It's almost as if people forgot that Berhalter won both the Gold Cup and Nations League and managed to convinced multiple dual nationals to commit. I don't mind Anthony Hudson as an interim coach, but he hasn't reinvented the wheel or anything.
The way I see things with Hudson, when he was named interim coach, his likelihood of getting the job permanently went from 0% to maybe 1%. If you're interim, you have your foot in the door a bit at least. And then with every accomplishment, I'd raise that likelihood slightly. I'd say winning the two games this window helps him, but not much. They beat Grenada by a bit more than I was expecting and then got the exact same result against El Salvador as in WCQ. So, maybe his chances get bumped up to 2%. If he gets Balogun officially onboard, maybe he gets another 1%. I think he'd have to win NL and GC in pretty convincing fashion to even become a true dark horse candidate.
Berhalter is a better coach, I'd take Hudson or multiple coaches worse than him ahead of Berhalter with his baggage.
Personally I’d rather have the better coach. I don’t know there’s much in the way of baggage with Berhalter given the public comments that have come from the player pool. I’m not arguing that Berhalter should be back either. Just that there seems to be a lot of people seem to be giving Hudson alot of credit for things they gave Berhalter a hard time for.
how is noting the players look just as happy/happier now (present tense) re-litigating berhalter? nor did gregg. you really dont think we ever would have won a nl had it existed before him? ...in any case, why dont you guys stop relitigating what berhalter did or didnt do?
If nothing else it’s refreshing to have someone who is trying things that a person might try if they valued more attacking flexibility and punch in the offense.
i don't think he has any chance to coach the US but he is rehabbing his image from his Rapids days. If he moves on to Europe and does a fine job with teams in good leagues he could become a future candidate - if he is interested if he does that and is successful.
This is not really an argument about whether Berhalter is good or bad. I don’t have a ton of interest in rehashing such a discussion. The only point is there are alot of people who really don’t like Berhalter who are giving Hudson a lot of praise for essentially doing the same thing Berhalter did. Some who have even started asking if he should get the full time job. And I don’t have a huge problem with Hudson myself, but I also don’t think he should be under any consideration for the full time job.
I would just say, forget all the scandals and what not, I don’t care so much about that, rather, I just think it’s a good idea to go into another direction. Especially now. Since we’ve been without Berhalter for nearly 10% of the cycle already. It’s just not normally a good idea to go with a two cycle coach. Not unless it seems like the only reason you’re not hiring someone is because of a rigid rule at the cost of the betterment of the team. And man, I know there are just as many fans who will die on the hill to support Berhalter, perhaps just because they don’t like the people who bash him, but at what point do we say, we want someone who can take us to that next level? Improve our offense? Make more coherent roster selections? Be a better in-game manager? Not be so dogmatic in his approach, to only throw spaghetti at the wall when nothing else works? Not create locker room issues? Etc? Not to mention, I don’t know how he peacefully resolves the Reyna situation, and I would NOT be okay with Berhalter pushing Gio out of the team nor would I be okay if Berhalter overcorrected the situation by overplaying Gio if he didn’t deserve it. In other words, there’s too much drama with the Reyna’s for him to be rehired. That won’t rule him out of club jobs, but it probably should rule him out of this job. Give Berhalter his credit. He got the team out of the group. Navigated Covid. Helped rebuild after a disastrous 2018 campaign. Helped this team mature. Improved our defensive structure. Improved our possession. Dual national recruitment. Won NL. Won GC. Etc. Overall, there is reason for Berhalter to think that he had a successful stint. I can give him credit, and at the same time, it just feels like it’s time to go in another direction.
Tac and Pete did mention on their podcast that a lot if their praise fir Hudson comes from the fact that they were expecting his spell as interim manager to be a waste of time so since they had such low expectations the praise is much higher
im among those who really didnt like berhalter, and those giving hudson a lot of praise now- almost exclusively separate from tactics. thats where its unknown yet for hudson (being very generous, as ive said theres no reason to think hes secretly an xs and os mastermind). the "hes essentially going the same thing berhalter did" is where the argument goes off the rails though- just as much as the idea that all 1-0 matches are created equally. the player selection is the glaring difference youre leaving out. you can make the argument that there were only 2-4 players were involved in this camp that werent under berhalter- thats technically true. you can also say none of those 2-4 were an option for berhalter- also technically true. but neither, or even both together, are the whole truth. in three months hudson has selected a roster that berhalter refused to for 3 years. so while scally was technically in the team under berhalter- he was on the freaking wc roster- hudson actually played him in a match that matters. the truth you are willfully ignoring is that that wouldnt have happened under berhalter. the reason i say that is we saw him play both yedlin and moore over scally. in this window/pair of matches trusty wouldnt have played because zim would have been there, zendejas wouldnt have played because arriola would have been there, etc. this is not a matter of mls quality vs non-mls quality, its a matter of oppportunity for evaluation. berhalter simply did not give non-mls players the same oppoprtunity. thats not arguable. there are x number of minutes for y number of players, and the indisputable fact is that berhalter never held a single camp without half a dozen mls players at the very least. look at the rosters- this isnt a theory. im not creating a narrative. im stating the facts of berhalters tenure. even in isolated windows for european-based friendlies he had a significant number of mls players, that in addition to close to and exclusively mls camps in domestic-based friendlies. and ill say again- its not about quality, its about evaluation; berhalter simply didnt utilize our full pool of players. that hudson has shown once that he is willing to do so is a distinct and quantifiable improvement, and the reason i highlight once is that thats all it took to surpass berhalter.
