That is an oversimplification which may have an element of truth but doesn't tell the whole story. Porter was the guy everybody wanted. Regardless of what happened the next year - which everyone (except @hangthadj) tended to ignore - he had won a Cup in convincing fashion and was the coaching flavor of the month. If you recall, LA wanted him badly as well, and certainly some other teams too but it was clear he was going to command big bucks and few teams are willing to go that high. (As recently as 2018, the average MLS coach made around $300k; Nancy made $150k in Montreal just last year). LA was willing to meet his price, but Haslam was willing to go five years, which they balked at. Point being, whoever it was who made the call, hiring Porter was the conventional wisdom. It was a slam dunk. Jimmy & Co can hardly be blamed for coming into a situation they freely admitted they knew nothing about and going along with what pretty much everybody was telling him: Porter is the man. Along with that, Haslam Sports has a whole bunch of highly paid sports management whiz kidz who do the legwork on these things and there's just no doubt that they had a good deal to do with it. Some people act like Jimmy sat in an office on the lakefront and picked Porter out of the crowd. He didn't get to be a billionaire by being that stupid. And you can add into that the fact that, as the time, they had pretty much settled on Bez and among other things, as part of the process, they said they talked with him about how he felt regarding Porter and he said the same thing that everyone else was saying, ie. you want Porter. This time around of course the whole picture had changed. Porter is damaged goods and the usual retreads don't light anyone's fire. Nancy was the coming man based on what he did in Montreal and although he sure shouldn't have been available it was no secret (and no surprise) that he and Joey Saputo were on the outs. Nancy was refusing to even speak to him and the only reason he hadn't already resigned was that the GM up there promised he'd be left alone if he finished out the season. But again, the point is that the guy was hardly a secret, and he was always going to command a stiff price. Porter got a million and honestly I don't believe Nancy is getting a whole lot less. That's way more than most teams will pay, and that leaves out paying Saputo his ransom fee. In both cases, the choice was more or less obvious, the only question being price and our owner stepped up. And when you make the obvious hires, the ones that literally everyone wanted but few can afford, it's a bit of an exaggeration to say this guy or that guy "hired" him. The organization in both cases made the obvious choice.
I don’t recall everyone being down with Porter. Even @GoCrew1996 said when Porter was mentioned that it would be someone like Porter, but not Porter. That turned out to not quite be true, but people weren’t exactly universally pumped. It was easy to talk yourself into it, but him failing to make the playoffs two years in a row, his U23 debacle, and his general demeanor left a lot of people less than convinced.
I was on the anti-Porter train. I had seen enough terrible Portland soccer to know I didn't want to watch it.
There was great weeping and gnashing of teeth in the original Fire Caleb Porter thread (posted by 11 days prior to the hiring). Some of us (the smart & beautiful) hated Porter before it was cool!
I would also beg to remind people that besides Bez the other two guys who interviewed for the Crew GM job were Bruce Arena, who is an insufferable, arrogant asshole who would have made all of us puke up lunch on a daily basis and Ali Curtis, who has been unemployed since 2021 after "parting ways by mutual consent" for leading TFC straight into the dumpster - despite the league's highest payroll, they went from 2nd in the league in 2019 (with a team built by Tim Bezbatchenko) to 26th in 2021 - and, especially hiring Chris Armas to be the head coach, which appointment lasted 171 days. He said at the time that - drum roll please - he wanted to spend more time with his family. Of the three, Bez is absolutely the choice 100% of the time.
Refresh my memory: Did Bez sign Porter to a contract extension, or did the Haslam's sign him to a 5 year contract? Signig him back in 2019 was a logical and widely popular move. Christ, we got a championship out of it. But one could nit pic at a 5 year contract for a guy who crashed and burned badly in his previous gig, or a lengthy extension. Anyway, it's not my money. We have that '20 championship to remember fondly, and I think we're broadly happy with the guy brought in to suceed him. Time to move on.
