McBride deserves the benefit of the doubt - he’s a true culture carrier for the USMNT. I truly hope he is able to provide some much needed balance to Berhalter and Stewart (who was one of my favorite players so the disappointment I feel is profound).
I have often criticized both formal media and social media for failing to try to understand WHY US soccer does or doesn't do things. Read between the lines of the McBride hire and you can see what problems they are trying to solve and why. The primary problem he is to solve is relationship building and partnerships internationally. Add this to the recent u-20 hire- the US has struggled to recruit and even talk to international coaches. Pro teams can dictate who can talk to whom. If this is true for youth coaches, then you can assume it was true for other roles. Call ups, recruiting dual nationals, and building a network of potential coaches are all things McBride will be asked to do.
This is pretty much true for any business that has written employment contracts. Otherwise you are risking getting sued for tortious interference with contract...
How can I be optimistic about a federation that has kept youth coach positions vacant for months and months???
You can try to understand why. It seems to me that 1) they are in the middle of a complete reorg. That has taken priority and time. People want change- change takes time to build buy in, gather input, and then implement. 2) It seems they struggled in recruiting and getting access to candidates. 3) Understand that all of this is strategic and not tactical. The fruits will be evaluated years later. This is particularly true of youth development. Lastly- most youth development happens at their clubs. These teams to do some development but mostly do promotion of these kids to higher level clubs. That's has not been the top priority to the reorg. Everyone agreed and wanted large scale change. Change takes time and is at a strategic level- meaning the impact and effect will likely be evaluated at the multi-year level. IF people want to be optimistic.. then they also have to choose to be patient.
Agreed- but due to US lack of influence and relationships it appears they struggled to get access and struggled to recruit top coaches
It took them over two years to hire Stewart, come up with this new role and the hire mcbride. Is this the structure or are going to hire someone else in a year as we continue through this reorg?
Agreed about being patient to a certain extent, but how long has Ernie been at the helm? When he was appointed, and made his mission statement so to speak, he stressed youth development. It doesn't (shouldn't) take that long to see some progress or substantial changes.
1) He started in a different role. 2) He then was promoted with additional accountability. 3) if you listen to recent interviews, you can then tell he spent time assessing the different departments. This is normal business operations when coming in to fix anything. 4) Then he developed the strategic direction and solutions from that assessment. (this hasn't been stated but is normal business process) 5) Then built buy in and gathered stakeholder input. 6) Then began implementing changes. The changes included creating job descriptions - which usually takes a process of getting input, approvals from his boss and inputs from HR. Then recruiting those positions and then lastly hiring. He is now in the process of hiring and announcing hires. It is definitely possible that all of this could have gone faster but the current timeline makes sense and is reasonable. I think people just get impatient because they 1) don't understand the types of things that typically happen behind closed doors to implement this type of change and 2) only see the final results. So yes- it seems like a long time just to hire people but from all the hires and interviews- they werent just hiring people. They were building a whole reorg on the technical side of the organization. Those types of things are rarely one person just doing what they want. There is a great deal of buy in, assessments, stakeholder engagement, and then final approvals (some of which may have required board approval). Then the implementation steps themselves take time. You add to those things that the US ability to recruit, interview, and talk to foriegn applicants seems to have been severely limited- then that also adds to their difficulties. So yes- it we would all like to have things faster and sure- they could be- depending on several factors. But overall the time elapsed for the work done (both confirmed and assumed) is reasonable.
Maybe trying to reign Gregg in and set up new youth development organizations for both genders and reach out to clubs and players in the player pool and deal with the board was too much for Earnie. So, McBride will reign in Gregg and be in constant contact with players and their clubs. Earnie can then work on the big picture and keep the business guys and the board out of meddling. McBride called Gregg's approach "complicated" and said players, "were thinking too much" and "didn't always understand the instructions". He must be bought in to the ideas of Gregg and Earnie to get the job. But he has also seen the product from outside the past 12 months. His perspective can only help Gregg. There seems to be a new emphasis on getting the fans back. McBride as the face of the new team can only help. Gregg is a little too testy and corporate speak and Earnie doesn't seem to like to talk at all.
I think its less about "reigning" Gregg in and more about taking on the duties that Gregg is doing that no one really things he should be. Such as dual national recruiting, getting teams to release players, and possibly even using his contacts to help find youth coaches.
