Jurgen lost to Jamaica & Panama and Mexico at home and Guatemala away before the two games that cost him his job (one of those, the loss to CR, being called one of the worst performances in recent US history). A string of bad performances and results leading up to the opening matches of the Hex and his firebombing the locker room are what cost Jurgen his job. When did I say that? What I said is that Jones' opinions come off as petulant and childish rather than rational to the point that they undermine his stated professional goals. He also falsely accused Bradley and Arena of nepotism. Because only Jermaine Jones is bold enough to criticize Arena publicly? Oookay. I think the fact that those players performed and achieved for him is evidence. Dumb argument, since Arena was hired exactly because the club is destination for big names and he is respected by them. Again, the idea that Arena is a bad coach or has a poor reputation in the global soccer community is bad opinion.
https://thefootballfaithful.com/top-scoring-foreigners-premier-league-aguero-henry/ had Keane not come to MLS when he was still 30, he likely would have ended up the third-highest foreign goal scorer in premier league history, behind Aguero and Henry...pretty good company, eh @truefan420 ?
Folks, dont take the bait. There was major evidence put forth that Jay berhalter was causing chaos for Klinsmann well before the bad results started and they wanted Arena back in the job earlier but a heart issue for Flynn delayed it. (The articles have been posted 10x already, though they will ask for it again) Bruce Arena was the Master of Padawan Gregg Berhalter with LA Galaxy. Now the Padawan is the USMNT coach. Klinsmann should have never been re-upped for another cycle either. We should have went with a major national team coach who brought Klinsmann's fight, but also had the tactical acumen to make it deep in tournaments.
This is one of many reasons why I love Jermaine Jones. He's lighting this thing up with the truth. US Soccer is still serving oranges at half time to players whose parents are connected instead of bringing in the talent who get tested in world soccer cultures against players who will roundhouse kick you in the face for minutes. US Soccer is still a suburban bean bag chair when it should be a Roman coliseum.
Jermaine Jones put out a podcast today. Eddie Johnson was on it. They went in on some of the issues. Interesting stuff. Wont go well with the MLS mafia
Eddie Jones lol Eddie Johnson talked about how agents used to try to block guys going to Europe. There is a lot packed in there. The podcast is on youtube ill try to drop the link on here.
That's interesting. If a player wants to play in Europe, it's the agents job to do everything possible to make that happen. That historically going abroad often leads to more career earnings and more commission for the agent, it really is odd. Then again I'm of the opinion most American soccer agents are terrible with a poor understanding of the global market and have few connections abroad.
Jozy talked about how poor his reps were when he was a teen. He did a long interview with TFC's color guy on a podcast. He didn't even understand that he could have had more say on loans and transfers, he mentioned that Ajax had interest when he went to Hull. I imagine things have improved but it was amatuer hour a decade ago.
Everyone should really listen to the whole podcast. The story of Motzkin literally taking marching orders from Garber is flat out crazy.
I agree, excellent interview. A lot of insight we as fans never hear about and the MLS probably don’t ever want us to hear about. They do sound bitter due to lack of opportunities from the MLS higher ups as coaches but it’s justified imo. It’s worth listening to and I for one want his channel to grow so I’d advise everyone to give it a listen.
Agreed. Also while we are at it, his prior interview with Pulisic was fantastic and featured none of the MLS bashing and bitterness of the Eddie interview. I really hope his show gets legs, because he is a surprisingly disarming interviewer that offers an angle that we never get from our soccer press. I would pay the cost of a USMNT vs. Mexico ticket at the Rose Bowl to watch him interview Geoff Cameron.
It is mind blowing and also makes perfect sense based on how the game works in this country. Those at the top have total control and decided who has access. any story about anything like this is so disturbing.
