this is a unique scenario, its not just we hired a guy, it didnt work, we gotta fire him. i mean, did crocker know beforehand his boy was going to take a huge check (after hiding behind the loss we would take getting out of berhalters contract) and literally not do his job? how can you predict that- that a guy wont learn his own player pool (much less "recruit" anyone)? that he will go on and on and on about commitment while skipping event press conferences? that he cant be bothered communicating directly with players!? what are the red flags for any of that? a club manager moving to international soccer, a foreign manager that isnt familiar with the pool- we all know the "danger" in that, but even at the most basic level- what has ever indicated that poch was going to change rosters, lineups, tactics with every camp and match? maybe he was surprised at how inadequate he found our players, but how is roundly rejecting our "middle class" for bottom of the barrel guys help that in any way? he didnt forget how to simply pick 11 guys and set them up however basic or intricate and coach. he just wont do it. theres legit no way not to look at what hes done (or overwhelmingly not done) as closer to overt sabotage than things just not working out. its painfully clear we have to get him out, but as for the fed (who i literally couldnt think any less of- i cant articulate how furious it makes me to defend those clowns) not protecting our world cup is going to make them look far, far worse than admitting they made a borderline tragic hire no one could see coming unless we are in a freaking marvel movie rife with insidious super-villans. cause however you felt when we hired him this is unacceptably horrid. bateson and crocker would improve their reputations with the fanbase (that extends further than the bs echo chamber) tenfold by showing him the door asap. hell, theyd essentially be off the hook for whatever scrounging hire they make because it cant get worse than this.
I mean I just don’t think the problem is Pochettino the same way I didn’t think it was Berhalter. No matter what coach we hire as long as they meet basic levels of competence our outcomes are going to be driven by the quality of the player pool. And Pochettino is a good coach, he’s got a track record in the club game. There’s still upside there as he learns the pool and adjust to the international which would have happened on a better timeline if he had the full cycle.
His 'track record' suggests he has excellent coaching chops. Can he lead this highly flawed group of players to a good result in the GC? I get that it's late in the cycle and unfair, perhaps, to expect more of Poch (e.g. recruitment, developing/integrating younger players, etc.). Can he execute on game day? It's why he's here as a short-term fix, right?
As with Gregg, that logic holds if the manager doesn’t decide to exclude important parts of the pool for ego reasons.
Both winning and losing are far more the players than the ever are the coach. What I find silly and baffling about this conversation is that very few people are seeming to have a broader conversation, and weirdly focusing on small bits and pieces. The Switzerland game is not particularly representative of anything either in lineup or gameplan. The focus on it is bizarre to me; we all know that's not anywhere near a World Cup roster. We all should know that it was a rotated game several days before a tournament starts. We must start with "What is the problem?" If you look at actual results, there's a number of things to see: Results in competitive matches are poor going back BEFORE Poch was hired -- back to Copa America Results in the fall friendlies were not bad but we did lose badly to Mexico with a B squad As per usual, this team cannot be healthy. The core players are rarely more than 50% here Anything resembling an A team has seemed to lack intensity and fire visibly on the field since at least Copa America (again, pre-Poch) in sharp comparison to say, Qatar. BUT the US struggled with intensity throughout WCQ at times only really elevating in Nations League and B team Gold Cups or when needed. You can go back to the WCQ @ El Salvador to see Tyler Adams saying the players took El Salvador lightly, took a road match lightly, and it was a wake up call. Wake up calls seem to last a day or two with this team. This isn't the fanbase saying it: There's been about 8 wake ups calls for this general player pool since then, and that doesn't even count the original -- the loss to Canada in the 2019-20 Nations League. This particular aspect isn't a Pochettino thing. He may not be solving it, but Berhalter also clearly did not solve it. The team did get up for the very most important things in his first cycle but then started to make dumb mistakes and slip in the second tenure. Some part of the Copa failure was simply a dumb ass red card compounded with playing Uruguay ... but there was something missing there and the players know it, too. Tactically ... with the exception of the Switzerland game, I think his tactical changes have been smart. But also go to prove that tactics can't solve everything if you are lacking the players to execute them. Even the 4-2 win against Jamaica was mostly good finishing combined with a reminder of our weakness at the back. I don't know what Keller said, and frankly, I don't really listen to anything on ESPN. It's a cesspool that actively feeds its talking heads what to say to create drama -- no, really, their