It is against Wales and Iran. I agree that the results would most likely have been similar. As such, the decision about the next coach shouldn’t rely too much on our World Cup performance. We shot par…but it was an enjoyable par.
“2nd cycles” are very dangerous for ruining momentum because the message becomes stale and complacency settles within the group. Berhalter could however be the caretaker for a bit while looking for his next gig which could be part of this talk. What says @jtbatson the new CEO?! https://t.co/MSVjJENI1k— Taylor Twellman (@TaylorTwellman) December 7, 2022
From the wikipedia entry on the Allsvenskan: "The Big Three" in Swedish football and Allsvenskan is used to refer to AIK, IFK Göteborg, and Malmö FF. They are generally considered to be the three largest clubs in Sweden from the three largest cities (Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö). The three teams with most Swedish championships are Malmö FF (22), IFK Göteborg (18) and IFK Norrköping (13). Hammarby ranks 10th all-time in total appearances (and points earned) in the top flight.
Well this goes back to, what is the intention our Fed has and how ambitious are they. There's different arguments going on around here. Some are taking arguing that others don't want G back as a complete indictment on his coaching and the suggestion he's terrible. And anyone can do better. So they're more defending G than offering a solution of improvement. Let's offer a more balanced argument. G has some success, some failure. At the least, met minimum expectations but has shortcomings and historically, didn't surpass expectations. But the bigger question is does the Fed truly want to take the next step looking towards 2026, be more ambitious in leading the next step of the program, or do they want to settle for G who now has a track record of, nott meeting expectations at Hammarby and was fired for his poor attacking acumen, had a decent to good stint at Columbus but did not reach the top tier of MLS coaches, and with the NT at best met historical targets, up against Arena '02, Bob '10 and Jurgen '14, but didn't progress beyond any of them. Arena surpassed in '02 but that's a different convo. Point being, one can argue G is a safe pick to keep the status quo and at least meet minimum expectations, although in hosting the WC in 2026 the minimum expectations likely rise to R8. But it is much tougher to argue based on Qatar and G's historical track record that he moves the team to the next level. In fact, there is no historical basis for that argument. So do we want to be more ambitious or not? Never mind a 2nd cycle coach has never worked out for us. People should take off their fan hats and approach this with pure logic. As if you were running a company. When there is zero historical context or metrics which suggest extending the position has led to an improved success rate within the company, and factoring in the recent tenure did not return results above the mean, why would you go down that path? You would not, if the plan is to take the company to the next level.
I think across sports lots of coaches fail at some point and evolve grow as coaches. The question is less that he was fired from Hammerby, but whether he has grown or evolved as a coach since then. Unless you're hiring Pep Guardiola, you're not likely to be hiring a coach who hasn't had some failure at some point in their career. And yes if Guardiola were available we should hire him instead of bringing Berhalter back. I think the perception in Europe of Berhalter is that he took a team that wasn't very good and which didn't qualify last time, rebuilt it entirely from scratch, and had them playing in a World Cup that previous US teams have never played before. And there were lots of neutral foreign observers praising his tactics throughout the tournament. On top of that he has a ton of contacts/relationships in Europe from having played there for so long. Now i'm not saying we should bring him back next cycle. My view is it's just a question of who are we replacing him with. Are we letting Berhalter go and hiring Josh Wolff? In that scenario I'd rather go with Berhalter for another cycle. Is Jesse Marsch interested? Well let seriously think about then. Does Pochettino want to come coach the US? (just throwing out the name of an available top tier foreign coach, not saying he'd be interested) Well let's have a serious conversation with him then and hire him if we think the fit is right. For me the question isn't whether Berhalter or not will return, it's who is the replacement and is that person a better coach/fit than Berhalter.
Well, that's kind of my point. If you are a person who wanted to go in and advance as far as you can, your concern shouldn't be "we didn't score enough against Wales" it should be focused on the game plan against the Netherlands and any ensuing. And a more offensive gameplan against better teams is generally a poor idea. And yep, we shot par. I'd also argue that even if we had beat the Netherlands, it would have been overperformance. Which would have been INCREDIBLY fun and exciting and all kind of the point ... but if we are talking underlying levels of performance and predictive value and all that ... kind of irrelevant. I think it is interesting to think about what the goal is for 2026. Do we want to go far in the tournament? Round of 8? Semis? Or is it more important to be playing at a level that say, ELO FAVORS us for the Round of 8? Is that the fundamental goal?
