Does it not say something that multiple players played for marsch, and that the team didn’t want him? this board projected its own hatred of berhalter onto the players, frequently speculating that they didn’t have faith in him. But now when we hear that those same players supposedly rejected marsch because they didn’t have faith in him, we are supposed to be upset at the players? The lengths some of you will go to tear down berhalter would be impressive if they weren’t so scary.
Right. It’s not as if they’re used to competing at high levels with their clubs, or as if they haven’t seen marsch face plant at those same levels. Just a thought.
Why would you be upset at players for speaking their opinion? The disconnect between Crocker’s opinion and the players opinion, and the confidence Crocker has in his ability to identify a manager that is both good, and a good fit, are the relevant parts to me. I personally don’t believe that the players convinced him, though. They’re a nice talking point for a difficult decision that USSF had to make because they took a 30 year old incident more seriously than they ever should have.
I think it was more that they didn’t want to play the Red Bull style and preferred a more proactive style like Berhalter’s.its very clear the key guys very much believed in the Berhalter project even though it failed.
its pretty silly to suggest this hire is going to be the one that matters- you dont get do-overs. hiring gregg mattered, and we lost two years because of it. thats on crocker just as much as it is on gregg.
I've seen nothing that says any player had any issue with Marsch. Rather that they felt they were on the right track and wanted to continue.
I mean, sure, it's an elite group of competitors that Hudson just said, unprompted, to not doubt their commitment. But it must only be because Berhalter was slack with them and they didn't want to take the national team seriously. The team felt they were on the right track -- you can watch Pulisic's interview from last year and it's pretty clear. They aren't slackers who don't want to work or are protecting their spots. They had a coach who they worked well with, believed in and wanted to keep moving forward. This isn't really that hard, but people need to make up stories to disparage pretty much everyone involved in the program to align with their idea that Berhalter so clearly sucks. Even though pretty much every actual profession in the space disagrees with you.
That’s probably what it was. They believed they were on track. What’s funny in life is, when we’re the protagonist of the story, we sometimes don’t see the bigger picture. Aging reveals things we didn’t understand or fully grasp when we were younger. My point? I’m not sure the players should be deciding who the coach should be. Some level of buy-in yes, but I get the sense this group had too much lobbying strength to stay with Gregg. I’m not sure that was wise.
I don't think they did make the decision. I think their opinion on how the team was doing, along with the fact that they were clearly still bought in, was rightfully a significant factor in the decision made by Crocker and the board. I don't think Jesse was hired and Berhalter discarded, not even interviewed, but Pulisic strong armed his way back in. I think Jesse and Berhalter and maybe someone else where finalists where they went through like 2 weeks of interviews (IIRC). I'd bet that they were fairly close. Berhalter is a process guy, like Crocker. The last cycle was a success. I guarantee you he came in knowing a lot of the team's issues and with a plan to improve them. Heck, Crocker may have only preferred Marsch because of the Reyna-gate, or because it was a second cycle. We don't know. We're not even really sure he did; just that somewhere along the way that Jesse thought he had it. And then he gathered some more info. And it's valid to consider. My biggest concern with Berhalter in the second term was lack of motivation / the message getting stale and concern about his ability to solve the scoring issues and set pieces. So what IF Pulisic comes in going "we're totally bought in." Suddenly, the calculus changes and to some extent, rightly so. I find this idea that Pulisic yanked the job from Jesse on his own because he didn't want to work or compete for his job just ridiculous driven by the idea that people can't comprehend that Berhalter isn't the big bad ogre that people think he is.
What does that have to do with my point? The amount of talk of how they loved Gregg and loved playing for him obviously colored the decision and the amount of players love for a coach can sometimes be a negative. Gregg let them be them which was great but may have not been what the team needed.
Or maybe Gregg was more their friend than coach. Who you like and who can help you win big games can be two different people. Maybe young players haven't really figured that out but maybe the admin should have..For instance, Puli loves Lampard as Chelsea coach, how did that work out for the club.
Which players? Scally had already spoken out against the coaching tactics for NT play. Aaronson and Joe had stopped Davies. The randomness of their trapping and Brenden almost scoring on a counter suggests some players have the capacity to take away another NT's strength and turn it into a weakness. Balogun was in the midst of joining; the post WC team was forming. The team is much larger than a select few, which the timeline suggests made a decision without coordinating as a team. The players likely to be behind throwing their support are the ones that show up for the press conference and hype the performance of the team during the WC, state their superiority to previous teams, and extol their coach. The ones that don't hype likely have a much different view. Would they list Wales & Iran as 2 of the weakest opponents our WC teams have faced? Was the style of play introduced by the subs against these opponents ever properly integrated into the rest of the team? Do they hold England and Netherlands' evaluation of the US as most accurate (easily available from their friends that play on these opponents)? The coaching pool available to Crocker was very limited; however, he did have connections to better vet Marsch over other candidates. With some of the player pool receptive to concepts of how a NT should play, it's likely Marsch was able to win over some with specific style of play details. If he's speaking with players, then it's likely that the other camp was speaking to those they have regular contact with. The end result is that parts of USSF did not remain neutral and coordinated with a select few players to trump Crocker's role & responsibility. Ultimately, this is not about Marsch. There's a hierarchy problem within the US. You can see with youth teams post covid, where they played as an 11 with almost no training. With streaming video of every high level match & video games plus the screen time hours they have, their awareness of how to play as a unit is much greater than older players. It's not a leap to think post WC, the younger players had a vision for an evolved, much better 2026 team. These players wasted 2 years because a select few whose vision was frozen at the 2022 team with its stagnant, highly predictable tactics. Players can fix rifts, but you can't have USSF staff undermine Crocker & players. Those at USSF that intervene have much less knowledge about how to compete in WC2026 than Crocker and young players envisioning the competitive landscape in 3 1/2 years (at the time). Such conduct has been detrimental and needs to be eliminated from the program as they would with a player.