talking heads have talked about how they are told their positions to argue on several shows. He's not inside US Soccer; I don't know that anyone is really talking to Keller. So maybe? But the faux outrage by former players this week leaves me wanting -- I'm not sure you can discount certain former players' "blaming of overpaid, entitled players" and lean into other former players' criticism of the coach on a similar vein. I would completely disagree with this comment. I don't think there's inept roster building at all. This is where I see a complete disconnect and lack of logic with much of the criticism. The absolute best match of our last eight or so was THIS ROSTER against Turkey. It was a loss, but we were as good as them with much of our A team gone due to uncontrollables, and the major mistake that cost us was a guy EVERYONE had on their roster. No one complained about the Nations League roster, either. The Swiss match was an over-rotation before a tourney starts where he wanted to give everyone a chance, and a bad tactical choice to try out the press that I am sure they are practicing. It was naive and optimistic, for sure, but it is not bad roster construction. (Switzerland also scored 4 goals on 2.27 xG -- that's terrible for sure, but also very clinical from the Swiss.) Let's wait until the end of the GC -- a number of the guys written off will do something good when not faced with a terrible situation, I am sure. Note: don't come at me with Nathan Harriel. Poor dude is not great but he's one player and an injury replacement besides. As noted, this has been an issue for 5 years, pretty much. I will ask again -- we've done calm, buddy, buddy in Berhalter; we're doing big name, paternalistic new age master in Poch. He's trying a bit of tough love -- which the fanbase loved then literally turned on the idea two friendlies in which is hilarious (yes, issue tough love to motivate then cave for a friendly result! That works!). What type of manager fixes an issue that has been true for AGES and is clearly an aspect of this player base? I don't know what you are referencing here. Are you simply talking about Switzerland? Tactics tried out in friendlies? Then let's wait for competitive matches. I saw no mismatch in March -- and frankly not even against Turkey with a lesser team. I'm not seeing that much smoke. I see people panicking over a friendly. And before you say it's bigger than that -- no, for a lot of the fanbase it isn't. Because the fanbase is calling for Joe Scally and Josh Sargent as if their failures to perform weren't a key reason we lost in March. If you are looking big picture as to why we lost to Panama and Canada, and two key drivers are Joe Scally's inability to pass forward and Josh Sargent's inability to create any danger, then you have to find alternatives. This friendly should not have you running back to their arms. You need to try alternatives. This is not bad roster building; it's acknowledging a very real problem and searching for answers. EXACTLY what you want a coach to do. And I would note that the original roster had Folarin Balogun and Sergiño Dest on it. There's only three reasons you would fire Pochettino at this point. One, non-soccer impropriety. Two, he's completely lost the locker room. Fans claimed Berhalter had as early as like summer of '19. I doubt Pochettino has at this point, and I doubt even an exasperated Pulisic is really focusing his ire on Poch rather than Donovan and the rest of the talking heads. Three, you've decided that we will shift tactical identity completely and wholesalely. We're not doing that. I would note that Crocker is not some tiki-taka guy, but I guarantee you there's not interest at US Soccer to bunker. Fans seem to live in a very dichotomous world of tactics rather than the sliding scale that it is. If you determine Poch can't move to where we go, then sure, but I don't think anyone at US Soccer thinks we need to bunker and counter or never build out of the back. And Poch absolutely has had us set up most of the time here to actually be more direct in terms of moving the ball forward if you look over the larger data set. I'm sorry, has that happened yet? The reason I know this is weird panic is that anyone that watches soccer knows that the predictive power of blowout losses with rotated squads on an already B roster is sketchy at best ... and we have a competitive tournament just days away ... but no one simply can wait to see how the team performs there. If Poch completely handicaps the team with his lineups and gameplans a la Switzerland against Canada or Mexico or even Saudi Arabia, I will absolutely question whether he can be pragmatic. But the fanbase constantly wants experimentation with rosters and tactics and then shits an absolute brick when it doesn't go perfectly. I'm not shocked; it's like anything -- business, politics. People want folks to fix problems with are unwilling to deal with anything that doesn't work instantly and perfectly. Changing shit takes time. Getting better takes time. If you punish someone for every failure, they will never, ever, ever try anything new. Freaking out over not having Joe Scally is the perfect example. Post-March everyone agreed that it is a real problem that our RB cannot progress the ball and cannot add anything on offense. But the fanbase literally can't take a SINGLE friendly loss to fix a problem they all admit is real. You want to know why things don't get better in many situations? This.
