Let's say Sunil Gulati announces you as the new US Women's National Team coach. What is your first (2nd and/or 3rd) order of business? What would be your master plan for getting ready for the Olympics next summer?
1. Make sure you're in charge before you take the job. 2. Widen the player pool invited to camp. Review WC performance player by player and ask honestly whether anyone else in camp can do better. This group isn't getting it done. No automatic positions based on past performance. 3. Pick your team and don't look back.
Tough question, as I have no experience and lack the expertise, but that won't stop me... 1. Notify everyone the "for real try-outs for the Olympic team start in Jan - no one has a spot. 2. Contact every college team in US for an in-depth review of their teams. 3. Locate and hire the very best support coaching staff possible. 4. Act as "team manager" and let the experts go to work. 5. Prepare my dismissal speech so it's ready on a minute's notice.
First, I'd hire a shrink to figure out what'sd wrong with me! Get a staff. Or a baseball bat. Fire the 'tard PR guy who got the ball rolling for the Hope fiasco. Get the existing team together(yes, all of them) and have a listen as a group and individually. Take notes. Let the team know that the status quo is unacceptable, that the goal is #1, and tryouts will be held. No one is sacred Evaluate talent of existing players and the prospective additions with staff. Send out invites. Organise the practices and tryouts to allow the players to show their talents and skills in the best light. Not Just mids-D-strikers-keeps, but integrating the parts as well. Get all the parts working as a unit. Enumerate the goals to the public in order to get them back on our side.
Kick everyone off the team. Hold open tryouts. demote heiftiz to team toilet cleaner and stinky sock sniffer. Hire a 24hour a day team psychologist. burn the "bronze jerseys and tell Nike to either come up with a better marketing scheme or were changing sponsers. scour the earth for the best assistant coaching staff I can find.
First of all, there are no tryouts at this level. What are you going to do, put an ad in the local paper? Have 2-3 training sessions and tell the moms that you will email them the list of who made the team? Where to start? Get rid of the residency program. Yes, it was good in that it gave the players financial stability to concentrate on the team. It also made them complacent. You do not run a national team like a club team. Keep the door open for any player to get picked and it makes sure that your regulars are fighting to stay on. As some have mentioned, take charge of the team. If the leaders are on board with you, fine. If they are not, appoint new leaders. Go back to the style that made the US Women the class of women soccer. The players have the skill to play the game as it should be. And if they don't, then that is why you bring other players along.
Sure their are tryouts at this level. Barring a professional major or minor leauge system, use the colleges. Invite the highest recommended canidates to camps, and have a look. You can email their moms if you want to... I think we are saying the same thing. If you get rid of the residency program (a good idea I am stealing if I get the call), then where are you going to get the players from? And where will you get new talent to evaluate? Give the idea of a "try-out" a chance if you get the call instead of me. (BTW, if you do, remember I backed you, and will be looking for some tickets).
sure there are, football teams having traning camp, baseball has spring training. They pull people up and start playing. Part of its conditioning, but more of it is setting the roster for the year. I don't think anyone means open to everyone. You invite the best of the best from college, club and the current teams and narrow it down to 18.
Well, on the men's side, you go to games and watch players. Those who are in form are called for camps, friendlies, matches. That is the problem we have on the women side with no pro league. Now the women can play in Europe. And there should be no problem for a coach to go to Eueope and look at players along with college players here. But the residency program limits player selection and does not put them in a competitive atmoshpere. Maybe semantics on my part but not really tryouts per se.
1) I would thank Sunil Gulati for the faith he had placed in me - however irrationally - to return the USWNT to respectability. 2) I would enroll in a coaching class as quickly as possible, hoping to get my license before camp opens in January. 3) I would come on BigSoccer and gloat - and I do mean gloat!
Alternatively ... 1) I would take stock. I would hold individual 'exit' interviews with each player, trying to create a clear (psychological) break from the recent past. 2) I would clean house. I would encourage two or three senior players to consider retiring, and I would open the door to gifted young players. 3) I would transform the ideal. I would begin the process of shifting the focus from physically gifted players to technically (and tactically) gifted players, recognizing that each player and the team as a whole needs a balance of positive attributes and that transformational shifts take time.
Hey, I wonder if the conference call will be covered by matchtracker since it's not televised??? I've grown to just love how that brings the game to you. You know, just like actually being at the game, but sitting with your back to the pitch. Aw, we can only hope...
