Before the season started and into the first few games, most of the talk about MLS coaches seemed to center around Bob Bradley and his impact on the Metros. While he clearly has improved them, I haven't seen nearly as much attention on Dave Sarachan. Like the Metros, there were a lot of question marks about the Fire coming into the season, and so far Chicago is playing pretty well. Sarachan seems to quietly be doing a nice job of building Chicago into a good team. Why is there little mention of this? Is it the differences in personalities? Is it just perception? Curious as to what others might think.
I think since the Metrostars were coming from being demonstrably bad, the early results have made Bradley look better. Sarachan was only coming into a hypothetically bad situation, which proves to have been exaggerated just a bit. That said, Sarachan may have done a bit better than Bradley with the draft, which could play out more fully as the season wears on. I'm getting ahead of myself, but the rookie of the year race could very well be between Damani Ralph and Ricardo Clark, with Magee and maybe even Pause not too far down the list, but Sarachan gets the nod there because Ralph was a second-round pick. And when you go further down the list, Jaqua and Futagaki may end up more productive this year than Arena and Gaven. Of course, the two teams had somewhat different agendas going into the draft, so judging just on how this year's picks affected this year's team may not be a good yardstick. Both are certainly in the early running for coach of the year. If the season were to end today, it would probably be between them and Gansler. Later, COZ
I dont see why you'd throw Gansler in there. I think his inability to get the Wizards to hold the lead they've held in all but one game of the season is terrible. When we score first in every game, yet have a record of 4-2-5, something is wrong. Gansler has put together a pretty good offensive machine, but for him to be considered coach of the year, our ability to hold a lead must improve.
I think you have to include Frank Yallop in any discussion about coach of the year. What he has done with the injury-riddled, cap-reduced Quakes squad to this point is incredible.
Yeah, after I read Jeff Bradley's latest, I realized I probably should have swapped Yallop and Gansler, and that SJ fans would probably crucify me for it. But Jeff reinforced my point about Sarachan and the draft, so it's a wash. Later, COZ
Although bradley has done a great job with the metros he had allocations and good draft picks that dave did not.Dave had to make some deals to get under the salary cap but still got some good players in the draft. Damni Ralph in the 3rd round maybe the steal of the draft.
To extend this thought, Sarachan probably fell into the ideal situation for a first year coach. The salary cap bloodletting let go of a few injury prone vets (sorry, Piotr) and allowed him to get the kids through the draft he wanted. The Fire now have a real good mix of guys in their mid to late twenties that are 5+ year pros, a few guys that are 3 year pros, and a bunch of first and second year guys itching to make a difference. He in essence is able to get his guys in the team without having to keep all the dead weight from a 'previous administration'. Who would have thought that 10 games into the season the Fire would be in position to take over first on the table?