LOL. Who has he excluded for ego reasons? You spent years claiming Berhalter was wildly egotistical simply because he didn't agree with your personal evaluations and now you are back! Someday, you will consider that you might not be right.
Short answer: fire Matt Crocker after we conducted a job search and rehired Berhalter the first time.
There's two ways Pochettino can specifically fail here. One wouldn't be entirely on him. The first is that there's a cultural clash between him and the players where he simply can't fix a pre-existing problem with the player base. This team wasn't competing at the level they should be, and they won't reach their potential without doing so. That's not on Pochettino, and there may not be a coach to fix it. But also, his style might not be the most likely to fix it, either. For example, it's pretty well documented that Poch was also distant in ways at Tottenham -- he plays a father figure. A new agey one, but still more distance than I imagine any American coach these guys have had. I mean, probably not more than Tuchel, but you know. Two, between the limitations of our player pool, the nature of international play and Pochettino's strong view about belief and player improvement ... those things can create a situation where the Coach doesn't cut bait on aspirational roster choices and play until it is too late. It's clearly what happened here. He put in a press, he believes in his guys, and they didn't execute. It's not Pochettino's style to not give players a chance to deliver. The question is when does he cut bait and is it quickly enough. The fanbase always wants to cut bait yesterday. But if the team had been better organized and more used to pressing, it might have worked much better. The idea that that team can't press inherently because MLS is silly; it just wasn't ready to. And that's the crux; Poch has said everyone can play defense with enough prep and effort. But he doesn't have that prep and effort. Here's Pochettino in a nutshell: He wins through his players playing harder than everyone else and by developing players. He tends to play higher risk tactics and believes in his players to execute. If his players don't play harder and if they do not step up ... the risky style tends to end up making spectacular implosions. If they do, the team is really good. I put the intensity on the players. I think he will adjust tactics to what he's getting from them at some point. But if the intensity never comes, we're not getting anywhere anyway. But you can see how this combo might not work with a player base that just doesn't prioritize.
LOL. He made an amazing hire for the Women's program that took something that was slipping and entirely revitalized it and won an Olympics we really weren't favorites for. The Pochettino hire was roundly applauded. Give Poch some time to work and stop acting like losing a friendly is the end of the world. Crocker also has a lot of other responsibilities he should be evaluated on that neither you nor I have any idea how he is doing.
Many thanks for the thorough response. I certainly think we need to evaluate this window/Poch post-Gold Cup. There is certainly a world in which everything looks a lot brighter in a month. The trajectory to date is concerning, though, and it's not just Switzerland. I'll invoke Parcells- you are what your record says you are. Obviously, the players bear the lion's share of the blame for the team's ills. I'd invite you to consider, however, (1) why Berhalter was let go, (2) what commended Poch to the federation, and (3) what he or any other new manager could be expected to do this late in the cycle. It's results, right? It's how does the team look, especially in competitive matches- and can our expensive foreign hire improve these things, at least on the margins? From here, in the short term, things could go in two drastically different directions. One, we win the GC or at least look much improved in defeat in, say, a final v. MX. Or, two, Poch's seeming gamble in bringing in a raft of new players to send a message completely backfires, further empowering our (allegedly) selfish, complacent Euro A-listers. Relatedly- listening to Pulisic yesterday, how do you think he views Pochettino? I'd go with a seven-letter word beginning with 'a'.