Basically this too. If you look at the reaction to Hudson being named interim it's a lot of dunking on him for his time at Colorado as well as his comments there about the team being poor. I've also said it, I don't expect nor do I want Hudson to get the full time gig but if they keep him as an assistant or give him the Olympic team? I'd be down
The thing you need to realize about the player roster is that’s less about Hudson selecting a roster you like and more about Hudson not picking MLS guys in order to get them for the Mexico friendly. There’s times Berhalter also picked very Europe heavy rosters for a variety of reasons. There’s also a number of players who were in camp like a Reynolds or Booth who didn’t warrant a call up during Berhalter’s era but clearly do now. Or someone like Dike who was just injured for a large portion of last year.
I wouldn’t say I had low expectations as I thought he’d be fine as an interim. He has coached national teams before and done well doing so. And then he had a terrible record in MLS. He’s about as good as you can expect for an interim coach with no chance at the full time job. It’s still not the best use of time but that is not really the fault of Hudson.
I think that's a different argument versus the Hudson discussion. The question isn't whether Berhalter should come back or not, but whether a number of the people who were not fans of Berhalter are now holding Hudson to a very different standard. It remains my opinion that it is very unlikely Berhalter comes back unless there is a strong push from the player pool for his return.
you need to realize that how much i "like" the roster is irrelevant- its utilizing our full player pool vs not. period. and you can ignore that as much as you want but that doesnt make your opinion true (or frankly even valid). but sure, lets see those euro heavy rosters. lets see any roster you can find with less than half a dozen mls-based players. my post speaks for itself. im not in the convincing people who refuse to discuss facts rationally business.
The Nations League finals in 2021 include 4 MLS players. That for one is a very good high profile example of a roster that included less than half a dozen MLS players (and one of the 4 was a 3rd string goalie). November 2020 originally had no MLS players until Sebastian Lletget was added because they couldn't get all the European players they wanted. March 2021 had 3. You say it's better utilizing the whole pool but there's a very specific reason for the lack of MLS players. You also have a large chunk of the roster who were guys Berhalter called up regularly. The faces are guys who didn't warrant a call up till post World Cup (Booth and Reynolds), a guy who was injured for most of last year (Dike), a new dual national recruit (Zendejas), a player who played a key role in 2019 but hasn't really been seen since (Mihailovic), Trusty, and Sonora. And if your real problem with the Berhalter rosters were that Trusty and Sonora weren't there, then fair enough. But I don't think their absence was a major issue. I didn't agree with every choice Berhalter made. I thought Pepi should have been on the World Cup roster for instance. But the problem was never that he was failing to utilize the full player pool. He was actually pretty good at calling up guys fairly quickly once they started showing they deserved it at their club.
I don't think we know how much Hudson will "utilize the full player pool" at this point. For January camp, he was limited to guys in MLS or Scandinavia, and he was able to get Club America to let Zendejas come. So, he had to be creative to get enough guys for a full camp. This past window, there was basically a deal with MLS to not call any of their guys other than Robinson so that they can call MLS guys for the Mexico friendly. Again, he probably had to go a little outside the box again and call in guys like Cardoso, McKenzie, maybe Reynolds, etc., who might not have been there if MLS guys were available. So, we had two rosters with no overlap (I think) other than Zendejas and Soñora out of necessity.
If he wins the Nations League and Gold Cup I’ll definitely see him as a leading candidate. Long way to go for that, though.
We know how he has utilized the pool so far and it seems to be his call since there is no GM or SD above him. We also know that he has made changes from the robotic read-progressions in the final 3rd because Pepi publicly said so. We also know that he has looked to utilize Gio centrally in front of 2 holders. I personally don't agree with that scheme if the full squad is available or against peer or above opponents but Hudson did put it in place. All signs of progress so far.
I believe you are right about the freer movement but so far it's minnows so we don't know yet if there will be defensive repercussions or if the team will explode in goals scored. The Reyna as a mid thing is something Berhalter stated he was going to try but Gio got injured and didn't show back up until right before the WC. I really think scoring off of free kicks and corners would open things up especially if it gives us a lead. Then we could counter with more room and easier shots. I'm not positive Berhalter was at fault for that but he was in charge when it happened. I guess we see if a new coach improves it.