I was thinking how Berhalter's style is to insist "WE ARE PLAYING OUR GAME" by jove and that leaves one wondering if a problem with the USA is that it is too used to evaluating repeat performances highly (beating Mexico) when tournaments are really about playing some teams for the first time.(Copa, WC, i.e., as opposed to quali's playing concacaf teams twice, winning home, drawing away). Maybe Crocker can intervene, having been responsible for England's youth teams, with a new attitude that stresses proper game planning against teams like Argentina and Brazil
Yes he does have a propensity for "acceptable" but simply "acceptable" is not really good at all. But, as long as he continues "acceptable" he will remain the coach. I really wish we (The USA) had a higher floor for "acceptable" but we have what we have and that is all we are likely to have. At least it is usually "fun" to watch the USA play football.
Most of the leadership of the organization has turned over since then. What power do you imagine Jay Berhalter has to somehow still (or ever) control the hiring practices of US Soccer? Not only did Earnie Stewart -- who has run like four or five clubs and won executive of the year in the Netherlands (and likely will again) kowtow to his incredible power, but somehow Matt Crocker, who had run youth development in England and Southampton, is also subject to his desires. Oh, and two different Presidents and CEOs as well. He was a marketing guy. This guy truly is amazing. Thank God he only decided to control US Soccer and not something more important.
That is a large part of the problem. By "playing our game" I think Gregg means "we ain't changing nothing in response to the other team" and that means that any team that has the personnel will find it easy to set up against us because they know there will be no adjustments. We "play our game" while other teams can safely set up to reduce any effectiveness of "our game" game might have. That is why, I believe, we have so much trouble against most good teams. Small changes can make our "one trick pony" ineffective. But he is and will be our coach and our only real hope is that our players get so good that no matter what "system" we play we can dominate. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that occurrence.
Coaching searches are typically conducted in secret no matter the organization. Sitting head coaches don’t want their names to leak because they don’t want to jeopardize their current job and the organization doing the hiring doesn’t usually want the list to leak because they don’t want it public that certain candidates turned them down. Now these things invariably do end up leaking but it’s generally a sign of a professional operation when leaks are minimized. In terms of the role of the search firm what they do is identify candidates who would be willing to take the job. They don’t tell Crocker or USSF who to hire but they do the initial outreach and come up with an initial list of candidates. Ideally a good search firm has broad reach and contacts to be able to have these conversations. It also provides both USSF and coaching candidates plausible deniability because both sides can say they have been in contact directly. But once the work of the search firm has been done it’s up to Crocker in terms how he wants to proceed. There was no bureaucracy pushing Berhalter, it was the players. And Crocker was definitely swayed by the opinions of the player pool. There’s no need to put it on some nameless bureaucracy when the answer is right in front of us.
It amuses me how angry that makes a lot of people. Did you post this in the wrong thread? If not, huh?
Your words do not convey “speculation.” You present your speculation as fact, that makes it a lie. When you get caught out and then pretend oh no I didn’t mean what I wrote, that’s your problem, not ours. Please write better.
You continue to write your posts as if “have you stopped beating your wife” is a solid question. If we accept that you have beaten your wife, then we’re just figuring out if you’re still doing it or you aren’t. If we accept that GB doesn’t use proper game planning…maybe now you’ll figure it out. You asked when Jay left. He gave you a year and a month. Because he didn’t list the date it’s clear as mud? WTF?
Actually I think the question was "Why" not "When." But it does not really matter much as the only ones that know "why" are Jay and "maybe" a few others. But neither answer is really meaningful as the "reasons" then have very little relationship to what is happening now. But is does amaze me that most of the the "why" answers just raise more questions and I am not at all sure that why from the past has any real relationship to the why from now.
I can agree with this as a critique of Berhalter. I do think he makes some minor changes based on the opponent but mostly leaves the overall team shape and style the same. The only major counterexample I can think of was the 2021 NL final against Mexico when they came out with 3 CBs and wingbacks and bypassed the midfield more after getting smoked by Mexico the couple times before playing "their game."
Just so you know, this does not at all read like "speculation". I don't know what you mean by speculation if you think this qualifies.
