Why is Jill Ellis still employed?

Discussion in 'USA Women: News and Analysis' started by Cannons, Mar 9, 2017.

  1. RevsRule

    RevsRule Member+

    NE Revs, LAFC
    Jun 9, 1999
    N. Eastern, Mass
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #26 RevsRule, Mar 14, 2017
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2017
    Gulati will pull her plug in the end and I think that day has to be close. If he finally pulled the plug on Klinsmann, who he considered a soccer God, Ellis is not higher rated than that. Yes she won the WC but most that follow this team closely, know it was by accident more than anything. She is getting credit for something she lucked into. No injures and we get nothing there and she would have been fired. We bombed in the Olympics and this last tournament.. we sucked. That was with our A team too

    Flash forward - We have no offense. One goal in three games proves that. Our demise is because Lloyd is mostly finished and Ellis has yet to see it or if she has, is in denial about it. We cannot play a man down with Lloyd on the field, creating little. I think she is pushing Morgan out too. Played very little in this last tournament and I think there is little room for an over the top speed racer these days. I would cut Ellis some slack if she was actively looking for more younger, starting players and working on a ball control, short passing game. Lloyd, Morgan and even Heath need be phased out and the next generation phased in. Pugh for one, needs to start and we need a creative player that can drive the offense as a #10 That person is not Lloyd or Heath either
     
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  2. puttputtfc

    puttputtfc Member+

    Sep 7, 1999
    In all fairness to Ellis her player selection is limited by the USSF contracts. She can only phase out players to a certain point.

    Heath is not a #10 or part of the problem. I thought she played well other than taking free kicks and her defense is underrated.
     
  3. RevsRule

    RevsRule Member+

    NE Revs, LAFC
    Jun 9, 1999
    N. Eastern, Mass
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Heath is a funny one. She looks ok at times but her crosses lead to nothing and she is terrible on kicks. Theyre all too low and nothing comes of them. If I had to choose between her or or Pugh... its Pugh. Way more upside
     
  4. MiLLeNNiuM

    MiLLeNNiuM Member+

    Aug 28, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Isn't this notion why they hired Sermanni?
     
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  5. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Well actually the attraction with Sermanni was he'd brought in a lot of young players to rebuild Australia. Oddly USSoccer decided it wanted to bring in younger players as long it didn't involve getting rid of the older ones. An example of a did less with more guy is Mark Sampson. His Bristol teams were competitive in the FAWSL despite not having the money to attract name players.
     
  6. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
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  7. Webster12

    Webster12 New Member

    Apr 12, 2011
    Club:
    Atlanta Beat
     
  8. Webster12

    Webster12 New Member

    Apr 12, 2011
    Club:
    Atlanta Beat
    I agree. Ellis is not coaching and the rest of the teams in the world are passing her up. I don't understand why they don't replace her
     
  9. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    The question is will anything short of WC failure cause a coaching move? Probably not. Still, another lousy performance over the next six matches might get some attention. A prolonged losing streak by a team that never loses much might lead the powers that be to the conclusion that Ellis has lost the team. Then there is fan support. If the shabby results continue and ticket sales drop significantly... well u don't get a $100 million surplus by ignoring that. Lastly, there is always the possibility that Morgan comes back from Europe and calls Gulati into her office. "Sunny...in France we had this guy...he was a coach and knew a lot about soccer...I think we should get someone like that here...soon"
     
  10. sitruc

    sitruc Member+

    Jul 25, 2006
    Virginia
    Klinsmann was the coach during Copa Centenario.
     
  11. Semblance17

    Semblance17 Member+

    United States
    Apr 27, 2013
    Lighthouse Point, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The Facetiousness is strong with this one.

    If the team continues its winless streak against Sweden, which is probable, then achieves a dead-last finish in the Tournament of Nations to match its dead-last finish in the SheBelieves Cup, which is not by any means beyond the realm of possibility, I like to believe that U.S. Soccer's leadership [and I use that term loosely] would finally see the writing on the wall.
     
