You notice how they ratified this on a saturday and the press release was buried deep under the Sunday cycle? Nothing says loud and proud like a sunday press release. Like congress ratifying a 50% pay raise at a midnight vote.
I can't hate on G-Money. He's one of the better American coaches who just accepted a better job. Being one of the better American coaches doesn't mean much but that's a different convo. I'm highly concerned about the ineptitude and process behind this though. This very well could be a MLS/SUM puppet. There wasn't really any kind of a search. That tells me having someone who'll prop up MLS/SUM was the main criteria/qualification. Coaching ability was not top of the list. So we now sit back and observe. Competent fluid midfield play is a must. Sarachan never figured it out. Over a year at the helm and our midfield never appeared to have instructed tactically on what to do. It looked like we pulled a few strangers off the street, threw a NT jersey on them and said go get it done. Without competent and quick midfield play Pulisic will be neutered. Wil Trapp is a Teddy Bear at DM. That won't work. Putting Bradley at DM last cycle was a major part of us not qualifying. If G-Money goes with the Teddy Bear at DM that raises a number of issues, from failing to learn from his predecessor's mistakes to Arena-esque club favoritism. Can he unleash flank play. There's been so much static flank play from us, whether fullbacks pinned back to help cover for the Teddy Bear or poor movement in the middle and final 3rd. I'm tired of the US looking like three lines/zones which have never played together. All that being said. This is a poor player pool. The prime generation is wack. The young guns mostly a few years away.
re: sum/mls puppet - certainly having to wait until he was done with mls before taking the reins to this job does nothing to allay those concerns. re: the player pool - the usa just waltzed through the u20 concacaf tourney 4 years before the next world cup (and won the previous one as well)- to me this isn't as much of an issue as so many seem to think - it just seems like it is b/c of incompetent management going all the way back to JK. think about it how can you win 2 straight concacaf u20 tourneys and have a player pool problem? by 2022, i think this assertion will be flat-out laughable...and the player pool excuse will not be one that the usmnt manager will be able to rely upon.
We have some real attractive U20 talent. But relying on U20 talent to qualify this cycle very well could be asking too much too soon. Of our U21s, Pulisic is the only to have even played a CONCACAF qualifier. This will be entirely new to just about all our youth. We're talking a bunch of kids who've largely done nothing at the1st team level as of yet, helping carry the full NT to qualifying this cycle. That requires rapid development over the next 18-24 months. The 2026 cycle is where I see the next wave taking hold.
The adjusting process shouldnt take THAT long. If so, they have problems between the ears. I get the whole "first qualifier game," and the Azteca issue, but its a steep learning curve, and shouldnt take long
I think the idea is for Trapp to be more Pirlo than Gattuso. But I think Pirlo is a luxury player. I wish we had the other 10 guys that would allow us to play a Pirlo type. But we don't. Maybe another way to look at it is to compare Trapp to Beckerman ca. 2014. That, I think, is a fairly reasonable comp. But as you note, Beckerman was at another level as a ball winner.
So, this is the USA Men forum where we moderate things less tightly than we do in US Men News and Analysis, so this kind of post is allowed here. But I can't help but wonder why you find it so easy to use the heckler's veto against anyone raising questions about this decision. There's a hell of a lot of smoke there: more than enough to warrant some concerns about a fire.
Look more closely. I'm mocking people trying to divine nefarious motivations for the decision, or asserting as fact things that aren't even strong speculations, or talking about people being puppets. But we should focus on analyzing the decision, not the character of the people making the decision. I don't like the decision either...IMHO, Gregg was the best MLS based choice, but I believe we could have gotten someone better outside of MLS. Up until a year ago I was a big booster of Pareja but he seems to not be learning.
I think the Concacaf Nations League is going to help immensely. All these players with no experience will get to play non-WCQing road games before the real work begins.
The expectation should always be to win the GC. Our region is bad, Costa Rica and Honduras are on down cycles, Mexico is in the same boat we are in (however with better players and they are getting Tata), we need to find a way to win - anything less is a let down
I like Berhalter, he was a quality/underrated player, especially for The National Team. Here’s to hoping he’s the same as a coach.
But neither of the posts you responded to in this thread referenced--much less speculated about--motivations, nefarious or otherwise. They talked about the process. I like Berhalter, if only because he's a fellow UNC grad (never met him) and I liked the way he played for the US. I don't know enough to presume to speak to his capacity as a coach, but based on his record alone he's a very reasonable guy to include in the pool. That said, speaking as someone who's been on his fair share of search committees, this process at least seems to have avoided using practices designed to make searches fair and effective. You don't need to speculate about motivations to make that point. One of the more lamentable results of this flawed process (and I think if it wasn't actually flawed we'd have heard a clearer description of it by now) is that Berhalter's job is going to be harder to do because of the concerns about how he got it. That's not good for anybody who wants the US team to do well.
I like the style Columbus plays. His playing resume fits well. He gets compliments from other coaches about his tactics. That's all good. OTOH, I'm leery of coaches who earn big time jobs by "doing more with less." Ultimately NT success is not about getting guys to overperform and having a superior system. It's about putting the best players in the position to succeed and getting other guys who are club stars to be role players happily. The player pool is going to change, hopefully from have note to haves over the cycle. It will be interesting to see how GB meets that challenge. Good luck, Gregg! I'm rooting for you.
The checklist: 1. From Jersey. check. 2. MLS coach. check. 3. bald. check. 4. two man midfield. check. 5. slow, defensively feeble midfielder. check 6. detail oriented confused for effective. Check 7. coached under Bruce Arena. Check. 8. coached in scandinavia for global experience. check 9. shouts for nepotism. check. It seems the only thing we learned the last time we saw this movie, you know the one where the most talented players in US history went as far as Brad Davis, Julien Green, and Chris Qwandowondo, is that we need a sequel! Real lesson learned: Never underestimate the power of greed.
Bunga...”Sarachan was his puppet” and “some things i have heard and believe.” I’ll stand by my response.
Mexico got Martino... Costa Rica got Matosas... Honduras may get Pekerman... and Panama is trying to get Suarez...
So you're just going with straight up incompetence? cause that's my pick... Remember,never attribute malice to that which can be explained by stupidity.
What do YOU think this describes? To me, the story that by far best fits the fact pattern is 1. Sunil couldn’t hire someone on his way out the door. 2. Cordeiro created the GM position. Which meant they had to hire a GM to pick the coach. 3. At that point, we’re looking at Labor Day at best to sort through every step. 4. I’m pissed they didn’t make Earnie leave Philly earlier. That would have saved a month. What I don’t know is if the job is seen as a bad job right now. That wouldn’t shock me. In that case, top foreign candidates wouldn’t be interested without an enormous contract. The knock on from that (if true) is that we were limited to Americans like Cherundolo and Marsch and MLSers like Gregg and Martino and Pareja.
I think NT coaches primary job is not to develop individual talent, their job is to put the right combination of players together to win. No NT coach has ever kept his job because he made an individual player better, coaches keep their job by how many games they win/qualify. The rub is improving the team's play AND winning games may not always go hand and hand. We may end up just defending, not stringing no more than 2 passes together but coming up with a Draw/win instead of a loss.
The GM job was created before Cordeiro was elected. There is no reason it took 4-5 months to fill. Compounded by the fact Earnie didn't leave Philly for another 2 months. The next 3 months are not well explained either.
Currently Berhalter has the 17th worst coaching record in US history based on: 1. Win percentage - 0% 2. Loss percentage - 0%