Why are you focused solely on trophies and peformance? We already know Hammarby was down in the second division, that's where Gregg was coaching them when he was so crap that their fans broke in and confronted him, and where he got fired despite his AEG connections! Found via a google search: And then there's attendance, where Hammarby rank first pretty much every season they're in the top division... 2015: 1 2016: 1 2017: 1 2018: 1 2019: 1 2021: 3 2022: 1 https://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/swe-allsvenskan-2022/1/ What are you even arguing about? What is your point? Hammarby isn't a big club in Sweden? I don't understand how that's even better or worse for Berhalter, but hey you do you...
Specific to the Netherlands game, its not about being "aggressive". Its about intent. They let us meaninglessly pass back and forth and then closed down patterns. That resulted in a lack of ideas in the final third (common theme). What was needed in that specific game was dirt ball. Cohesive line packed defense, and breakaways against a Dutch team who defends in a system. Break the system and you break the defense. We let them load up and defend, tough to beat a good defensive team when you do that. Overall, do we need to be more aggressive? No, I actually take the opposite approach. We don't need both fullbacks to be in the opposing teams box? Why? Because we have good enough attacking talent to go 1v1, adding bodies just muddied the water and makes it more difficult to get a good chance against a recovering team as they wait for an overlap. This team slowed the pace way down and played ultra conservative passing with actual aggressive tactics. I'd take the opposite, ultra aggressive passing with conservative tactics. We need a balanced approach as we don't have the Messi to make magic happen. Gregg does not like balanced. He wants it rigid, slow, possession based game that does nothing to worry a defense until they nod off and his team capitalizes. Guess what? Top teams don't do that at this level. So our team struggles to get chances. We struggle on set pieces, we struggle scoring, we struggle generating quality chances and this is regardless of who is playing. That lends to a system issue. Which again is the problem. The team needs to play loose and free offensively, do that by keeping numbers back and letting your guys get to work. If a team is parking the bus, sure send Robinson up there or Dest up there but not both. It's not needed, they just get in each other's way. Now is Gregg an imbecile who doesn't know the game? Of course not, he is very sound and wants to play his way. I simply do not belive that is the best way to go about it with this group. Just too rigid, I need someone with the ability to read the game, make an adjustment and have it make sense. Gregg was either too late or didnt do it at all, most of the time. To me it has got to be better.
It’s not about scoring for entertainment. It’s about fitness for later rounds. It’s secondarily about a front foot mindset and integrating the next generation. The goal for 2026 is to win it. Nobody involved should utter any other goal. That would be super irrational if the tournament wasn’t almost four years away. Many people around the world would scoff and laugh….but who cares, they aren’t playing and the guys that do won’t try less because we weren’t brash. We can always moderate our expectations if it becomes apparent that we’re not good enough by then. I think we will be good enough based on our ability to experience ratio and youth results…and even then we probably won’t win it.
Sure I'd like the win the World Cup too, but that's not a realistic goal right now. There's no coach on the planet whose going to suddenly come in and turn us into realistic World Cup contenders. Just saying that the goal is to win the World Cup doesn't mean that the goal all of a sudden mean we have the player pool to do so. The goal for 2026 is that we use home field advantage, hopefully a good draw, and some luck to go as far as we can. But if we lose to say Brazil in a quarterfinal, that's not a failure either.
If anyone in a decent league in Europe wants him, he'll be gone. They can pay more than the Fed and the job would be much more interesting. No one will hire him. No one is really interested in him. And, we'll be stuck with him. He was always going to be the Manager for this cycle. No matter what.
And that's all fair. To answer your first question though, I don't think Berhalter has changed much at all. I dont think he ever will. I think he has a soccer vision and is true to that. It comes down to do you agree with it or not? And most definitely Berhalter over Porter, etc. But if were are only attracting that type of manager with the talent on the team, there's far bigger issues (like requiring them to live in Chicago). I'm not sure you'll get a ton of guys with no international experience clamoring, who knows, but you at least make the call and see who is or is not before jumping back in with Gregg.
