If by Fisherball you mean a team run on a budget, there are lots of examples of budget teams that do well, even very well. If you mean a team that tries to implement Moneyball schemes in soccer, that's a different story. I am convinced that we can be good on a budget. Valeri was brought into our league for cheap. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. We can look for players in Central and South America. We can look for players in Eastern Europe. We can produce more players from our own academy. We can use the draft better. We have avenues open to us to get quality players for less. We didn't have to sign Magnus, Vako, nor Kashia. A good coach will get more out of our guys than Dim Stahre ever could. But yes, a new coach will make a number of demands about his level of control and his level of independence and he'll want input into who we sign, or at the very least, the type of player we sign. Look at the Magnus signing. We picked up a guy at a position where we are deep and failed to get ourselves a left back. Qwiberg, Paul Marie, and Partida should all have been viewed as projects and longshots to make the roster, much less to get starting minutes. Most of our signings that failed were because Jesse and Stahre badly underestimated the level of talent necessary to play in MLS. I'm pretty sure that Jesse understands his error in this regard. Go Quakes!! - Mark
I think the reality is that not all that many have actually tried. Yallop was in charge for about five years. I don't really count Watson's tenure as interim. Kinnear got 2 years and change, then Leitch filled in as a temp. Now Stahre flopped after less than one year. That's not that many coaches over the course of a decade, all things considered. Basically three coaches with some stop gaps in between. I think the Quakes are just as bad at judging coaching talent as they are at judging player talent. Quite the one-two punch of incompetence. The good news, if there is any, is that Fioranelli was not willing to stick with Stahre simply because the team owed him money and he had hired him in the first place. That's something Doyle was extremely reluctant to do, and it contributed to him losing his job. I don't really have much faith in Fioranelli as a talent evaluator, etc, but at least he's willing to change course when it's obvious there's no way forward on the current path.
If only we could turn back time to when they were still the Florida Marlins and not the current disaster that is the Miami Marlins. But yes, Miami is truly an inspiration to us all in that things can always, indeed, get worse.
I suspect the move to replace Stahre had to be green-lighted by Fisher. that's just an educated guess, but replacing him with Ralston, at least for the balance of this season, is a cost free move. They had already budgeted for both coaches. We have no idea yet what the coaching situation will be next year. If Ralston is able to make progress, does he get to keep the job? Will we bring in CP or one of the other names being floated? who knows. I'm thankful that they finally did something but we're a loooooong way from addressing the problems holding us back and, based on this season, I agree wholeheartedly, we should be skeptical of Jesse's ability to bring in the players and personnel we need to get things turned around. this off-season will be interesting. unfortunately, based on everything I've seen since 2008, we will probably start next season with 80-90% of the same roster and, at best be only marginally better. my guess is Fisher will be fully content to get us a little closer to a playoff berth and for me that's just not good enough.
I read somewhere (perhaps Reddit) that that Stahre’s firing came from higher up than Jesse. It was said that Jesse was planning on giving Stahre the rest of the season to straighten things out but he was told to fire him after the SKC debacle. There has been discussion earlier in the year that Ian Russell was in line to replace Stahre next season. I wonder what that means if SJ is talking to several coaching candidates now? Is there a real coaching search or just the appearance of one?
I've said all along that when coaches are fired, the decision comes from the top of the organization. So, this is no surprise. I've also said that I believe Fisher has evolved. Either they're using Caleb Porter, and I mean cynically exploiting him for appearances sake (and why would he allow that?), or they are seriously considered hiring him by interviewing him.
If it did come from higher up (really that could only mean Fox or Fisher, himself), then that's fine, too. It means Fioranelli should probably also be fired, then, which many around here want, too. I wouldn't argue with that. I would be concerned about Russell taking over by default. I think he deserves serious consideration, as I mentioned elsewhere, but I do want the team to do a genuine and thorough search. But interviewing Porter and Schelotto (if true), even if only cursory, at least exposes the Quakes to alternatives. That will have positive benefits down the line most likely, even if not immediately.
