It's day two since the disaster and Arena is still employed. The Goal.com site has him on the way out which is unusual unless they know something. Ives Galarcep wrote the article (link) and he is a total fan boy that risks nothing. Im sure Sunil will lay low, hoping this blows over but it can't be allowed to happen. Sunil's turn will come soon enough Arena dropped the ball in many ways leading up to the final failure and must go. There is talk of a friendly next month... Arena should not be directing that. We must keep the pressure up for his firing. It SHOULD happen today or tomorrow at the latest. If it runs longer, I will be worried
The first question is whether the powers that be are in any way responsive to public pressure. Okay, next question ...
No, the first (and only important) question is whether the powers that be are in any way responsive to sponsor pressure. And that pressure is going to be quite big: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...project-20-million-in-lost-world-cup-ad-sales $20mm is a big, big number.
Agree that money talks. Perhaps I should have said 'outside' pressure, though I consider 'public' broad enough to cover sponsors (as well as fans, etc.).
Let's keep this going. Let's continue to put the pressure on to get rid of these failures and arrogant pricks that are running US soccer. Keep tweeting the sponsors, keep tweeting demands for their resignations on their facebook and twittger pages. Let them know that the the fans and supporters demand changes, and are not the least happy with these results.
How many days after the Costa Rica disaster did it take before Klinsmann was fired? I would not expect a different time table. It was somewhere close to a week before it happened.
Its only a matter of time. Per Bruce after the T&T game: “We didn’t qualify for the World Cup,” coach Bruce Arena said after the game. “That was my job. To get the team qualified for the World Cup. This game in my view was perfectly positioned for the US team and we failed on the day. We have no excuses. We failed today. We should have walked off this field with at least a point.”
I suspect there is a massive conversation going on about how to move forward. It is more complicated this time than last November because of the upcoming election. It may take longer before the decision is made to fire Arena.
Just giving it to Dave Sarachan on an interim basis until the Presidency is sorted out seems like the obvious move here, right?
Goff tweeted that there is a press conference tomorrow from the USSF. The guys on the TSS podcast also talked about rumors of Wynalda running for president. Hadn't heard of this till now.
Who is the U-23 coach?. Make him the coach on an interim interim basis. Let Bruce step down, hopefully tomorrow. Gulati is a more complicated problem.
Day Two Post WCQ Failure. Team: still not going to Russia. Arena: still in job. Gulati: still in job. Next update tomorrow.
Love this. I would support any former player to take over the USSF. We need soccer brains and experiences at the top. What business does a professor have with running one of the biggest soccer federations in the world.
Wynalda? Really? What a great idea. Let's put an emotional, loud-mouth with no administrative experience in a Presidential position. What could possibly go wrong; it's certainly never been tried anywhere else in America.
As for Arena... it's been an accepted truth ever since he took over for Klinsmann that he was just a temporary hire. There's no way he's going to continue, so I'm not losing my mind that he hasn't resigned yet by 11:36 AM, eastern time on the 12th. If a friendly or two pops before or during January camp, SOMEBODY'S gotta be the coach. And if Gulati really is going to be on the way out, we might as well wait until the new president is installed before getting serious about a coaching change. There's zero benefit to appointing someone in the interim, only to turn around and have the new president fire him because he's not "his guy."
Sounds like an horrible move to me. Give it to the underling of the guy who failed us miserably? No way. Need a clean break from arena's regime.
I think the benefit of getting arena out the door, even if that means a temporary 3 month appointment (clearly and outwardly labeled as such) is way better than giving arena another day. Arena calling the shots for one more game sends a horrible message to the next gen of players and fans.
That's a great point -- and probably a significant uncertainty to prevent us from contracting with a top quality international manager. So the logical order of events over the coming days / max 2 weeks would be: -Arena resigns or USSF announces non-renewal of contract, either will do -Interim USMNT manager (Sarachan or Ramos) named -Gulati announces he is not running for re-election Then ideally: -USSF Board engages outside consultant to explore root cause of notable failures past 5 years (not just WC18 but also last two Olympics) -Consultant announces findings and prelim recommendation Jan2018 -Election to replace Gulati Feb2018 as USSF president -New USSF president contracts for new USMNT manager spring 2018 Kind of boring but it would have a chance to move us in a new direction.
Boring is good. Calling for radical transformations that will never happen undermines the chance to make real changes. I think all the things you've said need to be done, but I don't think we could even decide on an outside consultant by Jan 2018.