching job, sure, the jury is still out. I'm also considering his winning attitude and approach to the game (from my limited knowledge of him), not just his record.

And I'm just not seeing these vast resources of talent in our player pool. Who, besides Pulisic has done anything resembling potential world class talent, let alone be a solid replacement for Dempsey, Donovan and Bradley?

 

Wait, what? Which season where he didn't coach?

I am referencing the last 6 six coaching assignments he's had. The US U-23s during qualification for the 2012 Olympics and 5 seasons with Portland, each its own unique campaign. Of those 6, exactly half failed to achieve positive results.

And he couldn't manage to get out of a qualification group which included Canada, El Salvador and Cuba for goodness sakes. You don't consider the United States to have a significant advantage in talent pool and resources over those programs?

Let's just agree to disagree then.

 

Well, I'm not proposing him for the USMNT post. I guess if we're going outside of MLS experience, we could count his college record as well. But, I don't think we want to go there.

 

I can't predict how Porter will do if he comes here but I do know he is a driven, focused guy, maybe to a fault. If he comes here and fails it won't be due to a lack of effort. He was very successful at University of Akron - I don't know how much of that was recruiting and how much was coaching.

 

Oops, I just did.

 

Yes, he was. He also inherited a program that had won 3 of its last 4 conference titles prior to his coming aboard in 2006. He'll be inheriting a dumpster fire if he comes here. Completely different scenario.

I just wish there was a safe option out there with a proven track record of being able to right a sinking ship which we clearly are right now. There doesn't seem to be though.

I prefer the idea of Berhalter for some reason. But he's a mixed bag too and has even less experience than Porter.

 

Safe option was Sigi. Now it would be Arena or maybe Sampson. Or perhaps staying with Kinnear, which would probably be the best of that old school lot.

Berhalter, who knows? Probably as much of a wild card as Porter. I like that Porter has a LOT more coaching experience (including his college days) than Berhalter.

 

True but they had never won a national championship until Porter came along. He took them to the final in 2009 and then won it in 2010. Over those two years the Zips were 45-1-4. In college soccer it's hard to go 50 games with only 1 loss - no matter how good your recruits are.
Again I'm not saying he will be great for the Galaxy - he doesn't have enough pro resume to be sure. I'm just saying that the guy is competitive af, does his homework and prepares his teams.

 

Watching the San Jose - lafc game, the Spanish commentators keep saying that Donovan is going to be an assistant coach for the Galaxy, was that ever confirmed?

 

THAT right there is exactly what I want as the Galaxy's next coach!

 

Oh gawd, I hope not. We don't need this foolishness. Hire a real coaching staff!!

 

I'm not sure if Donovan would ever make a good head coach, but he'd probably be a great assistant coach. I wouldn't be mad at that.

Porter's not an awful choice, but he's far from an ideal choice. I think the observations about him are mostly correct; there is nothing he's done to-date to show that he could salvage the cluster that the Galaxy is right now.

 

Wins against opponents currently (right now) in the @MLS playoffs:
ATL- 8
RBNY- 8
LAFC- 7
Galaxy- 7
DAL- 6
NYC- 6
POR- 6
CLB- 5
PHI- 5
RSL- 5
MTL- 4
SEA- 4
DC- 3
SKC- 3

— Bobby Warshaw (@bwarshaw14) September 24, 2018

I agree Sigi was not the only problem (and probably, not the first), but when I see this stat, I think he had something to do with our season. A team capable of getting results only against big clubs and not taking seriously weaker opponents may be because the coach can't make them commit 100%.

 

Adding to your comment (not disagreeing), it may also reflect orders to play certain players - specifically Gio, when they are healthy.

Of course having Skjelvik out of the lineup helps immensely. Cole can actually play wide.

 

Word is that Becks is looking at Zidane for Sporting Real Inter Miami FC Soccer Club de Sportivo.

 

Not a Porter fan, but if that's what it takes to keep Klinsi from being the coach, I can live with it.