As a player, EJ was a loud-mouthed, inarticulate hoodrat whose grossly inflated sense of self-worth got punctured by his brush with the EPL. In the interview, however, he comes across as humble, mature, passionate, and well-spoken. Growth. Talked about going to England, and being tactically 6 years behind the same-age players over there. I saw him play; he was indeed absolutely horrible and unprepared. Lots of bitching about not getting coaching job offers in MLS. MLS is a closed shop. A bit of a pity party between the two of them. It's a recurring theme in the interview. JJ believes that Keane, Zlatan, and Vela's high scoring made the league look shitty. I disagree, though, as recent to their arrival in MLS, each had been a high-level performer in top-5 leagues. EJ talked about finding out his agent was buddies with Garber: the agent was basically working for the league. JJ rehashed that ridiculous Chicago vs New England situation in which he had been first trying to sign with Chicago. They both agreed that 'rich kids' can't bring a 'warrior's' mentality to the game. The league needs to do more to bring the less well-off kids along. This was a recurring topic. The death of the DA is about MLS gaining more power over youth dev. They both feel that the league over-prioritizes profit over development. Prioritize development more and the money will come. EJ bitched about his situation with Seattle and not being able to control his destiny. Even though Jurgen had cut him, EJ praised him as the best coach he's had. Grateful for JK playing him on the wing. He thought JK should've been given more time. Opinion on JK is polarized to the extreme! EJ said ESPN was coming around trying to get players to say bad things about JK, before he was subsequently fired. Following 2017 January camp, Bruce Arena told JJ that 4 CMs were ahead of him. From his time on the Galaxy, JJ felt Arena was the worst coach he has ever had. EJ thinks Arena was good at man management but horrible with Xs and Os.
Yes the interview with Pulisic is awesome as well. It was great to get an insight on him going straight to training with Chelsea after the Gold Cup and him discussing how he had to earn his teammates respect even though he was an expensive signing and had success in Germany.
I had no interest in listening to the whole thing but did listen to this bit and have a couple of thoughts. At the beginning of this segment Jones says "players who do not have American agents are the ones who move overseas". He's just wrong, flat out wrong, not even close to being correct. While not an exhaustive list, Gio Reyna, Tyler Adams, Wes McKennie, Josh Sargent, Zack Steffen, Lynden Gooch and Chris Durkin are current players plying their trade abroad represented by American agents. Seriously, it's hard to take much of anything Jones might say seriously if he gets something this basic so wrong. As for Johnson and his comments about his agent Richard Motzkin. If he was so bothered by whatever relationship Motzkin may have had with Garber, why did he keep him as his agent for his entire career? My guess...it's because he was actually doing a very good job for Eddie. Which brings me to my next observation. Eddie's complaints about his MLS salary strike me as ridiculous. He signed his first big contract with MLS in 2005 on the heels of his 12 league goal breakout season (after only scoring 7 in the three previous seasons) which paid him almost $900k and made him the SECOND highest paid player in the league, behind only Landon Donovan. Motzkin then got him numerous lucrative European offers (Eddie nixed a $6 million move to Derby before signing with Fulham). Yeah, he eventually had to come back to MLS with his tail between his legs and take a low salary, but that's all on Eddie.
I'm Jozy's age and not even talking about him as a teenager but even as recent as when he went to Sunderland I feel he got a lot of bad advise. Now in fairness PDC did seem to have ambition at Sunderland... unfortunately every move failed. But that's how it was back then. A lot of MLS players felt they had to make moves to Europe to have a shot with the Nats and you saw a lot of players in their 20's make moves that just didnt make sense. As for the ongoing Jones discussion. Again he brings up some points that are fair criticisms but I feel both he and EJ need to do a bit of self reflection
Dan Segal was EJ's agent early in his career. The problem with MLS with regards to agents is it's single entity, restricted free agency nature. Changing agents doesn't change this. Jones and Johnson's beefing about the agents was as much beefing about the league's set up, which they did quite a bit of. Also, if you're going to be a loud-mouthed critic of an organization then don't expect them to later roll out the red carpet with regards to job opportunities.
You have a link for that, I've only seen Motzkin listed as his agent. Now with that being said, I guess it really doesn't much matter considering Segal/Motzkin were the two principals/partners at Sportsnet (EJ's then agency) before being acquired by WMG Edit to add I just found a couple links to stories about his move to Fulham, one which quotes Segal and another referencing Motzkin. They were a package deal. So as I said before, EJ kept the same agent(s) for his entire career.
One doesn't argue that due to it being same law firm, it's not important which partner in that law firm takes the case EJ and JJ will likely need to go the Eric Wynalda route: too many bridges to MLS have been burnt. It's good to see EJ is having success in the skills development business. He had progressed from a complete donkey on and off the ball to actually quite skillful baller at the end. And Christian Pulisic's request to work with him looks to have been a nice fillip. One thing, though. He claims a number of area youth clubs don't want their players to work with him. Is that just a competition thing?