Well of course there really are coaches who come in, win some stuff, maybe make a run, everything looks good but seem to wear out the players, who end up just not listening any more. Maybe guys like that can't come up with anything ne to say and the players get tired of the same old line of crap. Coaches like that move around from job to job, since even if the owner/management fully knows what's likely going to happen they don't care if he brings them success in the meantime. As you allude to, most of us would have happily agreed to the last two years in return for the Cup in 2020.
I completely forgot about the Chris Armas era. LolTFC. Then Marsch got Leeds to hire him after Ralph whateverhisnameis hired him at Man United.
That, one certainly could be critical of. That's a pretty long commitment to someone in this busines. Still, as Paul alludes to, it was Jimmy's money.
A Timber fan posted on the reddit soon after the hire that Porter is really good at pushing already individually talented players to be better. He did or at least somehow was a proximate cause of that happening in 2020. His arrogant dependence, perhaps based in a lack of confidence in his own coaching ability, led him to overrely on MLS vets and retreads to the mental or physical exhaustion. He failed to coach to player's strengths, and for some reason, lost that aggressive touch he was known for (see MLS All-Star Game vs Bayern/Pep) after the championship. --- After the MLSNP Championship, Bez was a happy man. He talked to Courtois, Pete, and Jimmy the whole celebration, getting quite spirited. When you look at the Corey Wray roster of Crew 2 and many parts (other than Yaw) on Crew 1, you wonder if Bez found love for a back 3 and/or interchangeable front 3 that a 3-4-3ish system could offer. Then he saw Nancy and felt he had to make that move. His postseason comments indicate that moving off of Porter was his preference regardless of outcome. The talk from the MLS talking heads this week was that the Crew's hiring of Nancy was the best acquisition of the MLS offseason. They didn't say the price, but the tone and some random comments from TBone on his podcast make me think it was a good amount.
We had to buy him out of his contract, but Joey Saputo is a notoriously cheap owner, so I doubt it was too much. It’s not exactly Bayern Munich spending a €25 million transfer fee on Julian Nagelsmann from Leipzig, for example, but I suppose this sort of thing has never really happened in MLS before.
Wasn't Sigi out of contract? As I recall, the problem was that the Hunts wouldn't negotiate during the season and then Sigi refused to negotiate after it. Or something. I probably have that wrong. Either way, it was obvious as all hell that Seattle had approached him before the end of the season and the league fined them for tampering. I don't think the Crew ever saw a dime.
I wanted Guillermo Schelotto but Caleb Porter seemed like it might be a better fit. We won a cup and I think with better roster management Porter would still be here. But we did win a MLS Cup. Hopefully Nancy can bring us one in the future. Nancy is definitely a more like able guy.
If Porter would still be here with better roster management, then I’m glad we didn’t get it. GBS would’ve been shit too. Jury is still out on Bez, but not Porter IMO.
I was intrigued so I looked it up. Hey, miracles do happen. MLS cleared Seattle of violating Sigi's non-compete clause. Which was ridiculous but nobody could prove anything. Nonetheless, MLS sent the Crew allocation money and "additional.cash" which was not defined. Which makes no sense if the Crew was not illegally damaged in some way but no matter. MLS wanted him in Seattle and they get what they want.
The GBS desire was always a bit strange to me. He has not exactly lit the coaching world on fire. I also prefer to let him reputation as a player be what we remember him by and not the coach that got fired.
True, but Sigi also wanted to be back on the west coast and closer to family. It was what it was. But what it wasn’t was obvious that the ‘08 Crew were going to be world beaters right out of the gate. Could ownership have locked him into a new contract during that previous off season or early into ‘08? Perhaps. But at that point, Sigi was as likely to get sacked as anything else, due to truly abysmal ‘06 and ‘07 seasons. Ah, well, a true visionary GM or ownership, or just someone rolling the dice and getting luck, could have re-signed him. But what can you do? Damn, though, that was one helluva team.
The guy won a Cup here, FFS. Were there warts? Sure. But a Cup every 4 years is a ratio I will gladly take. Watching us thrash Seattle was the most fun I've ever had at a sporting event of any kind.