Porter is a MASTER MOTIVATOR.

Herzog, or hell even Vasquez would have been better. Herzog at least has experience at this level.

 

Yes, I know, which is precisely why I ask the same question.
Why Porter?
How did he deserve the job?
NCAAs don't cut it!!

 

Agreed on your suggestions which still makes me wonder how Klinnsman viewed the Olympic team and how important it is to our soccer world.

 

I don't know if Klinsmann wanted to give up his assistants.

 

Porter should have rotated players around a bit more and subbed Hamid out immediately but he also had some bad luck to contend with. We don't have any decent defenders and Canada played the games of their lives against us.

That said he is going to find it difficult to move away from Akron any time soon.

 

Anyhoo, what's done is done. Porter, GTFO. Go USWNT.

 

DCU was calling before. Granted it's DC and they're not in great shape, but there were suitors before this happened. If Olsen decides he's had enough, or maybe something opens somewhere else, I think Porter might make a move. Not for now though, he needs time to put himself mentally back together.

 

I was addressing your post as it was written. Good for you that you've gone and moved the goalposts. Huzzah for you.

UA had one of the toughest schedules last year despite the fact that they play in the MAC. Then again, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but you brought it up.

 

Huzzah for me is right.

Toughest schedule? In which high level of competition do you speak of? You're surely joking if you're referring to NCAA Division I soccer. Beating world youth academies like Louisville and UCSB? Wow, he put Zarek Valentin and Teal Bunbury in the MLS! Those guys are really tearing it up. "University of Akron"....what a joke.

 

Are you bizarrely asking me to somehow compare the NCAA (where his job is) with something like a decade's old professional academy system that doesn't ********ing exist? What the hell do you want me to respond to? YOU brought up the NCAA bit, and the MAC bit. What the hell do you want, genius?

Like it or not, the NCAA will be where most MLS players come from until the academies have had a couple of decades to run. There will even be four-year players like Clint Dempsey of Furman (!!!!) University who will figure in to the national team picture for years to come.

What do you want? We're the US. We have entrenched systems to overcome. One guy is working within it to produce some good players, while others work without.

 

Isn't there a precedent from the distant mists of pre-history of an MLS coach coaching the Olympic team?

 

I'm the one who brought up NCAA? YOU were the one who claimed he's not a complete screw-up BECAUSE of his NCAA resume. A) I wasn't referring to his college career when I made the comment that got you so hilariously worked up, and B) If level of competition is no standard, then hell, I could probably coach the men's Olympic team, since I coached my son's U9 team to a district title.

 

I want to MASTER KICK his ass!

 

You called him an unqualified "screw-up".

Then you for some reason brought the MAC into it.

You're comparing liver and pineapples.

I'm done.

 

Good grief, thank you.

 

At least this ends this college coaches as NT coaches nonsense. Seriously, what was next? An indoor coach? Beach soccer coach lol?

 

Not to open this up again, but gaining success at the national level at a team in a smaller conference makes it more impressive in my eyes.

It's easy to recruit and win at a UCLA or a Duke or an Ohio State. The name recruits itself, so the coach can do jack and still pull in great players and get good results. Akron? Not so much. He built that program into a national power, despite the limitations of the situation, and that's nothing to shake a stick at. He plays a tough out of conference schedule and has had success in the tournament. Yeah, it's the NCAA and a lot of folks look down their noses at it, but at the moment it is a still a major part of the soccer world in the United States, especially at the youth level.

Still, the U-23 team wasn't made up of college players (even if Porter did stock it with a bunch of ex-Akron stars). Surely there's an MLS coach or assistant who would have taken the job as a foot in the door to get involved with the national team.

 

He will go work his way up the ladder like anybody else. If Akron continue to succeed he will always have MLS offers. From there, who knows.

 

Being old enough to watch the 2000 Olympics and this qualifying tournament...

Clive Charles did more with less. He was villified, IIRC, because he picked Conor Casey to start every game in Australia and was goal-less.

The team in 2000 looked as if it had less skill, but had more heart. That seems to be the problem here this past week in Nashville. A lot of skill, but a lack of true mental toughness.


Nowak coached the team in 2008, and got us to China. I had a fun time in Nashville 4 yrs ago, and thankfully, due to $$$ issues I didn't have to witness this failure.

Wasn't Arena the US Olympic coach in 1996 but was also hired as DC's coach?

 

The reality is that either way if that either way he lays low for 2-3 years or he gets into a pro setup and starts seeing whatever vision he has coming to fruition 2-3 years down the line. That happens with pretty any of the "new breed" of coaches in MLS, so to speak. Not to belabor the comparison but it took Kreis about that time to really acclimate into coaching in RSL, Olsen has probably another year to make DC really his, and looking past nationality for a second, Winter up in Toronto in also in the middle of that and Pareja in Colorado has just started. Heaps...eh, Jay has problems.

 

Dempsey was at Furman Univ from 2001-2003 which is three years and turned pro at 20 (good move!). He is not a four year college soccer player who turns pro at 22 or 23 which IMHO are the players who keep MLS down.

 

The players who keep MLS down are the ones who are willing to take 30k a year to play in MLS. Sometimes they turn out to be Tim Ream. That's on MLS not the players.

 

That team also happened to have three all time top American players (Friedel, Donovan, JOB) plus supporting cast of WC players of Agoos, Wolfe, Hejduk, and Olsen. Howard was a back up keeper. Beasley and Boca didn't make it. Rumors about that being a blue color team were exaggeration. Unfortunately that was our golden generation. We just didn't know it yet.
And this team is really low on talent. Mix, Corona, Shea and Adu may end up as marginal MNT players, all defenders are horrible, keepers are very row.
The only two who might become MNT starters are Boyd and Agudelo and the later got injured.

 

Usually I enjoy being right, but this is certainly the exception....

From Twitter:

CANADA AND EL SALVADOR ARE SO AMAZING THEY WILL SURELY FACE EACH OTHER IN THE 2014 WORLD CUP FINALS.

 

Or maybe George John, isn't he still making the league minimum?