Insider? No. But like ... there's an org chart. If you're Cone and Baston, the line to head coach goes Cone / Board --> Baston --> Crocker --> Head Coach. Crocker's your guy. What bureaucracy are you clearing out that necessitates waiting on a head coach? The implication is that they are firing and hiring new people ... but like, if they aren't in the direct line of the HC, why is that slowing down the HC search? If they work for the HC or around them ... why not get a HC and get their input? The only bullshit bureaucracy that should be an issue here is board level politics, right? No one else has input, and Cone has her people in place in the decision making line. But no one can "clean house" on the board. Color me confused as to what @Susaeta means about cleaning house and why it would delay a coaching hire. I don't doubt they could be cleaning folks out and putting their own in. That's probably remarkably inefficient for roles that change a lot but whatever. I just don't get why that is delaying the hire. Or let me put it another way: there's no reason to wait to hire a coach just because you are cleaning out the business side or the non USMNT parts. And if the intent is in the coach's purview ... wouldn't you want the new coach's input?
Yeah I'm not sure who there is to clean out. Berhalter is gone plus his entire staff minus one person. Earnie Stewart and Brian McBride are both gone and replaced by Crocker and Gooch. You have a U20 job who is doing a great job and also U19 and U17 coaches and other assorted youth coaches. But I'm not really otherwise sure who there is to get rid of. US Soccer has a ton of support staff who handle the various functions and I'm sure there's some turnover there as new people come in, but that's fairly normal and none of that is relevant to the coaching search.
what says "cleaning house" like manager out? appoint assistant. assistant out? appoint next assistant. its a whole new era for us soccer, guys!
BJ Callaghan on his arrival as USMNT interim boss w/ Hudson departure: "To be completely honest with you, It was Friday morning ... was packing up my kids for my daughter's lacrosse tournament in North Carolina, and Matt Crocker calls, told me the news, and asked me to step up"— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) June 1, 2023
I like the rhetoric of the tactics fitting the opponent and our own players. Though it's vague and we haven't seen it in action w/ him as a head coach at any real level. I'd feel more comfortable if Varas was there as Callaghan's right-hand man. And I'm half-expecting them to announce that will happen, after he's done leading the troops in the u20 WC. He was part of January camp. They might want to wait to announce it though to not usurp Callaghan & to get Mikey to focus on 1 task at a time. Incidentally, I'd also like to see Varas manage the Olympics too. After all, he qualified them. He could be made into the utility manager for the program who could earn the starting position eventually, albeit not realistically this cycle.
Varas will probably get announced as an assistant as soon as the U20 World Cup ends. He did get asked about his staff during the press conference but he didn't really answer because he said things were still not quite finalized. Just that it was a mix of people who were connected to US Soccer or who had worked at US Soccer previously.
Some thoughts from Clint Dempsey https://theathletic.com/4573339/2023/06/02/clint-dempsey-usmnt-balogun/ “I don’t think it’s good to go interim to interim, in my opinion,” Dempsey said. “I think it’s unfortunate the situation that happened with (former USMNT head coach Gregg) Berhalter. I think he’s still in line for the job and I think he did a great job at the World Cup…Jesse Marsch, obviously he’s done well in Europe. If you look at the teams at the World Cup that did well and got to the knockout rounds, I think it was 15 of the 16 teams were domestic coaches. So maybe it makes sense to have a domestic coach that understands what players are dealing with.”
Oh oh Clint. You have just turned a lot of your former admirers here into enemies. Can‘t wait to see the derogatory takes. We know who will dishing them.
I'm not sure the original post could have been more clear that it was conjecture. A hot tip: if something says things like "believe" or "perhaps" like 16 times, that's what it is. It's just basic logic. The HC of the US Men's national team is high up the ladder. Everyone above them in the org has recently been replaced. Have you worked in an organization or a company? Ever? If everyone above a person in an org chart has been replaced ... who needs to be "house cleaned" in order to hire that person? I'm not saying it's a lie or anything. I simply don't understand. There's no insider knowledge there. The basic org chart is public knowledge. The rest of it is simply understanding how organizations like this function and putting two and two together. It's curiosity. Nothing creepy or even deceptive about it.
I suspect that Crocker is waiting until the Euro season is over to talk to some candidates. The pool is much smaller if he doesn't do that.
I'd prefer they had someone in place for the summer tournaments, but if they've already waited this long waiting a few more weeks until the season is out does make sense.
The latest PSG rumor is that they are planning to hire Julian Nagelsmann with Thierry Henry as his assistant. Henry has never made sense for the US given his mediocrity in MLS and unambiguous failure with Monaco, so at least that is one rumor that would stop coming up.
I'm convinced most people who wanted Henry are the type of people who think the name would validate the USMNT in some way
They've apparently forgotten how the last European superstar player to coach the USMNT invalidated it.
I don’t want Henri for several reasons. I do want Viera for several other reasons, none of which are about the image of USSoccer
Viera and Henry as coaches are different discussions. Viera has proven to be a very good MLS coach and a solid coach in Europe. There are issues for sure with him but he's had varying levels of success. Henry's biggest accomplishment as a manager is making an extended playoff field due to pandemic. His time at Monaco was horrendous
Dempsey is a interesting example of a player whose taste in manager, once retired, seems to be radically at odds with the type of managers he individually was able to flourish under as a player..... although Berhalter was someone he knew as a fellow player, and it may be that he is just someone who rates peeps over the unfamiliar. But if we've ever had a manager who shit bricks at the idea of a player "just doing shit" it was & is 3G's.
Maybe. Dempsey's managers in his most successful seasons were Steve Nicol, Roy Hodgson, Mark Hughes, Martin Jol, Andre Villas-Boas, Sigi Schmid, and Brian Schmetzer. That's a pretty conventional list.
Dempsey is just saying what he has to say. He hasn't decided yet what to do "after football" and is dipping his toe in the water here and there from what I can gather after seeing him in stints in media, celeb promotional teams, etc. If you want to know what he really thinks, invite him to a few drinks by the pool to discuss fishing and steer the convo into coaching football.