I'm not one of those who somehow think Jay has power over keeping his brother in his job after leaving in 2020. I do think he left because of nepotism "question" however one might construe it. At least that is what I remember. There are those who say Berhalter works with Garber or is some way associated with him in regard to the work he does and therefore can exert some influence. Sure, I'm happy to think Jay would try to influence people to hire his brother but that has never been a problem as far as I know, now that the brothers don't work in the same place. Let's say two brothers work in the same place and one is Prez and the other coach. Suppose an employee, or a contractor or whomever finds out that the coach is a wife beater or something. Would he walk into the office of the guy's brother and say "hey I'd like to report a crime........."
Your prior posts seem to imply you do think this. Jay Berhalter was likely forced out because of a string of glass door reviews that said he fostered a hostile work environment. It was also a complete changing of the guard at the top, and the debacle with the women's team was occurring. Then the leadership turned over AGAIN. This entire discussion started about Matt Crocker -- who came to USSF THREE YEARS after Berhalter left, and how his hiring Berhalter was affected. The CEO, JT Batson, was not CEO, when Jay left; Cindy Cone was maybe VP when he left, but she likely was one of the people pushing him out given the dynamics with Cordeiro and the women's team. Just who is pushing Matt Crocker to Gregg Berhalter other than the players? I'm sure he's decently well liked there, but there was a definite PR downside to rehiring him, and everyone knows the Reyna thing lingers if you do. But what particular tie does Cone or Batson or Crocker have to him? Does Gooch love him for some reason? The rest of the committee? The rest of the board? I'm just struggling to understand the motivation of Matt Crocker, well respected and presumably with a lot of job prospects, who took this job and then caves to the pressures on a major decision from people who ... I can't figure out why they'd even pressure him to do this. Except the players. Who like him and didn't want a massive change of direction. Jay Berhalter works for MLS now. But Garber is one of like 12 people on the USSF board and hasn't been on the sporting director or coaching searches as far as I know. I doubt Jay has much influence on Garber or that Garber would use his influence to secure the USMNT coaching position, even if he could. MLS cares so much more about so many other things. But Jay Berhalter was never President, or CEO. He was a marketing VP. I'm sure he recommended his brother and perhaps they talked to him, but he wasn't on the hiring committee and he was never in the line of reporting. I'm not sure why anyone would find out and report an incident from 20+ years before, but even if they did, they'd have reported it to Earnie, or Earnie's boss (not Berhalter) or Earnie's boss' boss (also not Jay). But why would anyone there know that? Or why would it be relevant?
you are making dangerous assumptions my friend. USSF is only the first (diversionary) step in his grand plan.....
I have never thought that Jay has any power over Greg's hire/termination after Jay left USSF, other than the normal day to day influence any brother would have who works in the same field. There are some in the media actually who do think he still does but we can't start opening every can of worms here without boring people to death. I think what you are saying is that USSF did not put in writing that Jay was fired due to nepotism notwithstanding he was put in that situation by USSF, establishing that the cause of firing was actionable, depending what's in his contract or the law or both. The PR to hiring Gregg was that it cleared everybody but the Reynas. Of course, there was no undue influence in that direction, Matt Crocker was/is responsible for the hire. Crocker didn't ask anybody except the players about Berhalter's work. One never does investigation of that sort. It doesn't exist. Only tin foil hats suggest that. Berhalter never met anybody at USSF. Anybody suggesting anything to the contrary is insane and should be locked up. Crocker actually was locked up in a black box and given only a phone and the telephone number of each player and told to hire the coach. The players didn't actually talk to Crocker. They saw the called ID, picked up the phone said "Berhalter" and hung up. Crocker immediately reported to an office where three figures were stationed in chairs wearing long black robes and red hoods. They said nothing and did not move. Crocker then uttered the word "Berhalter" and walked out of the room.
Well, the reason I switched to pro Berhalter side of the equation is that I think Gregg is willing to listen to suggestions more in this second cycle and I believe it is due to having learned lessons in Qatar and Crocker's influence. We'll just have to see how things go,
Judges, on a scale from 1 to infinity, how do you all rate this level of strawmanning? It gets back to what I wrote before…what are you doing? We’re all just as big of fans as you are. You don’t have any inside knowledge. You don’t know more than us. You just lie on the internet for…I’m still not clear on the goal here. Why do you do this?
