Impact sign new head coach - Marco Schällibaum

The Canadian teams sure look at Switzerland a lot (Rochat, Chiumiento, Hassli, and now Schällibaum.) Schällibaum is a good coach but I too wonder how he will deal with the strange rules in MLS.

 

Two or the three head coaches they've hired have been Europeans, including the current one.

 

would the Scots consider themselves part of Europe? most of the Brits i've met have a very "we're British (or English, Scottish, Welsh, etc) and they're European" sort of attitude. technically they aren't correct of course but that is their perception, they aren't "European".

 

Good grief you're a ass

 

One other consideration. By ditching their American assistants Montreal isnt just not going to know the league, its networking is going to be non-existant. No helpful friends tipping them on to a player, no heads up about players with attitude problems. While other teams coaching staffs are going to have a ton of contacts to draw upon in MLS and lower divisions these guys are going to have much, much less to work with. This is potentially a big deal.

 

That's the main thing they lose - networking.

I think that Shelly will focus on the coaching aspect, and give his grocery list to NDS/Jordan, who will be the ones scouting and evaluating potential acquisitions.

 

Saputo's "philosophy" has the makings of Francophone Chivas status for Montreal.

It seemed like Montreal was off to a decent start. Coming in 7th in your conference in your first year is a pretty good place to build from as a team. Heck, their 42 points would almost have gotten them into the playoffs in the Western Conference.

Saputo strikes me as the type of guy who thinks hes always the smartest dude in the room. I think Montreal is going to go through some tough times in the league.

 

How about we let the second year speak for itself?

I'm not so sure Marsch was that big a factor in our rookie year, and he had GAPING holes in his coaching, like defending set pieces and allowing late goals. He stuck with underperforming players (Ricketts being example #1) and whenever he went back to his preferred 4-4-2 or tried to play through the wings, the team wasn't threatening in the least bit.

Saputo and NDS are definitely "hands-on", which is not necessarilly a good thing, but Marsch was not the right man for the job in Season 2.

I understand that pushing out the Americans in an American league rubs the (American) posters the wrong way, but the Impact is a Canadian club, a Montreal club, with 20 years of history and a certain philosophy. In 5 years time, I wouldn't be surprised to see the majority of the team be composed of local players (through the Academy) and internationals, with only a handful of Americans.

 

I'm not sure which move for a head coach is worse, Toronto's or Montreal's. Toronto went for a manager that hasn't been in the league for a while and won't be around the team for a few months. Their pick does have experience with MLS and the NCAA level. Montreal went for a manager that has no experience in the North American game. Their pick does know some of the current players and can speak several languages. For the first season, I see Montreal as the better team because of their current position, but in future seasons, I see Toronto having the better team, assuming both teams don't blow up their plan and start over.

 

I doubt anyone really cares about this. I do think the idea that any team in MLS has the ability to develop most of its players through its academy is not realistic. At least, not for the foreseeable future.

Chivas had (has?) a similar idea of only using players from southern California. I think we can see how succesful that has been.

 

Yeah, 'cause "the American posters" are "all" jingoistic nitwits.

 

Well...if one is going by the representation of some our Big Soccer posters, it might be hard to disagree with entirely.

 

Given the track record, that's a heluva big assumption.

------RM

 

I don't blame you for being hopeful, but we will indeed be letting the second year speak for itself. The Gaping Holes you mentioned are no more than could be said about any coach in the league every year, including our own mighty Bruce. You might have to change the specifics, but every team has weaknesses and needs improvement. Considering the very respectable first year results, it was crazy to not give Marsch more time to build, unless there are significant negatives behind the scenes that we are not aware of.

I'm not a huge Marsch fan, but I'll bet he's going to be looking good in a year or two, and Saputo not so much.

 

Wait, Toronto has a plan? (other than firing their coach every season).

 

<Jayne Cobb>Well, what Toronto plans and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.</Jayne Cobb>

 

Weve just seen this movie before, we know how it ends. Saputo was told to bring in some Americans not because of any jingoism, but because everyone who hasn't tends not to like what they get.

