Not sure if this was posted elsewhere, but tons of content, and a great job from Schaerlaeckens: Grading Sunil Gulati
That being the case, there were only two options in Gulati's mind after last summer's World Cup: Rehire Bradley or lure Klinsmann. No other candidates were considered. Therein lies your problem. Shortsighted to say the least.
If by epic the OP means lengthy, then I agree, but it's more of an autobiographical ('as told to') piece than a challenging interview. Look at who's quoted {Garber, Gazidis, Dan Flynn} - all pretty self-serving.
You beat me to it. That jumped out at me as well and struck me as very short-sighted as well. Also, though its nice to believe our American narratives and related myths, are our psyches, individual and collective, really that different from those of other countries' such that a foreign coach could not understand them? Frankly, I am not even sure what he means. How can we entrust the development of our youngest players with their not yet fully formed psyches to an outsider like Cabrera if it is that significant? I come away from this article with the sense that he's a sharp, energetic guy who is as passionate about US soccer as your average N&A poster...but remain skeptical as to whether he is the right man for the job.
Is Gulati prepared to nominate/push/advocate for a coach who is not an insider with US Soccer? .... I think that is the crux of the issue. If you think that all of your answers lie within your circle of influence (USSF, MLS etc.) then that is what your answer to your ills will be. If someone from the outside (Klinsmann is only one example and I will state that I am less concerned about him in particular other than he is/was not from the "inside") is available and offered but may rock the boat - I have a hard time believing that Sunil will push that way. It is a shame but when have Sunil or Bob ever really surprised you so that you would say "damn I wish I had thought of that"? If Sunil was so smart then perhaps he should have been lecturing on the pitfalls of mortgage backed securities .. but that is a whole other subject.
I wonder how long Sunil would like to be president. If he has designs on continuing for a while, that would explain why he is reluctant to seek out foreign candidates for the national team position. If he were on his way out, what would he have to lose? Obviously the other issue is whether a big-name foreign candidate is worth the extra money, and that's a hard judgment to make.
It is entirely inappropriate to take out your frustrations with Gulati qua USSF president on Gulati qua economics professor.
Why ? struck me as a decent point. the guy is in over his head, which ain't too high off the ground anyway.
Because you don't get to sit there in the peanut gallery sardonically impugning someone's basic qualification to do their job--i.e., the barest of minimums--when senior people in the field who have forgotten more about the field than you or I will ever know have deemed him perfectly qualified. This is not the same as critiquing the decisions of a sporting director or national team manager. Cheap potshots at Gulati the professor constitute nothing but acts of petulant frustration.
Yes, it is THE issue. You can get stagnant with an Alex Ferguson, an Arsene Wenger or a Helmut Schön but you don't want to hang onto a Bob Bradley for longer than absolutely necessary. Anyhow, if this is what sets the course for the media's direction, then ESPN is definitely not on board with the change. Whatever deals Gulati cut with ESPN/Disney must have included the obsequious support for anything the USSF declares the "party line". After the edict is issued, ESPN merely goosesteps along. PS. I'll note that the non-broadcasting entities like Yahoo, AP, Soccer America or the New York papers have been far more critical of Bradley than ESPN, who obviously made their bed already.
The bottom line with Sunil is that not enough people care and not enough cash is at stake. If fan pressure was greater and sponsors would lose countless millions to an underperforming usmnt then wheels would move. But if Sunil delivers an entirely expected product no one cares. And why should they? Every major club is doing a club tour of the US once a year and our relative mediocrity tends to help this along as no one is going to give up their national or club team to follow usmnt or mls anyway. Some yokel made millions off the washington generals not just the globe trotters.
Let's remember that Sunil Gulati is elected as president of the USSF. And he ran unopposed in the last election. People who groan about Sunil Gulati are kind of missing the real problem..................which is the very structure and nature of the USSF itself. Just read the minutes from the last general assembly. It was one giant love fest, as member after member kissed the supreme pontiff's ring. (In Vegas of course) The beginning of the book has minutes from the 2010 meeting in Louisiana. http://resources.ussoccer.com/n7v8b8j3/cds/downloads/2011AGMBook.pdf Right off the bat the thing is bizarre, as the national assembly stands up & recites the pledge of allegiance as if they're back in 1st grade. I will now give you a typical exchange in the national assembly from 2010 (pg 26-27). Please, while reading it, imagine Morgan Freeman giving you a dramatic reading. Perhaps in discourse with James Earl Jones. Gulati: Now, all of us know that there are two different forms of football, one that the word is spelled f-u-t-e-b-o-l, futebol. And the other one, a less important form of football to many, is going on, and there's going to be some sort of grand event today, I'm told but recognizing -- tomorrow. Tomorrow. There we go, tomorrow. It just shows how unimportant it is. Okay. Good recovery. So, now, we have a question here related to it, and I'm going to pose it to you. As I understand it, the New Orleans Saints, and the Indianapolis Colts are going to be playing in a game tomorrow. However what would happen in a PK shootout in which they would be kicking crawdaddies, not soccer balls or footballs, who would win? You may begin. MR. desBORDES: Crawdads MR. KEPNER: Oh, crawdads PRESIDENT GULATI: Okay. Let's count down now; 5,4, 3, 2, and let's see the results. Who dat? (Results showed New Orleans Saints, 75; Indianapolis Colts, 25.) MR. KEPNER: Thank you very much. PRESIDENT GULATI: Mr. Kepner, as always, thank you This here my friends is the discourse at the national assembly. I suggest if anybody ACTUALLY wants to know what Sunil thinks about the direction of the US program, read his comments starting on around pg 31-32.
I wish Leander's article concluded with the match against Panama instead. That would have been epic indeed.
How can a guy who signed Tab Ramos to a League MAX contract after he played 20 games from 1997- 2001 be a economics lecturer? Only in US Soccer does the guy who the owners of MLS fired for almost bankrupting the league end up being USSF President.... We are more like futbol argentino every day... THE BAD part of Futbol Argentino.
If Gulati's speech was a Big Soccer post, it'd be neg-repped to death. It was probably written in the anticipation of the US winning the 2022 WC hosting rights and then edited for the current publication.
Lots of internet tough guys out there... Nice to see we have so many respected economists around here. I heard bct81 is up for the John Bates Clark medal, and Jeddy Rasp has a wit matched only by Frederic Bastiat.
Bear in mind that USSF president is not solely elected to represent the interests of professional soccer and the national teams. Gulati's mandate is broader and he represents a large, rather byzantine set of different constituencies.
Sunil is more of a soccer fan that a soccer federation president. His "leadership" of US Soccer kind of reminds me of Dan Snyder's ownership of the the Washington Redskins. In both cases, these "superfans" of their respective sports make team management decisions when neither are qualified to do so.
This comparison has been made many times on BS, and Bruce Arena famously called SG a "micro-managing superfan." Long ago, when I had more free time on my hands, oldguyfc encouraged me to write an G&S styled operetta on Gulati, with songs like "I am the very model of a federation president." The cornerstone was to be "When I was a lad" ... [I started a Gulati-version, but I can't find the lyrics now. ] If you don't know G&S, you're missing a lot, but in any event the parallels are clear. SG started at the federation as a volunteer, iirc, and rose through the soccer administration ranks in a very calculated way - he's a smart (and clever) guy. Sadly, I never got around to writing up and posting all the lyrics - many 'chapters' in SG's soccer life form neatly into stanzas - maybe someone here would like to pick up the banner and run with it. Humorous renditions on the same theme are fairly common, here's one ... http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...d=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com