  12. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Someone actually was concerned with the results of the SheBelieves Cup?

    Really?

    If so, why? How does winning a tournament at the expense of player and tactical development win a World Cup two years later?

    Just because the excuse of not winning the Algarve Cup was mooted as the reason for Sermanni's dismissal doesn't make it entirely truthful.

    I'd rather lose the next 20 friendlies and work at talent identification and development and figure out works and does not work in a shifting tactical landscape if it helps us win in France in 2019 and to a lesser extent in Tokyo in 2020.

    That's neither support for and a rationale against Jill Ellis - it's purely my reaction to someone trying to use results in friendlies as some sort of rationale for/against pretty much anything.
     
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  13. Kazoo

    Kazoo Member

    Nov 1, 2015

    Ellis has been successful, and yet so many people seem to have a problem with her success. Ellis has accomplished much more than Klinsmann, who accomplished nothing and was a disaster. There was nothing lucky about the U.S. World Cup win--that is nonsense--and it is nonsense to say that the U.S. "bombed" out of the Olympics. We got beat on penalties by a lesser team in a way that is not uncommon, at all, in soccer. The recent tournament was a friendly, so it is silly to get too caught up in it--and I could have sworn we won both games. Ellis has also worked new and younger players into the lineup. Morgan and Lloyd should both be phased out. I don't share all this doom and gloom about the national team. It seems mostly gratuitous hand-wringing.
     
  14. Semblance17

    Semblance17 Member+

    United States
    Apr 27, 2013
    Lighthouse Point, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The problem with Ellis is that her decisions, interviews, and overall persona do not create confidence that she is developing players and tactics, figuring out what works, and building the team toward a World Cup win in 2019/an Olympic win in 2020. Maybe she deserves the benefit of the doubt. But after games like the stupefying conclusion of Cup, in which the team made many of the same mistakes it made in the friendly against France more than two years earlier, the price of that benefit of the doubt naturally gets marked up. Existing confidence continues to erode. Friendlies or not, figuring out what doesn't work only helps if you don't repeat it.

    Of course winning the SheBelieves Cup wasn't important for the team. But an argument that losing the cup as spectacularly as they did will actually help them in the wrong run would be a tough sell.

    And of course, development should take precedence over results when the next major tournament is more than two years away. Getting results and developing tactics/players may be indirectly proportional to some extent, but they are not mutually exclusive; achieving the latter doesn't preclude the former any more than the former precludes the latter. There should be a balance. Wins, losses, and draws alike should be as hard-fought and insightful as the competition allows. Games where viewers are still waiting for the U.S. to arrive at the stadium when the final whistle blows, and the team seems to come away with little more than question marks over their heads may actually cause the team to regress.
     
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  15. lil_one

    lil_one Member+

    Nov 26, 2013
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Actually I think we did learn a lesson from the SheBelieves Cup: the 3 person backline will get exposed against good teams, and maybe we don't have the right personnel for a 3-back anyway. Or at least we didn't have the right personnel in the right places. Its a good lesson, and I'd rather we learn it at SBC than at the WWC.

    We also haven't seen a 3-back since (not that I don't expect Jill to pull it out again in some friendlies over the next year or so).
     
  16. Semblance17

    Semblance17 Member+

    United States
    Apr 27, 2013
    Lighthouse Point, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #41 Semblance17, Jun 16, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2017
    Perhaps many people are too quick to minimize Ellis's role in the World Cup win. But by the same token, people shouldn’t be too quick to minimize her role in the Olympic loss. The U.S. was already well on the road to failure by the time it faced Sweden, after conceding that eye-stinging draw against Colombia in Manaus. You can't have it both ways: if there was nothing lucky about the U.S. World Cup win, then there was nothing unlucky about the Olympic loss. This is a team that will never console themselves with the “It’s a cruel game” rationalization of a PK loss like that.