The fact that Saputo is being rather arrogant about it just makes it more entertaining. But who knows, maybe Saputo will succeed where everyone else has failed.

 

And it's not so much "Americans" as guys with MLS experience.

 

That's most of it.

But for me anyway, it is distasteful the way Saputo seems to trumpet an anti-American prejudice.

(Prejudice which, yes, many long-time fans of this essentially American league are tired of hearing. And which, yes, IS disrespectful to American fans, teams, and specifically some coaches and players who seemingly gave their best and did a commendable job for Montreal.)

Funny to hear the jingoism charge flung in this direction. Jingoism has a happy home and a big mouth north of the border, and it's a pretty ugly cause for dismissal.

 

It will be an adjustment for him, it might take some time.

 

No one actually called us jingoistic...Daniel just said that Saputo's dismissal of Americans seems to rub Americans the wrong way.

Which it does, of course...beyond just being a dumb move. Saputo's an arrogant twat who inherited a ton of money without inheriting a ton of brains. Montreal's history isn't really that impressive to most people outside Montreal (sorry folks), and if they think they're special, they're going to get a comeuppance, just like anyone else. Not a lot of tall poppies in this league.

 

Saputo's comment about fans being anti-american was really stupid. Fans were never against the nationality of the players on the team, but against the style of play you needed to have for these players to succeed.

This has become a really dumb situation. There are even headlines on the mls website wondering if the impact will draft american players. They are basically saying no american players can play a possession style of soccer....

 

And let's be honest: Canadian development of soccer players has plenty of catching up to do to the US. Anyone who has followed the development of the sport in the two countries knows that an MLS team that ignores American players is setting itself up for disaster. Heck, given the implied bias in favor of Francophone players, it almost seems like Montreal will not able to even tap into the entire Canadian player pool effectively.

 

It's a hard lesson, but for the foreseeable future MLS as a league, and especially the teams within the league will find their fortunes irretrievably linked to the ability to identify and use American players.

While, yes, the three clubs in Canada do have slightly different player rules, they too are bound to the underlining talent pool in the United States. First of all the Canadian pool is much, much smaller, the Canadian MLS teams are more than a decade behind the American MLS teams, and most (if not all) Canadian players have access to British passports which makes the good ones more desirable to European clubs than an equivalent American player - often pricing them out of the MLS budgets.

The reason so many foreign regimes fail in MLS has nothing to do with the calibre of coaching ability, and everything to do with the lack of understanding of the differences of player acquisition rules in MLS. Good coaching is good coaching, but if a good coach has an unrealistic understanding of how to change a squad in this league, he (or she) is going to fail.

I think a lot of folks get caught up in the "unique" needs of American players. I don't buy that at all. I think MLS is the great equalizer. A lot of failed international coaches, have, in retrospect bought their way to success in other leagues. Hell, I could coach Barcelona to a top 3 spot in Spain this season. In MLS it's not sufficient to just be able to move the pieces around the field, but you have to understand a much different calculus when it comes to adding and removing pieces.

MLS demands a skill set from coaches that is not necessary for success in most of the world.

A recent ex-MLS player like Jason Kreis, Ben Olsen, or Jay Heaps may not have the coaching chops of some foreign import, but they've spent their careers living and breathing the MLS player rules. I suggest that it's a lot easier to take someone that understands player movement in MLS and tap latent coaching ability than it is to take an experienced coach with no experience in the U.S. and throw them in the deep end of MLS player rules arcana.

Hubris is self-correcting. Be it Chivas USA's pledge to use only Hispanic players, Red Bulls desire to buy their way to success, or Montreal's "anti-American" posturing. Any team in MLS that chooses to limit itself to a subset of the available American talent pool will quickly find that they're at the bottom of the table looking up.

As the underlying American talent pool improves and pressure from non-U.S. teams for American players increases - leading to increased MLS Salary budgets, we may eventually see a shift to where an MLS team can be successful while ignoring the American player pool, but that's not today and it won't be for many, many years.

 

Why would Canadian players have easy access to UK passports? I haven't heard anything about that.