Official “Is Brad Friedel bad at his job?” Thread

Life is Not Fair

 

Next year Friedel may well go from Brad to Worse.........

 

I tend to think Brad has lost this team. They don't buy his plans, player selection and he does blame everybody but himself.
I now officially think he was a mistake as a coach and crazy to come here with Burns getting the players.

The Kraft's MUST FIRE BURNS

Then get a competent GM that can actually sign players. If BF still can't produce a winner then he goes too

 

If the fans of the Brady Bunch are on Team Thor, we the fans of the Revs are stuck forever on Team Loki..... and he just enjoys the heck out of treating us like shit.

 

We like to think Kraft despises us, but the truth is:

 

On July 2nd, a couple of days after landing Wayne Rooney, DC United stood on 10 points and the Revs on 27 points after the Revs beat DC 3-2. Currently DC stands on 50 points and the Revs on 38. See what a difference a difference maker can make?

Why can't our organization get this concept?

 

Nah, we tried that a few years ago with Jermaine Jones. All it did for us was cost a lot of money, brought in a lot more scrutiny than we like and another MLS Cup loss. Not worth it!

 

I think this is just the big cultural difference in the game between the US and pretty much the rest of the world - and exposes what is good and bad about the game here.

At most non-US clubs, the players have clawed and scratched their way to this point, starting off playing barefoot, forcing their way into games with older players purely based on their skill, determination and perseverance.

American players grow up playing on golf-course quality turf (or carpet), are supervised/monitoring/directed by adults all along the way, pushing fair-play, full participation, respect for others, etc.

Here we are worried about the players being offended by the coach making some allusions about individuals - or not shaking a hand coming off the field. I suspect Friedel's former teammates, coaches and colleagues across the pond would be rolling on the floor in laughter. I know my foreign college teammates had that cut-throat attitude, understanding full well how tough the competition is for every spot up the ladder.

Maybe Friedel's approach won't work, we'll see eventually. I suspect none of this is more than 2nd nature to the foreign players, but I agree, it's probably a rude awakening to the domestic players.

 

. No golf-course quality turf in our town. Weeds, dirt, mud. But I get your meaning.

Sort of like Mourinho pounding on Pogba all the time?

Point 1: Friedel can introduce tough love without blaming everything on the players. Sitting on 38 to 41 points I think he has to look in the mirror. If he is, it sure isn’t evident.

Point 2: I don’t think anyone is worried about failure to share hands. Maybe they are worried about inferior talent starting while superior talent is rotting (not even on the game day roster).

Point 3: I can think of several foreign players that I’d be surprised to hear say, “This is just 2nd nature to me.”

I actually think the managers that are most admired across the pond are the ones who are (perceived to be) overall supportive of their players, although they can also comment on player shortcomings.

 

If that is the case, and it is because the manager doesn't feel like they've 'bought in' (and it's hard for me to imagine any other reason why he wouldn't use 'superior talent'), then I support the manager.

 

I’m sort of curious as to why the players cashed out. I don’t recall any overt on field or in the press rebellion by anyone (thinking mostly of Somi and Dielna). I think even managers of functional teams need to work a little to get players to « buy in. ».

Of course, this isn’t a functional organization/team. Biello and Burns seem to have jobs for life even though they can’t supply a full squad let alone a fully capable full squad. The only changeable part is the coach, putting even greater pressure on him to maximize the use he gets out of the measly pieces Burns and Biello hand him. I don’t think Brad got the most out of this squad. Far from it.

 

That's the crux of the matter. A good manager (in any kind of business, not just pro sports) is tasked with "doing more with less," and nowhere is it more important than in an organization that consistently provides fewer and lower quality resources. A good example of Freidel doing this is with Teal Bunbury, who is having a career year. But there have been more examples of getting less with more--talented players like Nguyen, Kamara, Fagundez, Agudelo, Rowe, and others whose talents are greater than what Friedel was able to get out of them, either being shipped out of town for non-player resources, or disappointing underachieving.

Teams like RSL and KC are able to be good/competitive without spending a lot, but that is because they have people in place who are capable of making smart decisions and getting the most out of their limited resources. Unfortunately, we have nothing of the sort here.

 

When did Friedel even get to breathe the same air as Kamara? He was shipped out of town basically the day Brad signed on the dotted line.

Nguyen didn't even show up to camp until the season was about to start. Brad wanted to have Lee on the team, but his message of "work hard to get in the team" doesnt carry if he just drops a player in who skipped practice for 3 months.

