I really thought she'd be gone by today but I guess not. IMO, her fail at the Olympics and now dead last in our own tournament should have been enough. Its more than dead last though. One goal in three games should have been enough as well. Some will say "but she won the World Cup" To that I would say.... How was that going until injuries forced to change what she thought was the right plan. In other words...pure luck worked out good. What do others think about keeping Ellis on as head coach?
US Soccer is about connections. Her dad has them. She has held a job in US Soccer for far too long, long enough to get her the head coach position. She won the wwc 2015. We are stuck with her now. End of Story.
I better title might have been "Promote Jill Ellis" thread. Maybe like Snow and French they could simply move her to better position where she could do less damage.
As to my feelings, I believe Ive made them quite clear on this board. 1. Ellis was never qualified to get this job to begin with. The only strong point on her resume' was her work at UCLA which like many college coaches makes her a good recruiter and that skill has no value for the NT. On the other hand her failures to win titles at any position she held was pretty glaring. 2. She has completely failed to install any reliable offense despite constantly replacing quality defenders with more offensive minded players. Exactly how many numbers up does a qualified coach with a huge talent pool need to be to score goals against good teams? 3. As mentioned above she has crippled the defense that won her the WC in an endless search for an offense. NO competent coach takes apart the strongest part of the team to fix the weakest. Similarly, the set piece strategy that scored 5 WC goals for the US is also non existent now. Most of this falls on Rapine and Holiday not being available but it still falls on the coach to have a reliable plan B. 4. Ellis has shown herself to be a bad judge of talent and incapable to this point at least at developing players. First there was not figuring out that Dunn belonged on team until the WC was over. Then she couldn't figure if Rapinoe belonged at the Olympics. Both times she guessed wrong. Her first adventure into restocking the shelves in October 2015 failed to yield a single new player who affected the Olympic run. Instead two key players (Long & Pugh) were somehow stumbled upon later when once again Ellis had moments of necessity and had to abandon the master plan. In October 2016 she tried again, this time plumbing the depth of the NWSL instead of Heinrich's cupboard. Maybe this group will be better but so far none of the new players have shown themselves to be an improvement over what she had. 5. Finally she adds nothing to matches tactically. She picks hopeful rosters instead of insightful ones. Her game plans not only fail to gain her team an advantage but often play right into the hands of the opponent. Her substitutions seem scripted as opposed to tactical adjustments. And following matches she is either in hiding or totally oblivious to what actually happened in the match.
As I said before, you can't just fire Ellis, you have to get rid of the whole lot of what I call Heinrich's "cricle of friends" and that includes those in the fringes who on an occasion appear as the U-23 Head Coach for a tournament and such (not talking about Harvey), or on the bench during a USWNT game, or some sort of consultant in a camp, etc. You know who they are. I don't think Gulati will do this any time soon.
slight change of subject, but why do we need a coach that specializes just in woso?(Ellis Pia, Sermanni, Gufstafson, Herdman, eccedra) The new French coach had no previous experience coaching females. Must of took one look at the women's game, shook his head, and thought; these girls are playing waaaaay too slow! And wallah; introduced a team that played a way more rapid pace that we've ever seen before
IMO the slack went out of the rope when she failed to medal in a FIFA tournament for the first time in USWNT history.
Naming Rapinoe to the roster was a huge gamble that predictably backfired, but I suspect that outside factors may have been involved with her being selected. As far as Dunn is concerned, this is one point I do not hold against Ellis. Her strong season in 2015 was largely due to her being motivated by not being selected to the WC roster. It's unknown how her NWSL season would have gone had she been one of the 23.
Im not sure u leave her off the roster in hopes it motivates her. If US doesn't have the big WC and Dunn still has her MVP season that becomes a dagger for Ellis. Even if u can't assume the breakout by Dunn at the time she is 23, uber talented and still figuring in the US plans going forward. Hard to see how u wouldn't want to give her WC experience even if she isn't quite ready
In her three years at the tiller, Ellis has tried 4-4-2, 4-3-3 with two DMs, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 with two AMs, 3-5-2, 3-4-3 and 3-4-1-2. None of these formations have resulted goal scoring improvement against quality teams. Ellis keeps rearranging the furniture but the room still looks like hell. Either we need new furniture or a new decorator.
