Watershed moment for me in this was minutes after Mewis gets kicked in the face Ellis makes her central midfield sub bringing in Brian for Long.
Well, it's not clear she did anything to win the World Cup. Her schemes failed miserably early and were salvaged by forced substitutions in the starting lineup caused by injuries, great play early by Rapino and a performance for the ages by Lloyd. Then we went to an Olympic Games and finished out of the medals for the first Time in any FIFA finals ever. In that contest, her offensive schemes resulted in ZERO goals by forwards, a trend that is continuing well into the present. With the exception of minnow Russia, the USA hasn't scored twice in a game in 2017, was humiliated by France and losing to teams they have never lost to, and has been shut out three times. She's making Sermanni look like a freakin genius.
My WC analogy. Ellis was handed a school bus full of children in New York City and given the task to drive them to Chicago. She gets props from everyone for accomplishing the task but everyone is somehow willing to ignore her passing thru Tampa and Albuquerque along the way.
Finally got the chance to watch it-- and I thought they played pretty well, especially given that the Horan as a forward against a fast aggressive team experiment was a double failure; she wasn't much use where she was, and she was pretty badly needed where she wasn't. And we were missing our best--IMO-- player. It just didn't work out; but for three cycles I have been reading folks here complaining that we never experiment with players now when losses don't much matter-- and now that we are, people complain about losses...
We lost 3 home matches...total, in those three cycles. We have matched that in 8 weeks this year. At some point you have to consider what is being gained. Jill got her job from Sermanni on the idea that losses in tournaments were unacceptable, remember? If it was good enough reason to get rid of Sermanni she shouldn't be immune.
I don't see complaints regarding experimentation rather complaints of the appearance of a very poorly coached team.
Breaking: In consideration of the USWNT's stunning comeback against Brazil in the Tournament of Nations, U.S. Soccer has extended head coach Jill Ellis's contract through the 2023 Women's World Cup (Fake News)
And if it was a bad idea with Sermanni we should repeat it anyway, just for some notion of justice? And BTW it was the reason fans attributed Sermanni's firing to-- it may very well have had nothing actually to do with it...
Oh, I don't think it really had the slightest to do with it. Jill and April and papa Ellis wanted Jill to have the reigns. There was no search for a new coach. Jill was the pick before they fired Sermanni.
And this is the crux of the debate. Whether that appearance is a reflection of reality or just an illusion. There are really no right or wrong answers to that question as discernable at the moment.
right... as i read it, it looks like some of the posters feel the team is lacking as a result of Ellis failing to coach the team and not as a result of experimentation... do you have an actual stance on the topic?
Certainly seems like they had it in mind that sooner or later, anyway, same as with Klinsmann. But they also said there wasn't really time to search, and defaulted to her IIRC. And the result justified the decision, whatever fan mythology built up around it during and after. These days, if Vince Lombardi returned from heaven and coached the Packers to a Super Bowl win, there'd be Green Bay fans posting about how they did it despite him, the game has passed him by... She said we would try to win the WWC with defense, and we won it with defense. It ain't bragging if you can do it.
I thought I had already made it clear; I think it is obvious she is not "failing to coach the team." I also think you cannot tell if she is coaching it well or ill at this point and distance. The proof is in the pudding, and this is still the mixing the ingredients phase. I think, for example, that short of an explanation from Ellis herself--one that we can trust is not itself smoke-blowing-- we do not know why she wanted Horan at forward. Maybe she wanted extra muscle up front, or Horan's passing sophistication as a replacement for some of what's lost when Tobin is out, or maybe Horan's been bugging the staff for a shot at forward and she wanted to put that distraction to bed, or what-- we just don't and probably won't know. We can see that it didn't seem to work very well; but we don't know what was being tested or why. It may not have been being tested at all-- it may have been creating the right mix for some other thing to be tested. And so on; the proof is in the pudding, not what angle you hold the eggbeater at.
They used the same search committee that checked Steffi Jones' credentials before she got the German job.
I read a quote somewhere (can't find it atm) in which Ellis said that she wanted to see how Horan's hold-up, back-to-the-goal play worked in the forward line. It was worthwhile to see what Horan offers there, but I hope she learned that the experiment failed.
The veteran players run the show, not Gulati or the USSF. The "veteran" players (along with help from some advice from the pioneers) demanded that changes be made. That is why Sermanni got the Boot. The veterans were scared they were going to be run off the team, and they forced US Soccer to make a decision. Lose Sermanni, or lose the veterans and their history of what they gave in building the women's team to what it was. Sermanni was the "Outsider". The veterans were the "US Women's National Team". Sermanni got the Axe. Let's not forget, several pioneers knew this tactic would work, and were confident with it, because it worked in 1996 when they went on strike. This was a little different this time, but that's why the veterans reached out to some of them for advice.