    “Bombed” is a perfectly appropriate term for the outcome of the Olympics...
    [​IMG]
    My point of view takes into account that the team had never before walked away from that tournament with less than a silver medal and this time stopped three full wins short of that benchmark. My point of view also takes into account that they fully expected to become the first team ever to follow up World Cup gold with Olympic gold in the same cycle, and instead produced the team's worst-ever finish in a major tournament. At any rate it's not "nonsense" to call the outcome a massive disappointment, which can be considered a more diplomatic phrasing of "bombed".

    Ultimately the coach has to hold him or her self accountable for the performance of his or her team. The buck stops there. It's far easier for Ellis to take ownership of the gold-medal finish in World Cup, but she must also own the quarterfinal PK loss in the Olympics, like it or not.

    But no, not all doom and gloom. The introductions of new and younger players like Lavelle are bright spots, but eventually these players will have to be applied in ways that adapt effectively to the team’s evolving competition, which was very clearly a missing piece in the SheBelieves Cup.

    And the U.S. has also finally learned how to beat Sundhage’s Sweden. Better late than never.
     
  17. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here are facts:

    1991 WWC:

    1. USA
    2. Norway
    3. Sweden
    4. Germany
    1992 Women's Soccer not yet an Olympic sport

    1995 WWC:

    1. Norway
    2. Germany
    3. USA
    4. China
    1996 Olympics:

    1. USA
    2. China
    3. Norway
    1999 WWC:

    1. USA
    2. China
    3. Brazil
    4. Norway
    2000 Olympics:

    1. Norway
    2. USA
    3. Germany
    2003 WWC:

    1. Germany
    2. Sweden
    3. USA
    4. China
    2004 Olympics:

    1. USA
    2. Brazil
    3. Germany
    2007 WWC:

    1. Germany
    2. Brazil
    3. USA
    4. Norway
    2008 Olympics:

    1. USA
    2. Brazil
    3. Germany
    2011 WWC:

    1. Japan
    2. USA
    3. Sweden
    4. France
    2012 Olympics:

    1. USA
    2. Japan
    3. Canada
    2015 WWC:

    1. USA
    2. Japan
    3. England
    4. Germany
    2016 Olympics:

    1. Germany
    2. Sweden
    3. Canada
    Here are some things I derive from these facts:

    1. According to the evidence so far (which is limited), it is not possible to win the World Cup and then win the Olympics. This is not a law, it just is what the evidence suggests.

    2. Of the four medalists in the most recent World Cup, the top three were not medalists at the following Olympics. This is a fact.

    3. The USA is the first team to win the World Cup and then finish out of the medals at the Olympics. This is a fact.

    4. In the WWC/Olympics paired years:

    1995-96: Three WWC medalists were Olympics medalists

    1999-2000: Two WWC medalists were Olympics medalists

    2003-04: Two WWC medalists were Olympics medalists

    2007-08: Three WWC medalists were Olympics medalists

    2011-12: Two WWC medalists were Olympics medalists

    2015-16: One WWC medalist was an Olympics medalist

    These all are facts. From these facts, one can draw a reasonable hypothesis that it is becoming increasingly hard to be a WWC medalist in one year and an Olympics medalist the next year. (That's what a statistical trend line would say.)
    5. Opinion: If the WWC is more important than the Olympics, then how the USA did in the 2016 Olympics is a weak basis for evaluating USA soccer. It's not "no basis," but it's a basis that has limited weight.
     
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  18. Semblance17

    Semblance17 Member+

    United States
    Apr 27, 2013
    Lighthouse Point, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Nevertheless, as always the onus is on the coach to demonstrate that experiments like the 3-back in the SBC are not fruitless; that there is a method to decisions that sometimes appear to be madness, especially with the benefit of hindsight. As 2017 turns into 2018 then 2019, figuring out what doesn't work won't help unless she hones in on what does work. It's a tightrope walk between becoming over-reliant on experimentation/trial-and-error/process of elimination and allowing the team to stagnate in its comfort zone. I don't envy her that task. I'm open-minded though. Wait and see.
     
