The "Fire Mikey Varas" thread. Yes, I am Canadian and yes this thread is a bit of trolling but there is a serious question behind it: Was Varas the correct choice for interim coach? If things aren't settled (Pochettino) by October, should he be the coach for the next window?
pretty sure hes "stepping down" after this window due to taking the san diego job, but no. and he shouldnt have been here.
I already called dibs on managing the October window (if Pochettino remains unavailable). So you guys better hope he is available.
He’s fine as an interim and did a good job with the U20s. He’s also the only person still employed by USSF from Berhalter’s staff and accordingly the only one they can make interim without having to bring a new person from the inside. There’s really only him or Mitrovic as options and I liked his job with the U20s a bit more than Mitrovic at the Olympics.
It's clear that the problem with the MNT is the players themselves. They don't show much in the way of urgency in matches and just let other teams take it to them. If they really don't want to be there, they should just retire from international play and stop wasting their own time and the few fans of this program that remain.
Anyone else notice during the water break in the first half he was trying to give instructions and no one even turned to listen to him? Not a good thing to be an interim right before the next guy comes in. I also liked his work with U20's and the second half was much better but that first half was just painful.
These players don't start showing up and we're going to run out of coaches to fire. Fingers crossed Poch can get through to them but I wouldn't guarantee it.
Gregg ball continues to pay off even after he's gone Marsch: "Our players know the US pretty well, too... I had anticipated that Mikey, with Gregg Berhalter being a big influence for him, would play a similar style of football. So we were able to craft a match plan to deal with some of those things... and we executed really well"— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) September 7, 2024 USMNT 🇺🇸 results starting from this past summer, we are less than 2 years away from the 2026 World Cup. Pochettino is about to be handed a hot potato. pic.twitter.com/VyhZXGjc7q— Tactical Manager (@ManagerTactical) September 7, 2024
It's insane to me that they fire Berhalter, just to continue playing Berhalter ball. Moronic. Why not just keep Berhalter and negotiate w/ whomever behind the scenes? They fing idiots. Anyone who follows sports knows that if a manager is not managing, you gotta check to see who's still paying them when you hire them. And, this is down to Pocch just doesn't want the job that bad. Apparently, what he'll get paid with the US is less than what Chelsea is paying him. He doesn't want to lose that last year of bigger pay. The Fed damn well better be exploring other options.
Yes, totally. Berhalter was going to stick around while they hunted for his replacement. And definitely try to implement a whole new system for a meaningless friendly with like two days of camp to do it.
Why not implement a new system for a meaningless friendly? Not some random unrelated third system, but why not try to have the team playing like Poch might want them to? Isn't that more relevant than Berhalter's system, unless they're going to re-hire him a THIRD time? Even if you don't get Poch's system totally right, wouldn't those data points potentially be more useful than more Gregg system data points?
Mikey is quick to publicly throw his own players under the bus... he may have a point but not sure that's how you build a good team culture (although at least he didn't do it at a sports leadership conference immediately after a World Cup)... an actual reason to "Fire Mikey Varas" if "losing to Canada for the first time since 1957" wasn't bad enough? USMNT interim coach Mikey Varas didn’t mince his words in the press conference 😳“The mentality is on the players. Sorry, they know it.”“That mentality to fight and to run and to sacrifice, I can’t do that for them. I can’t do that for them. That’s on them.”“The trainings… pic.twitter.com/xRcqYP4eiu— GOLZ TV (@golz_tv) September 8, 2024 USMNT interim coach Mikey Varas criticized the players' mentality after the Canada loss. “Mentality is on the players. They know it. … The mentality to fight and to run and to sacrifice, I can’t that for them. That’s on them." (h/t @TWDTV1) pic.twitter.com/kxW0W94bCv— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) September 8, 2024
“The trainings were intense, they were aggressive. But when the game comes, you’ve got to get going.” So we're supposed to believe the players were "intense and aggressive" in training with Varas, when not facing another team, with no fans in attendance, not televised... but then completely lost that aggression and intensity days later when they faced their actual opponents Canada?
Varas is the placeholder until Pochettino finally takes over, so Varas isn't going to be around anyway after the NZ match.
Yes I know... although rumor has it that Poch has pulled out after seeing that horrific performance, and the US Soccer is now choosing between Mikey Varas as the permanent coach or having Eric Wynalda manage remotely (Wynalda was banned from Zoom after a drunken incident and would have to coach via Microsoft Teams).
That's what I'm saying. We know Gregg's system is an abject failure. A disaster. The Fukushima of coaching tactics. Firing him and just running out the same shit, is beyond mindboggling. It's like drinking the colonoscopy prep the day after the colonoscopy. Someone in another thread said "Do we know that was Gregg's system?" Pull your head out. Varas said he wasn't going to change anything. And, worse yet, Marsch said he knew we weren't going to change anything. And, the peanut on top of the shit pile is .... we're shackled to Gregg crap pile of a system, and he's not even there to make adjustments. Maybe if he's there, he can say "this isn't working, let's change it up." But, he's not there - so all Varas can do is keep playing Gregg's moronic system. None of this is a defense of Gregg. He Had To Go. But, if you don't have a guy lined up, don't keep playing his shitball.
Dissing his players like that is, for me, a big no-no. What he should have said is something like, "We didn't play to our standards. All of us, players and coaches, will move on from this and play as we know we can."
I mean who else should they have been hiring to be the interim coach for one window? You are either getting someone employed by USSF, Bruce Arena doing the federation a solid, or some MLS retread like Jason Kreis or other recently fired coach. So Varas makes sense enough when you consider the alternatives. And what’s the point of him reinventing the wheel with a new coach coming in? Like what would that accomplish? And given the board is meeting now to approve the hiring of Pochettino it’s a done deal. And I don’t think it’s a big deal he doesn’t want to leave millions of dollars on the table. Would you even if you really wanted to coach the USMNT?
Pochettino plays a similar style for one. Building from the back, possession, playing a high line, pressing, etc (though Berhalter backed off the high line when he brought Ream back and backed off pressing post World Cup). Pochettino may adjust his style of course, but I don’t think there’s going to be a major tactical shift. It’s going to build on what they’ve already been doing. Pochettino is just better at coaching it.