IMO, no one will fire Bradley (never will happen) ..At the same time, there is a way to not let him, nor anyone off else the hook: Hire someone competent at youth level, say a Jose Pekerman..unless people are convinced the likes of Hackworth and Ellinger worked in the past to our full benefit... or that Peter is making great inroads at the moment....If you don, stop reading this post right now.... Then tell Bob, "you have our full confidence at ther moment, but since neither you nor anyone else in our coaching structure has consistently produced the goods cultivating talent from our youngsters at U15, U-17, U20 level... we hand will JOse here the reins to these teams and their development.... NOw if you f up, please be quite certain, that Jose here is going to take your spot, no doubt" Too expensive, too idealistic? perhaps... but imo it would be a good middle ground solution.... and feel free to replace Pekerman's name with any other competent youth level and/or senior head coach at the international level.....
The Russian league is simply better and more established than MLS. Many of these teams were also around back in the Soviet era. After the collapse, it has taken a while for them to get things back up and running, but you can see the evidence in the last couple years. The academies are established and many of these oligarchs are pumping millions into the teams as a hobby. They are free-spending in terms of hiring coaches and the academy system and have a large, sport-loving population to draw from. There are plenty of excellent young players from all over the world plying their trade next to these Russians in the league. The competition is far better than what you will find in MLS. There is no team in the U.S. that will put a 4-0 beating on Munich, ever.
Yes. Under the idiot Russian coaches. Romantzev, according to one of his players, simply went into his hotel room, had his cognac delivered and just got hammered regularly. Russia is sitting on more oil and gas than they know what to do with. They have completely unexplored finds that they can't get anything out of due to the lack of infrastructure - no pipelines, no roads, no airfields. This is Putin's ... ergh, Med'vedev's new proposal - to put in half a trillion US dollars into building up the infrastructure. There's plenty of oil and gas (not to underestimate timber, aluminium, coal, uranium, gold, etc.) for them to keep pumping that stuff for the next 200 years. Soon after I began to follow the sport, Ajax won 3 European Champions Cups in a row and the Oranje were in the WC final match twice in a row. They're no more of the underperformers than Germany, Italy, England, Russia or France. Unlike being an a-hole, which is very popular. Who the bleep cares? The US is still a 3rd tier soccer power and Russia just broke into the top tier. Deal with that.
I think there's widespread agreement here that the Russian League is probably better than MLS. But the Russian player pool? International achievements of the previous three World Cup and Euro cycles say naaah, not really.
I don't get all the hemming and hawing about coaching. It makes a huge difference in any sport. Bradley was second choice from the start. And although he has proven to be competent, it's hard to argue that with a Guus et al we would not be better as a program in the long haul. We need some new ideas and blood in the coaching ranks with influence all the way down to the U-10s, preferably Dutch or Argentine ideas. I think Sunil is smart enough to realize this, but perhaps politically not strong enough to get her done. We need Uncle Phil, Kraft, Hunt, Allen, et al to support change here.
1) He wasn't the second choice. He was basically an emergency replacement. 2) He is akin to getting an interim baseball manager from Double-A in September to replace a fired head, him going 20-10 that month and then getting a nod despite finishing way out of the play-offs, having inherited a squad without any pressure to succeed and playing other crappy teams. Right. Follow the money. Those guys make rules.
How have we done in the Euro cycles? Point is, how can you use that against them for the sake of comparing them to us? Just making it to the Euros and qualifying out of Europe for the World Cup is quite an accomplishment given the number of quality European teams. I tend to think we would not have quite the record of World Cup qualifying if we were in Uefa versus Concacaf. Besides all this, look at them right now. Dey lookin pretty good. I've never seen our guys look this good, ever, not even against Barbados.
Yeah, and Italy also failed to make it out of the Group stage in 02. Holland didn't even make the tournament. What is your point there? They had a crappy coach. Now they have arguably the best one money can buy. They were also the only team that beat the Greeks at Euro 2004. France didn't manage it, Spain couldn't do it, nor could Czechs, nor could the Portuguese playing at home, and they had two shots at it! They have long had the talent, just not the coaching. We don't have a Arshavin. We don't have a Zhyrkov. We don't have a Pavlyuchenko, who wouldn't even be starting if Pogrebnyak hadn't been injured. Their starting eleven is simply stronger than ours. Our league is thirteen years old. Theirs is the product of the old Soviet sport machine, with millions upon millions of rubles put into improving it. Simply put, we don't have kids who are essentially playing professionally before they even hit puberty. There is a massive difference.
