Article: US soccer's coaching gap: 'I refuse to believe all the best people are white males' While valid points are made, I have a few thoughts 1) Nelson Rodriguez is the clown who hired Paunovic while ignoring other candidates who have done better in MLS. For info on Nrod being a sack of **** : https://medium.com/six-point-star/gonzalo-segares-and-the-fff-coaching-license-85d74d9190fa 2) The point about former players who are from more diverse backgrounds not moving into coaching because they might not get a fair shake is what has happened in other sports and IMO in MLS. I think MLS may have to work more on this. 3) The author talks about inexperienced coaches getting shots and only one of them being a minority. There has been a push since Kreis to get vets into coaching. Petke, Heaps, Olsen, and Mastroeni all coached their longtime clubs. Marsch went from national team assistant to Montreal coach after 1 year and he was groomed to be a coach as player. I think MLS needs to improve getting more players as coaches. At the same time, Eddie Pope went into the business side/union side, Carlos Bocanegra became a technical director. Those people choosing to stay in soccer are not necessarily choosing coaching. Mods: This discussion will probably become You be the Don. Please move it if it does so.
Its interesting that Pareja is held up as a positive direction by the author considering he was hired without any head coaching experience two years before he went to Dallas. I know the article talked about any coaching experience (which includes as an assistant) but he still took the "first head coaching chance in MLS" route. Also an interesting note that 3 of the last 4 Rapids coaches have been Latino. It hasn't helped.
Lack of diversity? Where did that come from? National origins of players with more than 50 appearances in NASL (68-84) US & Canada 199 UK & Ireland 193 Europe North 37 Yugoslavia 30 West Germany 24 Europe South 8 South America 36 Caribbean 20 Africa 15 Asia 3 Central America 2 I split out Yugoslavia. At the time it was the only communist European country which allowed its players to play professionally. 12 of the 15 Africans were from South Africa which was banned from most international sports at the time. The 2 Central Americans were both Mexican, Vidal Fernández, who was raised in the US, and Leonardo Cuéllar. You can assume the majority of the European players at the time were white. Black players in England were such a novelty in the mid-1970s that I can still name them - Batson, Best, Coco, Cunningham, Regis and Anderson.
What makes me cringe the most is the plight of African Americans in MLS management. They have much fewer chances. They are regularly frozen out even after being successful. After losing a job they are rarely hired again. Why does Onalfo get a third chance as head coach but Hamlett only gets one? Why was Ali Curtis frozen out? Has that ever happened to such a successful sporting director? I believe about half of the 2002 WC squad is heavily involved in MLS or USSF management. But not one of those is an African American developed in the US - that would be Jones, Sanneh and Pope. Those guys are huge figures in American soccer. How come they were never given a chance? The two guys of color that do have management jobs are noticeably foreign developed. Llamosa and Stewart. The problem here is not that any of this is done intentionally. It's because it's done subconsciously. That's why the only fix for this is to intentionally make sure that the door is open for these guys.
With regards to Latino coaches. I think we're ok. We get plenty of chances. Probably there are more style clashes than anything else which occasionally leads to quick dismissals. But that's to be expected in soccer where style is so foundational. I think there were issues with this maybe over a decade ago but largely past. The number of Latino figures in staff, front office and media has been on the rise for a while now.
It's hard to tell with small numbers, especially seeing as the pool of retired players is much less diverse than the pool of active players. Re: Jones, I thought he was probably on his way to being LA Galaxy's head coach until he suddenly left to join the New York Cosmos staff -- and this was right when the NASL was talking about replacing MLS as the top division. And Pope is one of the MLSPU's directors. On the other hand, Hamlett taking so long to get another top job after two fairly successful seasons as a head coach looks suspicious. (He did just replace Curtis as sporting director at NYRB.) It might be that stylistic clash that you refer too, though -- note that Hamlett is Costa Rican, which is easy to forget because he's been around US soccer for so long.
I don't see a problem with the diversity of coaches. I see a problem with the quality of who's getting hired as coaches most places.
To the point about Onalfo getting another chance, Robin Fraser I hope is a guy that continues to get consideration when head coaching jobs come open. Obviously having Chivas USA on your record won't impress people, but he didn't have much talent to work with either. Since then he has been an assistant for the Red Bulls and now TFC, which seem like resume pluses.
Chicago Fire would probably have several World Cup titles by now if it weren't for those damn white men and their primitive coaching methods.
When teams are falling victim to racial prejudices in their hiring practices it's necessarily true that they aren't hiring the most skilled person.