I'm not sure if he's lying....................or just believes every theory and comment ever uttered in other shadowy corners of social media and the internet. Its like the poster who regurgitates every comment about dual-nationals he/she reads on twitter as if its gospel. "The USSF pissed off Maximo Carrizo and he's decided to play for Argentina!!!! What do we do about this inability of the USSF to recruit young players like this!!? It's shameful!!" Two weeks later and Maximo Carrizo is called up to the US U17 camp. Maybe those twitter feeds dont' know what they're talking about. That should be the conclusion..................... And maybe one shouldn't listen to Eric Wynalda and think he has any more knowledge about the situation at the USSF than we do.........................
If not, then who are the bureaucratic forces that re-hired Berhalter and took all the power out of Crocker's hands and why did they make that decision? I think what I am saying is that: Since Jay did not have a line of reporting nor did he hire Berhalter, I'm not sure what charge of "nepotism" you would lay on Jay Berhalter. Since any charge of nepotism that would have occurred would have occurred in 2018 while the Glassdoor reviews came up just before his (likely forced) resignation over a year later, it makes much more sense that was the driving factor. Otherwise, why would people wait over a year? Well, this is a massive strawman that I never said. I see no real benefit to say, Cindy Cone, to rehiring Berhalter. Hiring someone else makes everything go away. You're going to have to make a better argument. You're also going to have to figure out how it aligns with the decent chunk of evidence that Crocker had selected Marsch (or at minimum was very close to doing so) but then chose Berhalter because of player sentiment. Was that an elaborate fake-out designed to throw people off the scent to the massive conspiracy to re-hire Berhalter by Cindy Cone because ... reasons?
I think we’re seeing the confluence of things here: an institutional mandate to establish some sort of style/identity and the evolution of the player pool under that mandate. I think that there is a mandate of some kind (above Berhalter in the hierarchy) that dictates a long term commitment to creating a USMNT “identity”. This is an area that would be interesting for journalists to pursue, although I don’t know how transparent USSF would be given that every loud and petulant USMNT follower thinks themselves a professional coach entitled to the final say in the matter. The idea that there is an institutional commitment to an identity is evidenced by public quotes in which USSF administrators (including Earnie Stewart) have discussed things such as Berhalters hires as part of long term vision and planning by the federation. Berhalter himself has made public statements that hang together with the idea of having an underlying institutional commitment to a style or identity.
I like to reduce arguments to their lowest common denominator. What I'm saying is that I think Crocker made the right decision to hire Berhalter after taking everything into consideration, including the bureaucracy he would be working for. What's interesting is how scared people are of the argument. You'd think they'd be happy that we have such a smart sporting director.
I don't think there's a lot of debate on this even if a lot of people ignore it. Stewart discussed it, and Berhalter has. Crocker's big accomplishment at the England FA -- which Cone references on his hire -- was to establish an England style of play up and down the ladder, from youth teams to senior teams. And frankly, there's been some push to it since long before. This idea of a consistent style of play, at least within the National Team set-up, is not new but is very clearly the plan now and was accelerated once we got a real Sporting Director. The interesting thing is that when Earnie was here, there was a clear focus on a very Dutch style of play. A strong focus on possession, 433, etc. There were still American elements -- aggressive, etc., especially defensively. But what Berhalter tried to run and what we run in the youth teams -- very Dutch. But when Crocker came on, there was definitely a shift in how he described the American style of play. Offensively, the focus on possession was shifted to more being able to do it to control play, and almost as a defensive measure. He put a specific emphasis on decision making on when to attack more directly and quickly -- not abandoning possession but simply highlighting the need to exploit a weakness when it was created. And on defense, he emphasized the ability to defend one on one. So athleticism, the potential for pressing, etc. None of these things are exclusive to one exact style of play -- you can do a lot of things here -- but I think it was a bit of a shift from where we originally were (even if Berhalter had already shifted on a lot of it). I'm not sure all the youth teams have gotten the message. But Crocker is clearly going to push this because (a) US Soccer has wanted it for a while and (b) he did to great success in England.
One could just as easily say that the US approach is shifting as the player pool adjusts to the new mandate. The team prepped for Qatar were babies. They were tactically naive and had to be instructed on simple keys. World cup winners don't spend time on keys because they have already seen them iterated a million ways. For a practical example of this look at how Luca de la Torre stated in a recent interview that he is having success contributing offensively at his club because he is now recognizing and exploiting keys. Our guys are young and deserve some room to grow in this way. Berhalters group is extremely development-focused and well-prepared. In other sports, the sports media has access to insiders and can suss this stuff out and make information known to the public. We just have never developed that with US soccer because its an insider subculture sport with maybe less external interest than there is within the sport itself.