Do you think Liverpool’s players didn’t absolutely love playing for Klopp? Do you think it was because he was too soft on them? There’s this idea going around that because the players liked Berhalter the reason is he wasn’t hard enough on them or he was too much of a friend than a coach. When in reality there’s no factual basis to support that. It’s not sufficient for success but there’s nothing wrong with creating a positive environment that players want to be a part of. And there’s no evidence that’s the reason the Berhalter project failed.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5392417/2024/04/07/good-manager-how-to-tell/ TLDR version, 80% of success is explained by TM value (wages would do a better job but aren’t widely available). Some managers exceed that but it still seems very context dependent. Also includes a link to his early piece that includes the studies on coaching impact. Also links to profiles of some up and coming club managers.
A very broad cross section of players from Pulisic to Ream to Jedi to Weah to Adams to Turner and others all spoke up publicly in favor of Berhalter. Most of the less positive comments came from guys who were upset about being left off the World Cup roster. And Adams and Aaronson who both played for Marsch didn’t seem to be making a case for him over Berhalter. It wasn’t a select few players, it was pretty broad across the player pool and many public statements were made in support.
You still have not answered the question. Do you believe that the criticism of Berhalter is unfair/different than the criticism of any of our previous managers and if so why? I don't believe that Weah's RC is GB's fault, that is just silly. I also don't believe that Howards inability to stop shots that he normally would was Arena's fault at T&T any more than Reams poor defense at home v CR. I also don't give credit to Berhalter for the own goal by Jamaica which allowed us to advance in NL. That is the game of soccer. Sometimes stuff goes your way, sometimes it does not.
I think the whole: He was going to be extended in December before Reynagate, and it was always the intention to extend him unless WC '22 was a disaster is also an ingredient, beyond just the players wanted him, I think the fed beyond Crocker was also pushing for this, and there were probably two tiebreakers in the fed/the players, but that's speculating beyond what there's evidence for, its just my hunch.
I don't think the vitriol I see for Berhalter comes close to what was dished out to Klinsmann. There are a few consistent anti-Berhalter posters who are just enjoying their moment in the sun. Not a big deal. Berhalter recruited dual nats like a pro. His teams were cohesive and played with some passion. But it was clear it was time to part ways. Those who see it more negatively than that must have more inside info. Can't wait for a new coach so at least the target and talking points change.
I think that’s probably spot on. My larger point is that I’m not sure Pulisic, Adams or Weston probably ultimately know what sort of coach they need. They’re still young enough where ego, fantasy and youth cloud one’s vision. This could just be me projecting my own life experience.
On this board. In the overall USMNT supporter universe Berhalter is the most hated manager we have ever had.
do you see the correlation to the fact that we have by most measures our most talented pool ever? at the same time we have/had gregg as manager? while results have been no better than 30 years ago?
Its being persnickety, but I like to be fair. We lost 1 year with Egg, or if you want to consider the entire '26 cycle as Berhalter on, and Berhalter about to be hired on, then it was 18 months. This was a winter world cup and a 3.5 year cycle. It just bothers me that people writing the postscript to Berhalter's reign as if there wasn't a year with Sarachan blooding the kids, followed by a moronic year of trying "never gonna be at WC '22 scrubs/mixed with aging vets and some kids" followed by covid. People covering this have written out that Sarachan actually set the table post Couva, and Berhalter wrecked it the same way Carmen's mom, Mikey and Odenkirk wrecked the dinner in the Fishes episode of The Bear, turning the team instead over to a Frankenstein blend of young studs, past it vets and way too many camp cupcake scrubs and then Covid hits, basically derailing of 2 years of development and building time. The Berhalter piece here demolished the value of Copa America, A HUGE LOSS, but it's still just 12 to 18 months of a 42 month cycle. It definitely mattered, I agree, I just want to underline the details.
There was a time I was convinced our current player pool is more talented. I'm no longer convinced of that. Yes, they're playing at more prestigious clubs, but I no longer perceive this generation to be more talented. Differently talented? Yes. We have a few players who have some unique and noteworthy strengths, but we're out of balance in terms of a being a complete team. I just don't think we're as talented as we "think" we are. I just watched a ton of Euro Cup and Copa America and compared to most of those teams, we're rather middle of the pack, at best.
Maybe Gregg didn't push them enough. Maybe they were too comfortable and didn't realize it or don't know exactly what they need. But that's not what you said. You said "Or maybe they like the parent that lets them have ice cream for breakfast. Just a thought." Perhaps we give them a bit more credit than that?