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  19. Semblance17

    Semblance17 Member+

    United States
    Apr 27, 2013
    Lighthouse Point, FL
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    *two full consecutive wins short of that benchmark

    [because it was too late for an edit]
     
  20. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    The real problem is that, since 2003, the USWNT has taken injured players to the World Cup and Olympics for marketing purposes. And more often than not it has cost us in the end as short squads with two games/week against top competition isn't a recipe for success. Alex Morgan should never have been on the WWC15 squad and Megan Rapinoe should never have been on the Brazil team.

    That's a problem that Jill Ellis is probably powerless to change. In fact, that's probably a condition of the job after Sermanni was abruptly fired. One benefit over past cycles is that the WWC teams are now a full 23 players, which can absorb a little more marketing presence, and Ellis was able to change course/personnel/tactics mid-tournament and win. With the shorter bench in the Olympics, there was no room for error and even if Megan was physically 100% she was nowhere near ready to play international soccer.

    We all want to believe we live in enlightened times where gender and other things don't matter, but the fact is that there just isn't the money in the women's game. It takes a lot of work to pay the bills, and having sponsors spend years marketing Alex Morgan as the "star" means that she realistically has to be at the World Cup. It's a compromise. A financially necessary one. I'm not suggesting that Gatorade/McDonalds/Nike/etc... are putting explicit pressure or influence on roster selection, but part of being the WNT coach is understanding where the money is coming from.

    It would be nice to be in a place where the WNT could play a series of friendlies (like an Algarve Cup) without taking most of the "stars" without the coach getting fired. But we're not there, yet. All you have to do is follow the NWSL and NWSL team social media. It's very "name" focused. "Come see Press vs Sauerbrunn" and so on.

    Women's soccer is still very much in the "name on the back of the jersey" stage.

    It's changing. It's better than it was in 2001 with the WUSA. But it's worse than it was during the Sermanni period, and that's not a coincidence.

    Ellis is in a no-win situation. She can not worry about results and bring in some new players or alter tactics and get hammered - or she can play the same 15-18 players again and again and hope they stay healthy and at the top of their game for the next three years. It's a tightrope. If you want the USWNT to be a contender in France, in Tokyo, and beyond, you need to be more willing (if not insistent) that the USWNT gets away from always using the contract players during the 2 1/2 year gaps between Olympics and WWCQ.

    Frankly, the WNT should be able to go the next 12 months without using any players with WWC or OG experience. It would be a great way identify and develop new talent, while still having the time to reintegrate the contract stars back into the team before the games get real. Except that it's not free - USSF is paying the contract players regardless of appearances. And Gatorade/Nike/McDonalds/etc... need a face or two to start selling now to have them be relevant to the general public in 2019.

    USWNT head coach isn't a simple coaching job.
     
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  21. luvdagame

    luvdagame Member+

    Jul 6, 2000
    you're making too much sense.

    we want someone fired.
     
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  22. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    The problem is the women should have their WC on the even years. Having their two major tournaments back to back have effected results. The men would be fine in the odd year because OG isn't a major tourney just a U-23 contest.
     
  23. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    U can't judge the US program by wins and losses because every US coach has an absurd success rate. For me coaches need to be judged on whether they improve the play of the team and get the most out of the talent they have.
     
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  24. jackdoggy

    jackdoggy Member+

    May 16, 2014
    Big D
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Dang Andy...lots of good points. WWC15 - I kinda thought a couple selections had a career achievement reward factored into it - last chance for some to be called WC Champion. I think some of Jill's moves in this cycle is to reverse that.
    Yeah, Alexandra the Great isn't named to the friendly squad in Salt Lake and Twitter is littered with angry ticket-holding parent stories about 10-year olds crying that their favorite player isn't coming to town.

    Of course, most problems would be solved with my >30 Annual Match USWNT Plan.:D
     
  25. Cliveworshipper

    Cliveworshipper Member+

    Dec 3, 2006
    #50 Cliveworshipper, Jun 18, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2017
    I'm not so convinced that Morgan had to be on the team because she is such a great draw. That wasn't the case in Portland, where attendance went up after she left, nor did it seem to be the case in Orlando.

    She was probably more indispensable to sponsors.
     

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