I think the coaching basics he should be fine. And also generally he probably has a very good sense of who his first choice lineup is after the last two games. Plus the team should improve as the summer goes and he has more time to work with them.
Though if Marsch were the US coach and Pulisic wanted to take the summer off, he wouldn’t really have been in the position to say no.
Jesse's full of crap, obviously. If I were him, I wouldn't ratchet things up this way, it may bite him in the ass.
Jesse is doing the single most important thing for an international manager; Firing up his team and 100% supporting them as far as confidence in their abilities.
I'm nothing if not incredibly wordy. Absolutely. But let's toss Switzerland. Looking at the broader picture, there are four major issues to my eye: The pool is not as deep as claimed and the higher end talent has an extremely high injury rate. For example, our best two strikers have never played for Poch. We were still lacking those two, Dest, Jedi and a functioning Gio Reyna (TBD) in March. Expectations need to be tempered based on that. Despite this, the team isn't performing to expectations. I mean, this is a team whose C team has won a Gold Cup, who came back in the 2019-(21) Nations League against Canada with a C team and romped them, etc. This is where the intensity issue comes in. The players know it exists even if I think it's completely articulated poorly in public. We also have a whole bunch of the non-core being finesse players. They are often a bit less athletic or lack the personality ... but guess what wins more in international play -- athleticism and effort because team play is harder to organize. Our goalkeeping sucks. Turner was a big reason why we won the 2021 GC. GK was why Canada "won" WCQ and Steffen was a big reason we didn't. So many games turn on a save or a save not made. Our centerbacks largely suck ... or maybe it's the coach. I think we got a bit lucky last cycle. Zimmerman was on a decision making heater. Miles was great at times pre-injury. Ream came out of nowhere to make a short, one to two year step up. We aren't seeing any of that. But maybe also Poch is being too aggressive. Or maybe it's simply as simply as Tyler Adams was healthy for WCQ and Qatar. From a tactical point of view, Switzerland excepted, I've been overall mostly happy with Pochettino. He's largely given more freedom to our better players and restricted the role, space and decisions of our lesser players. I think he tried to stretch them last game, and ... yeah. Our build up has been better, especially factoring in the players there. Our actual xG and conversion have not, but I am firmly in the camp that tactics can put you in the right situation, but it is player execution that gets shots and scores goals. Like Berhalter, Poch hasn't gotten us in a lot of situations with numerical advantage, but we've had a good share of positional and quality advantages -- lots of open space. It's just hard because no one really lets us get behind much. We will never know exactly, but I think it was really around the sleepwalking at Copa America. It's not just losing; it was the uninspired play. For you, the fact that that largely hasn't been fixed is saying Poch isn't the guy ... for me, that says maybe there is no guy. I imagine a track record of success, a strong understanding of personal working style via previous work with Crocker and a general alignment to the vision of US Soccer. Plus PR, I am sure. I think people miss that second to last one -- working with young players, focusing on improvement, effort and development, a skill-based style that is also more aggressive than Berhalter. That's what the Fed wanted, right? The success rate of manager roulette is pretty poor. People are going to toss Morocco out there but it is not an entirely analogous situation and focusing on single successes misses the bigger picture. I'm not saying there's not a situation where it makes sense. But you also hired a manager you thought was good; sometimes things take time. The thing you have to ask yourself is "Does unnamed Manager X have a better chance of succeeding with this team than Mauricio Pochettino?" I don't know who unnamed manager X is, but I'm not there to that answer. I'm especially not there from a long term point, but even for the World Cup ... do we think so? Maybe after the GC I will agree, but I don't see the point now. No one is firing him right now and we'll have more data in two weeks. One thing I do want to say is that the selfish angle is largely a media creation. I really don't think Poch was that upset with Pulisic not coming. He certainly didn't seem it in an interview I saw. Do I think he thinks the team is lacking intensity? Yes. It is because they are Euro A-listers? I doubt that. I really don't know Christian at all and couldn't tell you. He put up with Tuchel, ffs, and we all know he's a complete dick. I also don't think Pochettino actually is an asshole, and I'm not sure it matters. After all, people thought Gregg was too nice. Now Poch is a dick? This isn't a fairy tale, the third one is not necessarily "just right." Maybe what this team needs is an asshole. They certainly do need to really think about if they really want to win. I know they want to win -- but they certainly didn't leave it all out there like they have before. I've seen Weston McKennie play hard. March was not that.