Yeah..................but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. They're talking. Doesn't mean an offer is on the table. In Carlisle's column he literally talks about how Berhalter is also exploring other options. Gregg is unemployed in several weeks. Of course he and his agent are looking for opportunities. That includes the USSF. By the way, I totally agree with this sentiment I just saw on twitter. By the way, Klinsmann was neither. Awful man management, and awful X's and O's. The Berhalter contradiction: (a) All the things he does well (man mgmt, player buy-in, good-not-great tactics) are things managers don't often get credit for, and (b) the things he isn't great at (game mgmt, odd player selection) are the visible things we talk about all the time.— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) December 7, 2022
I think Berhalter has definitely shown alot of growth as a manager during his time as US Soccer coach. Part of the reason I don't want an MLS guy as the replacement is because I think that a decent learning curve exists when it comes to this job. And I don't think the requirement to live in Chicago is really a big deal. Coaches move for jobs all the time. Pep Guardiola is required to live in Manchester to coach Manchester City. Chicago is a major global city and I can't imagine that's an issue for any coaches. If it is, then that person isn't really committed at all to being the coach of the US. I will say I'm sure that condition is negotiable for the right coach. If Pep Guardiola insisted that he had to live in New York City for some reason, I think they'd find some way around it.
Twellman is sometimes full of shit but many times he's fed very real info. Berhalter on a six month extension actually makes a ton of sense for both parties. I have no idea if that is the plan, though.
There in lies the idiocy. First, we didn't "play more like the best teams." We generated stats more like the best teams. The best teams haven't way overcommitted players forward, leaving themselves wiiiiide open to counters. We way over committed forward to keep possession forward. And when we lost possession, it was ON. This is part and parcel of the "change the perception of American soccer" idiocy. Perceptions are changed by winning. Any one hiring a manager and saying "well, damn, they were like 6th in possession of the ball in the offensive end!" is going to follow that up with "yet, they only scored three times in four matches ....... hmmmmmm" I shouldn't even bother getting involved in this thread. Gregg's second term was decided when he was hired because of his brother.
His brother has nothing to do with US Soccer at current, and there's never been any actual evidence of his brother's actual involvement in his initial hiring in the first place. Why would his brother have anything to do with whether he comes back for a second cycle? The decision is an Earnie Stewart one, in consultation with Brian McBride, the USSF board, and the USSF leadership.
I've been thinking this since the World Cup, but I think Berhalter extension through March while both sides figure out what they want to do, is the most likely outcome.
It's worth noting that is how Canada played. We're not. We're not going to have enough talent. We can utter it all we want for internal motivational reasons. But the next coach of this team needs to decide what the team is going to do facing superior talent. Are we going to play our game or are we going to play an upset-driven form of soccer? And once you decide on that, does affect how you play as you lead up to it? Those are necessary and realistic choices. Neither plan has any real shot at winning the World Cup, but the upset-driven form of soccer is certainly more likely to end in a Semifinal run, for example. But perhaps our talent will be good enough then that playing on the front foot makes us favorites for the Quarters, which might be good enough. Berhalter and Earnie took a public stance that we were going to play on the front foot. In competitive play, we tended to take a more pragmatic approach but not completely abdicate that idea, including in the World Cup. They took a middle ground and went a middle distance. Doing things like putting more attackers forward might have yielded more group stage goals but doesn't get us past the Dutch. Oh, and beating Wales doesn't allow for a ton more rotation either -- we'd have still needed to tie Iran. (In general, rotation might have been better. Might not. But that's not about the offense). I don't know if Berhalter's defensive-leaning choices and conservatism were the right decision or not. Perhaps rotations cost us the Quarters. But what I do see as somewhat inconsistent the idea that being more aggressive against the Dutch, pushing more people forward before we were behind ... I don't see that as all that consistent with the idea of gameplanning to advance. We're simply not that good yet.
Why is this hard to understand. Of course Gregg is talking to the Fed, he has no other options. The problem is the Fed is talking to Gregg. Re the quote. It is not too much to ask for the manager to be good at both. Crazy that Gregg Defenders are openly saying he sucks at being a Manager.
That’s a heck of a mantra to break out when you’re trying to motivate your best players to fly across the ocean so that we can build cohesiveness and competence as a group. “with some luck we can lose to Brazil in the quarters”….”let’s do this!”. I guarantee you that every kid that’s ranked in the top 16, of any sport, has the goal and believes they can reach the top in four years. Only one of them does it…but they all believe they will and that’s what makes them work so hard.
Chicago is kind of a sh*t hole. Southgate isn't required to live in Manchester. He can live whereever he wants. Why would a NT manager be required to live somewhere. Does he have to submit the zipcode to the Fed before he's allowed by buy a house? It's ridiculous.
You do know how BoD's work, right? "Oh, right, 'conflict of interest.' I'll just step into the hall while you boys vote (wink wink)." If it wasn't in the bag from the getgo, why was Gregg telling a player that hadn't been called in that he would call him in after the WC? Bet the house, Gregg will be the manager this cycle.