These are all good points. I would also add (even before the very impressive Russian victory over Netherlands), that Russia qualified for Euro '08 in the same group that included Croatia, and over England...England, who made the USA look like dog shyte on white bread...the fanboys wouldn't remember of course, as it happened in the distant past of four weeks ago. Another very good point above, re: transfer targets for major clubs. I LOVE my national team, but suggesting that we're on par with Russia is delusional. The USA is, at best, a 20-35 ranked team. Any performance beyond a WC group stage is overachievement. FACT - no USA wins ever in a Euro-hosted WC. FACT - our "breakout" tournament in '02. Had S. Korea chosen to walk through their match w/ Portugal instead of playing to win, we were out at the group stage (thanks again S. Korea, very sporting gesture). FACT - only WC elimination round match ever won by USA was against Mexico in '02. Mexico has never won a round of 16 match except as host, and never gotten beyond the quarter-finals even as host. FACT - we managed a recent 0-0 draw against Argentina SOLELY because of a goalkeeping performance that was no worse than the second best EVER by a U.S. keeper. I will also add that the match meant a lot more to us than to Argentina, who was warming up for WC qualifiers in a somewhat more challenging confederation and didn't want to risk injuries. FACT - although they experienced significant political and economic upheaval, Russia (as the former Soviet Union) was a major footballing nation, with significant achievements at the Olympics, Euros and World Cups. When Champions League clubs regularly start courting our players, then we'll know we're ready to offer some competition. When we beat a Euro team in Europe during a WC, then we can start considering the question. Right now, Israel, Scotland, South Africa, S. Korea, Australia, Poland, Wales are our peers, and none of these have a prayer of winning the WC, either. To even pose the question re: Russia is self-flattery of the highest order. It's this kind of "posturing without pedigree" arrogance that makes us laughing stocks in Europe, and makes the knowledgeable US fan cringe at the antics of the "fanboys". Rant concluded.
Rainer24 agreed generally. But here we stand in 2008 and with all that history behind Russian football, THEY decided they can improve their first team by hiring Guus. MLS is developing nicely and certainly has helped the talent pool. But we can improve the Nats NOW with better coaching. We can improve our youth teams NOW with better coaching. Gullit was no genius in Europe as a coach, but he is proving to be miles better than the average MLSer. I'd love to see us hire Peckerman as t.d. for the whole program, as a start
Just going to throw this out there: 1. Donovan polished the bench at Leverkusen for a year. Arshavin & the rest of the Zenit team beat Leverkusen 4-1 in Leverkusen. 2. Akinfeev won the UEFA cup at 18. Howard's Everton could not even dream about such an achievement. The reason he does not come across as spectacular to once-a-month fans is because he is one of the best in the world at choosing his position before the shots are even fired, and consequently does not have to pull out amazing saves. If you check the statistics, he has by far the most saves out of anyone in the tournament.
Pekerman won some youth championships with them, but whoever coached them last summer in Canada also won with them. It's Argentina. They always have amazing kids. Still, we at least have to make a serious run at someone like that the next time we are looking to make a major hire.
MLS isn't in UEFA so how can postyers use that against the league? Really, I stated earlier that it's stupid to make such categorical comparisons which is why I stated that the Russian League is 'probably better'. Russia sucked at the '02 World Cup and didn't qualify in '98, and '06. Their record over the past 3 past Euro cycles has been similarly poor. That says to me that they probably aren't up there with the Azurris of the Europe. I agree. Alternate histories don't mean much. See if we were in UEFA we'd have full access to their leagues and to much greater investment in our soccer infrastructure.
Leverkusen used to be a regular fixture in the Champions League, including when he was there, so that's not really much of an argument.
Leaving aside the veracity of the Italy comment, the international achievements of Italy and Holland over the past several cycles and the professional attainment of there respective players underlines the quality of their respective pools. So what's your point? You're losing emotional perspective... Are these Ballon d'Or winners or something?? CL Champions??
Ah yes, soccer cultures... I recall my HS coach bringing me into his office where he had a poster of a Russian doing a bicycle kick presumably for a goal. I don't remember the players name or even from what year/event it was taken but I can still picture the poster of this tough guy with his # 9 pointing towards earth and his foot sweetly striking the ball. My coach took his time explaining that this is what a #9 is about as he gave me that shirt. I guess the closest thing the US had to this guy at the time was Kyle Rote which is all one needs to know to when comparing the two soccer cultures.
Donovan did make it out of Group stages in WC'02, the only common tourney that Russia and US have competed in in recent cycles.
I already addressed the fact that I mistakenly claimed that Italy failed to advance from the group stage. I meant Argentina and it doesn't alter my argument. Even the best of teams can falter, not that I am saying they are the best of teams. Emotional perspective? I have no emotional attachment to this argument, so don't try to throw that in my face. None of your so called arguments have any basis in fact. No, they haven't won the Ballon d'Or or Champions League, but if he has another decent game, Arshavin will be named best player at this tournament. On top of that, we do not have one guy that can command the sort of transfer fee that you see for the likes of Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko, Pogrebnyak or Akifeev, even if you do take the Yank Discount into consideration. Yeah, the coach makes a difference, but you are acting as if he isn't working better material than what he would have with the U.S., which is most certainly is.
You act as if I were Russian. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of Russia. Sorry if you are so blinded by some jingoistic zeal in your desire to see the U.S. atop the summit of world soccer. I'd love to see it, but we are not there yet.
Russian Premier League > MLS Russian NT > US NT Arshavin > Donovan There really is no comparison, and anyone who argues against it is delusional. This is not an accident, over the past 5 or so years their League has been constantly improving and climbing in rankings; you're seeing a ton of money being injected into the Russian league right now. The bigger clubs have soccer academies who acquire young russian talent, those kids start out at 4 5 years old, spend 2 to 3 hours getting toutared and for the rest of the day they play soccer, every day six days a week and they do it for years until they mature. Once they mature they play in the Russian League, it's no coincidence that Russia has the 6th best league in the world right behind the Bundesliga; over the span of few years they have over taken the leagues in Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands.