It is nice to have such a talent in place. The Bruce has the measure of the Krafts. It's the first time Krafts have allowed themselves to enter into somewhat of a power-sharing arrangement on the #NERevs side of house. Undoing that implicit arrangement has consequences not easily glossed over. I think it will stick...— A Casual Fan (@A_Casual_Fan) July 26, 2019
Pretty good article from The Athletic's Sam Stejskal... From Heavy Losses to Gritty Wins: How Bruce Arena Turned the Revs Around “In Chicago, guys gave up,” said Revs defender Andrew Farrell. “Guys in the locker room, a couple of guys were just like, ‘Yeah, I quit out there.’ It was just like, ‘Huh, OK, well, f*** you, then.’ It was just weird. I think Brad knew he was gone, and we kind of knew we’d screwed it up.” The most important change was in management styles. Under Friedel, New England were walking on eggshells. The players felt like one mistake would lead to them being yanked. Friedel yo-yoed players in and out of the lineup. “If you messed up, you were gonna get the boot, you weren’t going to start,” said Farrell. “I think practice was, there was just running for, I felt like, no reason. We’re losing, we’re running for no reason and we’re nervous to even kind of express ourselves. All of that brings you down.” Under Arena, the approach has been dramatically different. Widely praised for his man-management skills during his run of MLS Cup victories with the LA Galaxy early this decade, Arena has empowered the Revs. He’s changed lineups, sure, but he’s allowed players to be themselves. Where Friedel would criticize them in the press and make them run sprints at practice — tactics not often used with professional players — Arena has given them confidence. This is a real team now, one that fights for each other and buys into what their coach is selling.
I had a sneaky feeling Friedel was operating the ship like that. Of course I couldn't see it on the inside but one of the outward signs I picked up on was when he threw his players under the bus publicly and when he would never take responsibility for some of the obvious coaching gaffes he made. The players seemed totally miserable. What a tool.
i Brad was a bad coach-- it doesn't mean he'll always be a bad coach. If he never adjusts his approach then in fact, he is tool. Until then, he was just a person in over his head. T
It was more than just a difference in how the coach related to the players, there was a big difference in how the team should attack. Friedel wanted high press to cause turnovers in the offensive end and turn those into quick strikes - and, failing that, do standard fall-back and defend and play direct from the defensive end. Arena has them defending in a more standard way, but playing possession with quick ball movement into the attack when they do win possession. The confidence to play Arena's style has been missing since the Nicol days, with Heaps over-valuing possession to the extent of slowing the attack to a predictable crawl, and under Friedel, as described above. So, yes - player-coach relationship was big, but so was a change in playing style (to one that is much more fun and exciting for the players, leading to buy-in and more enthusiastic play).
All of the above is true, but the real difference is having a manager who is astute enough to see what each player brings both individually and collectively, and define the style based on the types of players. As opposed to force-fitting players to play a style that didn't suit them. I always thought that Kamara would have been much more effective if Heaps had used him differently and played to his strengths. Same thing for He-Who-Shan't-Be-Named, who was run out of town by some English goalkeeper. Arena knows what he has and is making the most of those assets. Ideally, it turns into the whole being more than the sum of the parts. Under Friedel and Heaps, our players were better individually than they were as a team.
I hear your point about if he adjusts his approach, but I'm not sure he can. He shocked me with that "meet someone in the parking lot" comment. I couldn't believe he said that until I researched it and found out that he did in fact say it.
And when a few of us jokingly went over to meet the team after the loss in Columbus this year, none of them would come over. Damn them!
Well, there are all sorts of approaches to coaching, and depending on the circumstances, you can point to people who have been both successful and abysmal failures with each approach. The tough guy, no nonsense approach can be good for an undisciplined team where things have been too lax. The flip side of this coin is when a guy like Friedel needs to "prove" that he's the boss and has players needlessly running scared Then there is the cerebral type, a coach who will pull a player aside and have a 1-1 chat with him if he's not doing it right. These types need to assert themselves with the group, but they don't need to get in guys' faces. Hopefully Friedel will learn to dial it back in his next gig, and realize that he still can be in charge without alienating his players to the point that they can't stand him and don't buy into his ideas.
Well, I think Friedel's approach was perfect ... for the PL, where he got his training and coaching philosophy. He ran head-first into the American players are different brick wall. A lot of Euro coaches (especially Brits) have failed in MLS for just that reason. More of them have been succeeding in recent years, because they have more varied backgrounds from a number of countries and because they've learned from the failures of those before them. But the failure rate is still high. As for Friedel, from my perspective, he's got two paths: work his way into another chance in the US and temper his approach (and add more ideas), or work his way up in the UK (or elsewhere in Europe) where players have a tougher mindset and already understand the continual 'scratch and claw for everything' mentality required for a pro soccer career. I think option #1 is like a 'possession-game, taking time, working the ball upfield', while option #2 is 'playing direct'.
Maybe not just American players? MLS rosters have a significant foreign component. Tottenham players have just questioned Pochettino’s tactics in the press. Do we expect he is going to make them run sprints in practice? It’s okay for Brad to be part of the “tough coach” crowd but I think he was behaving in an over-the-top manner even for PL. I’d even bet the “American” players put up with it longer than PL players would. But there is no way to prove it. I agree that Brad should “add more ideas.” His nature may always be to act as a “tough” coach. But a coach’s job is to make a sum that is better than the parts and to have some tactical acumen. Within his “tough” universe he still needs to learn how to put players in positions to succeed. I don’t think he showed much ability to do that. Nor did he show much tactical acumen. I agree that Brad should work his way back in but he should focus on getting into situations where the support network around him is a good one (Leonardo played bad cop to Tuchel’s good against Neymar is a recent extreme example). Find one or more mentors (does anyone know if he had one - not Burns - while here?). Heaven forbid but maybe he should be an assistant for a couple years. So, work it up the field Brad.
I've held out this long since Friedel's firing, but since you guys are discussing Brad's coaching acumen, I just have to comment. At the time of Brad's hiring, I commented that I didn't believe he was coaching material. I based this mostly on Tim Howard's book. I will agree that that was slim evidence. But in my opinion, any good coach is first and foremost a good teacher. Bill Belichick picks up rejects from other teams and coaches them up...teaches them how he wants the game played. A teacher has a natural instinct to teach or help when asked for advice. Telling Tim to figure it out himself is not teaching material. Yes, there was some question about whether that actually happened, but Tim thought it did. Now after watching what Brad did to the Revs and how they played. Throwing players under the bus and acting like a pointy football coach from the '50s. I now know that Brad is not coaching material. And I would find it hard to believe that any team in any league in the world would tolerate that type of coaching today. Well that's my rant. Go Revs.
Friedel definitely deserved to be fired in the end. I hope that he learns from this experience and goes on to be a better coach. What the Revs have done since he left should be some real humble pie for him. If coaching turns out not to be his thing, maybe he can try a front office role like Heaps. I give him credit for some of his personnel moves. There were some misses, but also some hits. The current starting 11 features a lot of Friedel guys. Brandon Bye has proven to be a good pick that was against conventional wisdom. I am a big Luis Caicedo fan and he was someone no one had ever heard of at the time. Same for Penilla who was amazing last year and admittedly not as good this year. Carles Gil looks like his is going to be a great addition for many years to come. (Let's hope.) Promoting Turner over more experienced and pedigreed keepers has also proven to be the right move.