Everything you say is reasonable. But, it also took too long and that has probably led to less desirable choices being made. When you hire your U17 coach a week before qualifying, your U23 coach the day before camp, and your U20 coach a day before camp, and less than 3 months from WCQ, then you have taken too long. There has been a general lack of urgency since the GM positions were created (too them 6 months to hire Earnie and what, 18 months to hire Kate?). Earnie took the job and then didn't actually start for three months. Probably they knew they were hiring Gregg but put that off for 3-12 months. If Earnie starts work on this in Sept. 2018, it ends up taking him 15 months? In the interim, every coach leaves? People have to stop trying to defend these timelines. Look ahead and ignore how we got there if you want. But stop defending the indefensible.
I think the timelines have been pretty reasonable. You also forget that they needed to elect a new president in there. Then they needed to create the GM position. Which takes all of that stakeholder, buy in and approvals of above. Then recruit, interview and hire the new GM. Three months is bit long for letting a guy finish his hold job but we're talking high level executives here- so fine. Then recruit, interview and hire a coach. Then let him finish his contract. These thing take time.
Ya know, I have several issues about how Berhalter has done coaching the team and I understand the frustrations people have with Stewart. I'm going to continue to complain about Berhalter for sure. However, I do think we should step back a second and appreciate one thing that seems significant to me for the long haul and that's getting former US players intimately involved with the program. We went from having he team basically run by an economics professor working part time and hiring whatever mercenary he could find to coach the team to now being run administratively by two significant players from US soccer past and coached by a former US player. I can't help but think that in the long run, having the team pushed forward by players who loved and lived the game and have a strong emotional stake in the team is good for all involved. I have no idea if McBride will bring anything specific to this position or how it will all pan out in the short run. But, for the longer term, I feel like we may be moving in a better direction than it appears.
I think those are all things NT coaches did in the past. Some probably better than others, no doubt. Some of this is a certain segment of retired USMNT players, reacting to Couva, and trying to put "soccer people in charge". The team, which was run on the whim of Gulati the President not long ago, now has three layers of bureaucracy between the CEO and the President and the players. On the women's side, for example, players were still calling Gulati (after Cordeiro was elected) to try and get Ellis fired. I think Stewart is trying to professionalize the whole sporting side of the organization. His Chicago requirement is controversial but is consistent with that idea. I do think Gregg tried a very sophisticated club model of team building with poor results. There have been signs that was an experiment and they are not going to pursue it further short term. But while he was so focused on the team and The System, he probably neglected lots of things that previous coaches had done. Most NTs have a GM I think, so, maybe USSF was just behind on having the coach do it. Typical management tool to take stuff off someone's plate, let them concentrate on their core duties, but also introduce more management scrutiny to make sure that the change is having the desired effect.
The GM position was created before the election. Cordeiro wasn't on the GM search committee, so nothing had to wait. It took 10 months from when the position was created for Earnie to start. They took 14 months to hire a coach. You can say A had to happen before B, but why? When Lopetegui asked to interview for the Job (a few weeks after Earnie started), they were "already too far into the process". Which means, they had done plenty of work before Stewart got there. In fact, it seems like all the work was done and Stewart had two guys to choose from and interviewed and hired one. But even then, he didn't start for 3 months. There was no reason it took them 20 months (?) to hire a women's GM. Pfizer is a bit bigger, more complicated organization, true? They hired a CEO in the time it took Earnie to relocate to Chicago. If your HR director routinely took a year or more to hire basic staff positions, you would fire them. This isn't 1920 either, identifying and hiring people can take weeks not months. Again, focus on the positive and stop defending the indefensible. Even with the recent flurry, there are still 8 coaching positions unfilled and all the assitant coaching positions. And a technical style director and the women need a performance coach. It is truly unbelievable and had to be a conscious choice to wait this long.
I do not for a moment believe that Nepo will let McBride have the say as to whether General Egg stays or goes.
I'm assuming you meant Gregg. I hope you didn't, because right now the only people who could fire Jay would be Cordeiro and the board. Based on the utter lack of a response of the numerous issues of a toxic work environment (sorry, I know it may be anonymous GlassDoor postings and people talking to the New York Times, but the stories are too plentiful and too consistent to be an orchestrated smear job), I don't thing the board has any inclination to fire Jay.
Since they are multiplying the layers of the onion to give jobs to all the friends and relatives, can't they throw Adu a job somewhere training kids or something?
Right now they are claiming McBride could fire Berhalter. If this isn't camouflage then it kind of solves the Berhalter / Berhalter problem. McBride has a layer between the other Berhalter. Of course I can't be certain this is on the up and up but I really doubt McBride would sign on to a sham.