Klinsmann stayed around for a very long time because he won a WC for Germany as a player 0ver 25 years ago. Ellis won a WC for the us wnt as a coach 2 years ago. She is not getting fired anytime soon.
There seems to be three horses in this race. First is the group that thinks this is the time for Ellis to experiment so none of this is a big deal. Second group is she in way over her head and needs to be gone pronto. Third group is it doesn't matter because Ellis isn't getting fired regardless. What's interesting to me is a lot of posters on various sites seemed to have migrated from the first group to the third group.
Yep. This isn't stated enough. The USWNT has played in 13 major tournaments, and this was the first one they didn't medal in. The USWNT used to finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in every major tournament (usually 1st more often than not). Really, with the exception of the 2014 Algarve Cup, they have finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in EVERY tournament. Even small ones. But this is the 2nd tournament in a row that Jill failed to finish at least 3rd. 6th place in the Olympics (out in the Quarterfinal) And 4th place (out of 4 teams) on home turn at their own hosted SheBelieves Cup tournament. If this were another Tom Sermanni type (instead of Jill in replacing Sermanni), he/she would be gone. Even with winning the 2015 World Cup. The honeymoon is over. We all know how long two years is in the Women's Soccer world. It's a LONG time. It's 2/3 of most leagues in this country for crying out loud, in terms of time duration. No more, "Well, she won the World Cup." That was over 600 days ago, on July 5, 2015. An ETERNITY in the Women's Soccer hourglass. It's been all DOWNHILL, ever since then. A downward slope in which the pitch is "TILTED AGAINST" the USWNT going forward. Why settle for that? Tilt the pitch back in the other direction.
It's probably more of an overlap than a migration. I doubt any rational person, anywhere, thinks that Ellis will be fired, anytime soon, so in some sense we're all in group three (doesn't matter, isn't getting fired). Except, of course, that it does matter. What would it take for Gulati et al to make a coaching change at the top? If a disappointing performance in the Olympics was insufficient reason, how much weight could a last-place finish in an exhibition tournament carry? Especially if you (Gulati) told the coach that 'this is the time to experiment' with the next WC safely distant. A couple of exhibition losses to Russia? A revolt by the players? It's not clear what it would take to force Gulati's hand.
http://equalizersoccer.com/2017/03/13/ellis-three-back-formation-fails-the-test/ discusses Ellis' months long failure of implementing the 3-back (which starts with brunn being moved out of cb, a curious move to say the least) The obvious next step for Ellis is to bring back the sweeper, so she can commit 9 to the offense.
A revolt will not happen. The players are walking on thin ice as it is with the contract negotiation. Plus they only revolt against coaches that they feel they can. Ellis is too strong politically within the system right now, being Heinrich's buddy and and close to Gulati. They wouldn't dare. Plus there are too many young guns waiting to take whoever is dissatisfied's place. There is no one on this team now, including Morgan who will dare risk losing the nice cushy, well paid job of being a USWNT player by making waves. The "revolt" that didn't really happen against Sermanni only happened because the timing was right and Abby and maybe one or two others had a strong position at the time with very few other options just before the upcoming WC, and no one had Sermanni's back. Player revolt will not happen. We have to ride this out through the next World Cup. That's all there is to it.
The one player who has enough traction to move out Ellis is Morgan tho she doesn't seem the type. U have to wonder tho how her thinking has changed being with Lyon and working in a real system. She is also a bit on the outs for playing time. Morgan has a huge support base and not sure US wants her deciding she just wants to play club. As I say, she doesn't seem the type.
I keep hearing the theory that this type of experimentation is necessary as they try and transition to a more technical, possession oriented team. My question is why would u want Ellis leading that? If USSoccer is prepared to tear things down enough to evolve faster, and Im not sure they r, what does Ellis bring to this evolution? Her coaching history seems to be under achieving with talented teams. Wouldn't u want a coach with a history of getting more out of less talent to shepherd the team thru the rough transition?
I just wanted to repeat this. Ellis is a USSF puppet. Nothing says job security like a USSF darling. (see Lalas, Alexi)
Listened to a Mixxed Zone interview with Aly Wagner. Among the people she was critical of were Lloyd, Morgan and Press. Pretty much gave Ellis a pass tho. https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/HWL4693619618?selected=HLR6708698154