I would like to point out that this statement from the article writer is complete idiocy: "Stahre hinted at what many have suspected since Jesse’s arrival: that the coach does not have complete control of the team, and Jesse may be a little too involved as the GM." Obviously the GM would have more control than the coach over the team. That's how it's supposed to work and how it should work. Given that Stahre had players that he seemed to favor despite a serious lack of production (Eriksson being the obvious example), I can't say I am empathetic to Stahre here. A coach who both blames the front office staff and the players both sounds like a guy who lacks introspection, which explains why the team never improved while he coached them. If you can't examine your own flaws, you can't improve, and Stahre seems like a guy who has a tenuous grasp of reality, at best. What a freaking jerk.
Well, we’ll see how long it takes. Basically, they need to get a new coach in before the drafts, combine, etc that take place in January, right? The longer it takes for them to fill the spot, I think indicates that candidates have turned them down. But you of course could be right, that people are willing to suffer fools as bosses for the right title.
FWIW, i heard from a former insider that Jesse hired Stahre to be his puppet on the field, that Jesse was deeply involved with how the team played.
Again, I think that's how it should be. You want the GM and coach to be aligned, and the coach's job is to implement the plan that the GM (primarily) has. You want the coach to be competent, good at managing player relationships, and conveying plans so that the players can all get on board and see it out, but it makes very little sense to me to have a GM who just picks players, and then a coach who has to figure out how they should play. And I don't think the coach should be directing to the GM who they should be acquiring. It should be top-down. It makes Fioranelli look incredibly bad if what you say is true, but as I said before, I am fully on board with him being fired as well. Clearly he hasn't found the kind of players who can make a serious difference in this league and if he can't do that, he needs to go.
Stahre was poor, but I absolutely believe there was pressure from Fioranelli to play the high priced players. No coach in their right mind would play Erickson as a lock starter based on performance...no way. And the fact that Ralston started Erickson, leads me to believe Fioranelli's is still influencing the coach's player selections...very bad thing. How do we know the same pressure won't exist with a new coach...same problem exists.
Yes, we have hired lousy coaches, and we should have had a clue that they would suck. I could see hiring Yallop, but I'd have sacked him part way into the '09 campaign. I wouldn't have hired Kinnear, certainly not Wat(TF), Stahre was never on my list. So yeah, we've had a tendency to hire sweet talkers rather than performers. Thus, Doyle, Frank, Mark, Dom, then Stahre. Maybe Jesse is in that category too, but I hope not. Yeah, that's troublesome, unless Ralston is trying to show that Eriksson sucks and needs to go. We'll see what he does over the next few matches. Go Quakes!! - Mark
An annodder ting ... After his last performance (handball in the box), Eriksson shouldn't start, ever again. But also!! ... Part of the end of this season should be to evaluate players. Do we want to keep this guy? Or ditch him? So we should see some players who usually don't get minutes. IF ... Jesse is dictating who should play and who should sit the bench, then Jesse needs to go. If it was on Stahre that TT and JY weren't getting more playing time, or Fatai for that matter, then Stahre being gone should improve that, and so far it has. IF ... Jesse understands that the guys he brought in were not good enough for MLS (and I think that he does understand that), then we should see higher caliber players getting signed in the coming months. Who was responsible for the signings of Hyka, Flo, Hoesen, and Ureña? Even if you are not a fan of Ureña, you have to admit that those four guys were a cut above the majority of our previous overseas signings. So, was that Leitch? Or was that Jesse? I'm not trying to argue that those guys are all great, but that they are much better than the players we typically signed under Doyle's watch. Low bar, I know, but it's still a sign of improvement, and we did make the playoffs last season. I know what I would do were I in Fox's shoes, but I don't know what he will do. Go Quakes!! - Mark
Does Fioranelli have any credibility left? I’m betting that if his last name was something like “Smith” at least two of his partisans on this board would have asked for his head by now!
I was very proud when the Earthquakes hired the first Italian GM in MLS. When I look back at the last two years, I can't think of many positives and his hiring was a total failure! Its clearly not working and its time for Jesse to go back! Addio Jesse! Torni in italia che è meglio