As pointed out, JK provided a lot of it...but what's more, everyone "grew up together" in the system, more or less--so it was peer to peer leadership...now we have a wide spread of age/experience. So a different type of leadership is necessary--these are guys becoming adults, learning the pro game, etc. They need mentoring, they need to get brought up to speed as to what they need to do. But that is also part of the issue...these guys seem to be our better, most consistent players, so we can't just make them pay their dues--that'll just cause a rift. The youngsters are not quite "there" yet in terms of leading themselves...and they still have a lot to learn. The vets need to provide this But if their examples in terms of vets are merely mailing it in, then we need to move on from those vets.
I didn't mean directly at you with that. Should have clarified. Jazz sold out a lot of games this year and are making bank with playoff tickets. A lot of fans will be back for RSL when things go well. Hell, look at Golden State. Nobody gave a shit about that team before
I actually wish that RSL was spending more time following the Jazz model. The Jazz made their colossal error with hiring Corbin and keeping the previous GM too long...then they got a GM with vision and young coach with a LOT of talent, and the excitement is back. I do rate Petke. He IS a young coach. And, to be blunt, as someone who actually knows a little something about the game, he sound like he knows WTF he is doing. Cassar NEVER sounded like he had a clue. BUT...huge BUT...I have no reason to believe that Waibel is the answer at GM. Or to be more blunt, what I hear from him are pipe dreams and excuses apparently designed to keep anyone from looking at his actual accomplishments as a GM: signing Rusnak, signing Petke, getting the Lennon loan done and...uh...uh...uh...allowing Glad to get experience because he hasn't filled the glaring hole in the back for 3 years?? Any excitement for this squad is directly related to the young players for which the previous administration gets all the credit. The good news on the youth front is that at least more of these kids weren't played by Cassar so he hadn't screwed them up yet. If Waibel is not firmly on the hot seat, ownership has a vision problem.
Since we are now moving on from Fire Cassar! to Fire Waibel!, who would be his replacement? Someone from inside the RSL organization or someone else?
Someone else? There has to be an up and comer in a great organization that needs an opportunity to express his vision of what an MLS team can become. Or does Dear Leader have a daughter Up or 15 could marry. Bigamously of course.
I'll speak for myself and say you don't want me as GM. This armchair GM thing is great for me. Is it my dream job? most definitely, but I am not at all qualified.
I didn't really take it as directly at me, but I figured by expanding on what I had said, it would maybe give insight into an average fan. You'll always have the extremely die hard fans that will show up no matter what. Then you have a die hard like me that will stick around longer than others, but may eventually stop showing up/watching. Everyone else likely falls into what an average fan would be, who can easily justify no longer showing up or watching games if the product isn't good enough. That's me when it comes to basketball and football. Even when my teams are doing well, I still don't always watch every game, because I'm not a die hard fan.
Cannot second 15's point about internal team leadership enough. Your peers set the tone as much as anyone, and that did seem to exit with Borchers. RE Demar Philips...he's been one of our better players during the past few weeks. He does overrun and blow the play sometimes, but he and Rusnak and Lennnon exhibit the most off-ball movement to create plays for others. I wish the rest of the team moved off the ball as much.