Ahhhh…you were trolling just a bit. Seems like nobody is advocating for him at all and yet there’s so much talk about BDS.
It’s just because we don’t have sporting director at current so the coaching search is non existent. There’s not a ton of substance out there at current on the subject.
Then why discount Hudson? Folks in charge are obviously comfortable with the guy steering a pretty important ship.
He’s fine as an interim coach, but we can do much better as a permanent coach. Berhalter is very clearly a better coach for instance. Hudson’s record as an MLS coach was as bad as it could get, and while he wasn’t bad as an international coach coaching New Zealand isn’t exactly the highest level. More broadly he very clearly falls below the Cherundolo line. We should be asking for any potential coaching hire, is this person a better coach than Steve Cherundolo? And if the answer is no, then they should be under consideration.
If his results against similar opponents are as good as, or better than, Berhalter’s why shouldn’t he be?
Good question but I'm eager to see how far he has come from Jan camp when his selection comes out for the April Mexico game. Let's just say Colorado-USSF Asst-CampCupcake-FIFA March window was a career ladder and April will tell us if he has ascended a rung or two or if he is stuck like a BS star gazer. Remember the Mexico game, I think it was 0-3 to Mexcio, when Berhalter wasted 90 minutes of watching Long trying to pass without success and said afterwards it was a learning experience? No, Gregg, it wasn't. It was a waste of everybody's time.
I seem to remember lots of people thinking Berhalter’s results weren’t good enough. And if they weren’t good enough for Berhalter why would they be good enough for Hudson? But we also have a track record for Hudson. And looking at other the track record of other coaches who are potentially available, it’s not even comparable. I don’t mind Hudson as an interim and I’d like to see him retained within the program after this. But he is not the coach to lead us through 2026.
Two questions: Do we know what Patrick Vieiera is up to since he was fired? Will they talk to him? I still think the USMNT coach *floor* is Cherundolo and Curtin... Hudson is well below that floor based on the biggest chunk of data points we have for him, his time in Colorado when he was pretty much the second worst MLS coach over the last decade... but is another current MLS coach, Wilfred Nancy, above that floor?
I can only speak for me, but I don't like his club track record. For one, the next two successive coaches at the Rapids took the same talent and immediately made it significantly better. And two, as he was failing there, under pressure, he lost the locker room, lashed out in the media at the players and made excuses. I also don't see a lot of credit for this last window. We played a more offensive lineup, gave more freedom and literally had identical offensive output to the WCQ match. This is not damning, of course, if he was your coach, you'd give it more time, but I don't get how people are super excited about the results. And what I saw was a team that was looser in the midfield and the back. That gave up a goal to Grenada. Again, I don't think that's eternally damning, but I assume Hudson can see that too and I wonder if he plays this way against a better team close to a World Cup or in one. He's an interim coach at the beginning of a cycle and he structured his team where even his supporters are like "this is good against bad teams." So I'm not going to take this as even what Anthony Hudson would do at an actual World Cup. Let alone that it would work. So here's the thing. He has some national team success with a less talented team. He failed badly in MLS and he also reacted badly as leader. He may have learned from that, but there's no way for him to prove it so it is an added risk. The recommendation seems to be that he's here and that he honestly did stuff any coach (including Berhalter) does at the beginning of a cycle. I thought we wanted someone who could help solve our final third issues, not someone who simply played the formation we wanted? I thought we wanted to be ambitious and aggressive?
I wish Nancy had more than a year in his CV. Maybe if this drags out we'll see how Columbus goes. But he did such a good job with Montreal last year. I do think they had slightly underrated talent, but still. That said ... MLS gonna MLS so it's the repetition that makes me feel more comfortable. The USMNT coaching list is littered with the MLS hot name who suddenly had a bad year. I remember when Oscar Pareja was everyone's favorite. Curtain may be having that downfall right now. And of course, you could write this for Cherundolo as well. I totally admit my support for him is half logic, half feel. It's a box ticking exercise, and while that is a valid way to hire ... it's also an inherently risk averse way. At this level, I don't know how reliable results are, as silly as that sounds. I wouldn't disregard, of course, but injuries and small changes can really snowball in MLS. As that study noted, and as I'm sure everyone's noted ... coach results are often erratic even amongst the admitted best.
All great points. I don’t know enough to have a strong opinion. I’d probably hire the dude in Seattle. My point is that if we smack Mexico twice it changes people’s perception.
The score of Monday's game against El Salvador was the same as Berhalter's, but I don't think it can be called a result against a similar opponent. Central American countries take World Cup qualifiers a lot more seriously than they do other events like Nations League.
Touché. Sounds like I need to put a resume together in case we smack Mexico in the next couple games. It will probably consist of a list of my favorite players and my preference for aggression. Gonna have to double space. Do you think the players know that these games don’t matter?
Winning matters, but the question for Hudson is how he compares to the alternatives. Is he winning games that Patrick Vieira wouldn’t win? The goal isn’t to find someone who is good enough, it’s to find the best possible manager to take us on a World Cup run in 2026.
Yes I did and hopefully it works out well. One of things I’ve seen a lot in college sports however is that the interim coach does well in the short period they are in charge and ends up getting the job because of the good feelings they’ve created, but flames out later. Hiring the interim rarely works out and there’s a lot of examples out there of it not working out in college football.
Cherundolo seems like a surefire US manager at some point, but I don't think the timing is quite right this time around. They have to hire someone this summer, and that's not enough time for Cherundolo to dominate in MLS and kind of Arena his way into the job. Maybe if the guy they hire in the summer is lousy or takes another gig by the end of '24, then I could see him getting it.
Interim college coaches are often longtime assistants without any experience running a program. They may get a bounce from the players at first but aren’t really able to make a program their own. In this case the interim coach actually has experience running club and national teams. If we win both tournaments this summer and create goals against decent teams I’d have no problem keeping him around on a contract that runs through Copa America.