Fresh slate for everyone. Since I am new I don’t give a rat’s ass about what happened under Ryan. I don’t care if you get along off the pitch. All I care about is assembling players who once on the pitch put winning ahead of any personal bs, any sense of entitlement, or any loyalty to anything other than team triumph. If you cannot be grown up or focused enough to do that, get the eff out. I want you to play in Europe until we get a league. I want to get assistants who won’t kiss my ass for a paycheck, but who will tell me if I am missing something or making mistakes. I won’t necessarily listen to them, but if I hire correctly their sole goal will be winning as well. The Olympics does not give a lot of time for rebuilding. Accordingly it will be critical to identify and call in those players who are able to fill voids but are not so green that they cannot be groomed. Our main needs? Speed and speed-both on top and in the back. My wishes and needs may not be met in time for the Olys, so I must do the best with what I have and that means finding a # 2 keeper who is not Scurry, and developing some versatility in strategy-we are too predictable and we have to refocus our philosophy and style of play as much as possible in the months leading up to the Olys. I will also scrimmage against high school/college boys. I don’t care if they whip our ass, its good for us.
1) Buy "Coaching women's soccer for dummies" and read fast 2) Scrap residency camp or at least reformat it. All it does is teach them how to play each other, that's all. I would use it much more productively, playing against different teams, yes, boys teams, practicing as a whole unit, instead of seperately all the time, etc. 3) Invite fresh people to reformatted camp to ensure I have the best players possible on the field. Experience equals nada if you don't have the other necessary tools to get the job done. This team needs new blood. I'm not saying scrap everyone, just get some new people in there. We have talented players but they have been so under utilized that it's a joke. If a couple new faces brings new life and quality to this team, then I've done my job. 4) Pick new team captain or captains 5) Make sure the entire team knows that I am running the show and that this is not a sorority. I decide who stays and plays, who sits the bench, and I handle the discipline. If someone screws up, I handle it. No vigilante justice system. 6) Pray
Reread "Total Rugby" by Jim Greenwood.The most sensible book I've read yet regarding team building in any sport. Oh and talk to Coach Wooden. Hire Tony D or Pia as my "technical director" and let them decide essential tactics. Beg for Nike money to pay for a deeply expanded pool of 60 players and schedule 2-3 team mini tournaments(poossibly with guest teams(softball did this IIRC).Yeah,they'll be playing each other ,but with no league whaddaya gonna do?
1. Prepare my Season Planning 2. Get dossier on all players in pool 3. Appoint my assistants and staff
Great start...I like your number 2 on the list. We need to tap into the talent at the college level and jc level....no more club team mentality.
Great, where are all the ryan supporters now. 1. Add Mia to my coaching staff. 2. Clean house, maybe keep 5 players max (not lilly), solo yes. 3. Diversity Revolution, find skilled players not robots or gals that just wack the ball and are on the team because of tenure. Na....too many good players in this country at the hs, college, and jc level...take a look at them and change the face of the team. 4. Expectation, reach gold medal final, win next WC, and if dont I will step down on my own.
1) Scrap the 4-3-3. In the two games that they looked very poor during the WWC, N. Korea and Brazil, the midfield was completely overrun. The only way to get balls to the top 3 was bang-and-run. IMO, I don't believe that the 4-3-3is as effective in the women's game as in the men's. 2) Take an honest inventory of the team and admit that Wambach is a legitimate targetman (woman), probably the best in that role in the world (in the women's game). 3) Based on 2), adjust your formation and system to take advantage of your talent. Use a 4-4-1-1 with O'Reilly tucked in behind Wambach against lesser teams. Against Brazil and Germany, play a 4-5-1 and have Boxx tightly mark Prinz/Marta Put Abby in the box to defend all set pieces with O'Reilly stretching the defense. Use O'Reilly as the end product on counters. Very few defenders can handle her one-on-one. Put Rampone in the center of the defense and find a replacement FB. 4) Practice passing on the ground. Practice 1- and 2-touch football to maintain possession. IMO, this was the most disappointing aspect of the USA's performance during WWC. 5) Say "Bygones" and the best keeper gets the job.
1. Cut every single player who had anything to do with the 1999 squad. That era is gone. The women's game has advanced significantly since a kick and run style could win championships. 2. Find players with actual soccer skills. I find it very hard to believe, in country the size of the US with the talent pool we have, that we can't find 11 players who can dribble and pass.