You can only fairly evaluate somone's legacy after he's done. Then you can look back at his entire career and weigh the impact of, say, Watergate against the significance of the opening to China. As late as 1999, Bob Gansler's legacy would've been some begrudging respect for getting that US group to Italy and having success in the A-League. Sampson - whatever else he may be right now - is certainly not done. It's way too early to identify his legacy.
I think Sampson will do well down there. He is a pretty good coach, and he'll learn from his USMNT mistakes. He has something to prove and he'll be coaching a quality team that often thinks they have something to prove - a dangerous combination.
Re: Re: Steve sampson new Head Coach of Costa Rica Sampson will never again have anything to do with US soccer. So his legacy with the US team is and will be France '98
Ridiculous. The bottom line is that Costa Rica could only defeat China and were humiliated by Brazil, despite scoring 2 goald. They did alright, but to compare them with a quarterfinalist is excessive. No way Turkey is the #2 team.
We were humiliated by Poland...much worse, I would say, than being humiliated by Brazil (they did happen to win the thing). Remember, we were a Portuguese cheap shot (that got their player ejected and the Koreans fired up to actually play) and a post in the 90th minute away from going three and out. Yes, we went to the quarterfinals. However, it could easily be argued that Costa Rica would have gotten that far if they had been in a group with Poland, SK and Portugal. After all, they did prove to be a pretty good team in qualification. Sampson's problem in '98 was his considerable ego clashing with the considerable egos of his players. Sampson, this aside, is a hell of a coach.
You remember Bill Buckner for his .991 lifetime fielding average or that ground ball rolling under his glove in Game Six?
And we humilated Portugal...and we were the only team to take a point of Korea....blah, blah...Costa Rica had a decent side....so did we....we didn't luck into shite.
CR might have won the hexagonals, but let's not forget that, if not for Predergast, they wouldn't have even gotten to the Hex, and that they lost to Barbados on Matchday 1.
Re: Re: Re: Steve sampson new Head Coach of Costa Rica "Well, you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." -- Richard Nixon, 1962 Oh ok, fine - for the sake of argument, let's limit the parameters for discussing SS's legacy to only his effects on the development of the US national team program. Within that scope, why do you believe that France 98 should outweigh his positive contributions (see Sandon's list posted above) to the US national team?
Everyone has valid points so far, those for and against Sampson. He will be remembered for France 98, that's a fact. Every non-football following person you ask will recall what happened during the 98 World Cup. Let's be fair about how good of a coach he actually is rather than say he took us up. After the USA qualifiying for Italy 1990 and then having the World Cup here in 1994 exposure to the sport was already growing. In 1990 guys like Ante Razov were how old and how impressionable? He did do some good for US Soccer, but I won't give him credit for everything. I think the US also had to have guys on the pitch wanting to qualify, which helped a lot in the Mexico draw. How much was the Federation doing for increasing the player pool? People can on about how he qualified the team and blah blah blah. But let's compare apples to apples. The teams he went against were different than those that Arena faced. The US clearly got jobbed by a couple of refs in away matches, so in my opinion Arena could have had the extra match left to qualify that seems to be the reason why Sampson was a better coach for qualifying. Bottom line is that both Arena and Sampson qualified the teams for the big dance, but the difference is clearly in the World Cup result. I'll take Arena any damn day of the week. I'm still not completely sold on how well he will do in Costa Rica. Best of luck to him, and yes I can admit that it's nice to see an American get a high level position in a foreign country. But now the question remains, WHEN ARE YOU TAKING DAVID REGIS?
But let's also not forget that Prendergast let a foul that should have been called a PK just minutes before the end of the game PK in Saprissa. Let's also not forget that the US was into the 2nd half before they scored a goal against Barbados and nearly got scored on in the first half. Costa Rica is a good team. As mentioned above, had they been in our WC group they might've had the exact same perfomance that the US did.
Let's also not forget that the team that qualified for 1998 was injury free, while qualifying for 2002 we lost, Wolff & Mathis after the Costa Rica match in Kansas City. And Reyna for that three match losing stretch with the Red Card Ejection and suspended in Mexico and fooking up his golden groin for Rangers that made him miss Honduras at RFK & At Costa Rica. Thank Goodness for the last Nats match in Foxboro to qualify as well as other sides losing, but still the top players who should have been there fell due to injury. But at least thank goodness they were available and healthy for the World Cup. It's True that Sampson was a good coach for us leading up to the World Cup, but once he decided that silly and pathetic 3-6-1 set up, it was all over. Was it nerves? Maybe, but still no excuse for bringing in players who were labeled Past it(See Mike Burns who forgot to hug the near post and allowed an early squeker to go in). Sometimes getting to the Dance you wear a clean tux, but it's how you leave it is the question. With Steve he wore the punch bowl, For Bruce he was able to enjoy his drink with some cake on the side. The Frosting read, "Defeated Portugal, Took a point from South Korea, & kicked Mexico's butt where it counts"
I never said we lucked into anything...just that we were precariously close do doing, in your words, shite. Comparing them to the US, despite our quarterfinal appearance, certainly is not "excessive".
i think jamaica has some good young players don't they...? derrice bannock? yul brenner and junior bevel? sanka cofie?! aww crap i'm sorry.. i thought this was my BigBobsled.com account.