Fagundez has been an inconsistent performer all season, but his highs have at least been high. Rowe and especially Juan have had plenty of chances and generally stunk. The tempo that Brad wants to play at is too quick for Juan to process.

I sat all this not to argue that Brad has done his job well, but that these are probably not the examples of why he is a poor manager. Also, SKC and RSL both spend almost double what the Revs do, and arr your examples of low resource teams. What does that make the revs?

 

Three months? Nguyen held out for 2 weeks (the maximum allowed by the CBA). The rest of the time was Brad punishing him for holding out.

 

Recently I heard a radio show talking about Jon Gruden. How he is known for his "Chucky" persona, hard-nosed, no-nonsense. He traded his best player (Khalil Mack) without even talking to him once since he became coach. He plays players out of position, asks them to do thing other than what they are best at. Generally regarded as poor at communicating with his players.

For some reason, a lot of this reminded me of Friedel.

 

For the record, I didn't say they cashed out.

But, I think it's much more a gray, rather than black or white, situation. I also think the slump convinced everyone that this wasn't going to be a cosmetic remake, but a pretty full rebuild project - and players get a quick sense of whether they are likely to be a part of that or not.

This has been debated ad naseum, but this comment should be labeled conjecture, since it is contrary to everything the principals have said about the matter.

I don't think he's stubborn or pig-headed, but I think he is firmly convinced that he needs to instill a much different mentality here.

I think you are trivializing it by focusing on my use of the word feeling. He's got a mountain of evidence from being in the locker room, practices and games with this squad. I think his feelings are base on that, not just some vague intuition.

 

I wasn’t trying to imply you said they cashed out. I introduced the term. AFAIK, Dielna and Somi were taken away by aliens one night. I have no idea where they went, what they’ve been doing, why they aren’t with the first team etc.

Are you suggesting that Somi and Dielna could read the writing and concluded they had no future here? That they just quit? Or are you saying that Brad sidelined them because he gave up on the season and went into full rebuild mode?

Not using them isn’t, IMHO, consistent with Burns saying the goal is to always make the playoffs. Further, I’m very surprised if seasoned professionals from European 1st/2nd division leagues just shut off like a light one day because they didn’t see themselves in the long range plan. Finally, I can’t figure out why they weren’t moved in the summer window. Even giving them free transfers seems a better idea than leaving them to rot.

I think it is gray too. But only because of the Kremlin lock on information in the organization.

 

At the risk of being attacked...... I'd rather have Lee than Brad at this point.

So Brad will clean house? Who's going to get replacements? Burns? it will never happen. He can't clean house cause the team won't be able to sign better players then we currently have.

We had one great player in JJ...look what the team did with him playing.... MLS finals. DC signs Rooney... look how he's lifted that team. Point is... it doesn't take a lot of great players... just one or two and the rest will step up. Who do we have? NOBODY.....and we will never spend the money go get that player again. We will be the same next year as we are now and Brad will be gone

 

Coaching 101 - Build a system that works with the players you have.

Brad must have skipped that lesson at license school. All season he's been trying to force players into his system and it hasn't worked. Everybody got worse and some are just going through the motions at this point.

 

This.

The most objective way to evaluate a coach is whether he got the most out of the players he had at his disposal.

 

I'm going to disagree, largely because "tempo" generally refers to the speed with which the team moves the ball and the Revs don't move it particularly fast. They play direct, which is a different animal (one I actually think fit Juan's game better).

Friedl wants them to run around like chickens with their heads cut off and then moans when guys with tired legs don't do amazing things when they've got the ball. I just see a team that's been put in an impossible spot.

 

Speaking of tired legs, it's got to be disheartening for the players when they were doing double and triple sessions to start the year and end up out of the playoffs. When you put in that kind of effort you like to see it turn into something tangibly positive. Turns out improved physical endurance alone doesn't get you there.

 

I think Friedel assessed early on that they don't have the skill to play a possession game and that triggered a series of dominoes falling: Nguyen falling out of favor (after he did return to training), this more direct/high pressure style, new roles for returning players (Rowe, Bunbury, Agudelo, Fagundez, Caldwell), ...

If I were to guess(!), I'd say Friedel doesn't really see this as the best way to play, long-term, but was his best option based on what he had in camp in pre-season.

It did work pretty well for a while, but one of the key components needs to be a reliable back 4 - and when that got exposed, the foundation of the strategy crumbled.