Pulisic's beef is probably as much or more with Crocker and the federation as it is with Poch, who, based on various shards of evidence, is a somewhat distant figure, though probably not a dick. It's a puzzle, though, right? Most of the players loved Berhalter and got him re-hired, and how did that turn out? Poch has a different style, and it would be hard to conclude- at this point- that it's working. We could use a Bruce without the Couva, if there is such a person.
Coach Alexi Lalas come on down! hes already said he’d do it for free… guys who say they lead for free have excellent track records.. Might be a choice that aligns with Pulisics temperament and have him dancing for joy
In this case we replaced Berhalter with someone people seem to like less? Though I don’t share that view.
I wonder how Matt Crocker himself thinks he's doing on the job. For all we know he could think that he's 1 for 3 in NT coaching hires (Gregg rehire, Hayes, Poch), a pretty important part of his job, which is a pretty bad hit rate for how much money they're spending on coaches... on an unrelated note Matt Crocker recently deleted his Twitter account.
The challenge, though, is this: it's not enough to say it isn't working right now. You have to have a pretty good idea that your alternative will work, and that Pochettino's tactics, whether with time or with a change in his actions, will be better. A lot of people were on the "no spot should be guaranteed" bandwagon and that complacency was a big issue with the team. If you choose to try and rectify that with making sure everyone knows a spot isn't ensured, you not only need to talk it, but you need to follow through with those actions. I'm not a big fan of tough guy management, but a large portion of the fanbase wanted to be a tough guy, and then after a single bad loss, wants to cave immediately. Which is literally the worst thing to do. Coaches come across as stubborn most often because you can't be an effective leader without a strong level of confidence or belief in your vision. People who swing based on the last thing they see never accomplish anything. I just don't get the idea that we have a team with some new faces have one decent result -- and better than the A team in terms of play -- and then lose badly and it's time to end that experiment. If you thought there was an issue with complacency, you should still think that. If you thought leaving some guys home might help that, you should still think that. Me? I wanted to see some new faces if I couldn't get a real A team. Sargent and Scally still exist. It's okay to try other options. I mean, it's Bruce. I don't really think that cycle makes me think much differently of him as a coach. He didn't manage the specific Couva game very well, and he was too loyal to a definitely declining Howard, but he was also dealing with a transitional generation, a low in talent, a swampy field, a freak own goal, a 30 yard goal, a miss off the post, a phantom goal in another match and so on. Under Bruce, we won at home and tied on the road, except: We lost to Costa Rica in what should be known as the Geoff Cameron match. There's always a lot of talk about Bruce leaning on MLS players, but Cameron gifted two goals to Costa Rica in that match. I don't know what a manager does there. Couva. There is plenty to second guess there, but the reality is that it was still a perfect storm of freak elements in a lot of ways. Maybe we didn't deserve a win but certainly a tie. And it took an abomination of a phantom goal to keep us out of the World Cup. Bruce, from a coaching perspective, did exactly what you've described. Rallied the troops, kept it simple, focused on grinding out points. From a historical perspective, we were 3 points in the hole from Klinsmann, but even a tie to Mexico sends us to the World Cup. Like I said ... he's not blameless, but he was in a not great situation without a lot of breathing room, and saw something of a perfect storm.