i am so pissed about this whole thing. Arena took this organization from the gutter into a contender. He gave Richie Williams a job, even though he has no apparent talent, and now it appears he's one of the ones that turned on him? The biggest mistake Arena made is that he should have just fired those that didnt agree with him straight out. No warning... just gone. Now look at the mess we're in and Its only going to get worse. Williams can't hold a lead and has lost points in extra time due to poor management. The team will quit on him when they know what has happened. What about the Krafts? Where the hell are they on this? They wanted Arena to come here and he has done a good job. I dont agree with all his personnel moves but mostly its worked out. Too bad they didnt fight more for their chosen one cause now they have a mess on their hands. Im disappointed in their absence on thins.
Pretty easy to part ways. Anytime a team loses their Head Coach, they seem to freely replace the entire coaching staff. Why isn't this happening as a matter of course? I endorse the thread idea. I don't want RW as head coach. If he was wronged by his prior boss then address it some other way. He is NOT the guy to continue the success that BA created.
They usually get to keep their jobs. We were in 2d place and getting people back. No "hostle work environment" bull××xt. Hiring Arena was a good move. He forced Burns out which needed to be done. Kraft needs another high profile coach...if they even care?
Being surrounded by "Yes Men" helps you head right towards failure. Any organization, sports or otherwise, needs to have people that ask questions. You don't always have to agree, but surrounding yourself with only people that think like you ... sounds like a cult. Hell, you could very easily make the argument that some of our problems with the Revs WAS because of Yes Men. Burns, Bilello, Heaps ... all in charge of their particular parts and not one willing to question Arena. Arena only took the job here because he was allowed to make changes to that nonsense.
If they keep Williams in charge, I have to think they lose the locker room. I don't think they can fire him, given the circumstances (though they could bring in a new coach who could pick his own staff). They should be hiring the next real coach now - this is a situation that they've had 6 weeks at least to prepare for. They should have already been making a list and making calls.
Either that, or they should bring in an unambiguous stopgap a la Nicol in his first go-round with the Revs, post Zenga: somebody from outside the mess who can do the job professionally. Unfortunately, I don't know that there are any realistic candidates for that now, since we don't have a Boston Bulldogs down the road and there are more than a couple games left in the season. I have to say, I'd really like to see Mike Sorber come in as a bandage manager, though....
From comments on FDA's article in the Globe: frankdellapa@gmail.com9/11/23 - 10:08AM I'm told Williams did not make complaint. There is a story out there that implies Williams at fault, but suspect that is not accurate.
I wondered about that. It would be natural for him to be interviewed if a coach was the complainant, but it did seem odd for him -- being a long-time coworker of Bruce's -- to suddenly take offense to something Bruce said. Still, I think leaving him in charge is a recipe for disaster, even leaving aside that he's not got Bruce's skill set.
Well SOMEBODY complained and it was serious enough for lawyers to get involved. It had to be somebody (one or more) high up in the organization to draw this level of investigation. I for one want to know WHO. Meanwhile, what do they do about Richie? He's not making it and it might just get worse. If the team mails it in... we're toast. It would be nice if the Kraft's would say SOMETHING or do SOMETHING on this. Forget about Brady... he left us. I do NOT want to go back to the Burns days but I see us slipping fast
This is an unfortunate thread. We have no idea about Richie Williams's relationship to Arena and to the investigation. I am frustrated about the lack of info. I told my ticket rep I will cancel my 2024 tickets if there isn't some info provided. Meanwhile it strikes me as disrespectful (mob mentality actually) to be saying harsh tings about Willams (or Arena or anyone else) until and unless we have some understanding of what happened. We don't even know if the insensitive comments had anything to do with soccer.
It does? I explained to the rep that after years seeing four or so games a year, I got a season ticket in large part because I wanted to watch the team evolve under the leadership of Arena, whom I consider to be hands-down the best American soccer coach ever. Before the announcements came while everything was still total silence, I said that with the September 15 deadline approaching for deciding about season tickets, I was feeling less enthusiastic about watching the team if the coach is gone and we have no information on why. For me, much of my interest is in watching how a GM/Coach builds a club. Does that strike you as unreasonable?
Say good bye Richie. You are no longer head coach and im sure not renewed at the end of the year. If you were involved is the end of Bruce, as most believe, who is going to hire you now?
Good one, but all kidding aside, this is why so many abuse victims decide not to report inappropriate behavior. This will absolutely crush his career. I imagine he'll end up head coaching a small college team or working at some academy. I don't think we should judge RW vs. Bruce - since none of us know what went on between the two of them. We're upset because the complaint set the wheels in motion that have likely destroyed what we care about, but we don't/won't know whether that was ultimately the fault of Arena or Williams (and, generally it is the abuser, in this case admitted, who is really at fault). I think Williams biggest (and maybe only) mistake, was accepting the interim job - and in that case, he was let down by an incompetent management that never should have asked him to put himself in that position. In fact, I still can't get my head around that fact that Bilello thought that was anything but absolute disaster of an idea.
I get that we shouldn't judge based on that. I'm judging only on what I saw... Poor in-game management and he had about as much charisma in pressers as wet dish rag.
Arena's behavior may be at the heart of this, but the organization's handling of this (Bilello, Jon Kraft, ...?) is taking a wrecking ball to a team that was already feeling the aftershocks of an earthquake. It's now cost us Arena, Shalrie, Van DenBergh, Revs II their coaching staff after a very promising season and now heading into playoffs leaderless, and the first team - a competent staff with any modicum of MLS experience. Still unknown, the status of Kevin Hitchcock, who was a sparkling diamond for the Revs, Vaclik - who must be wondering if there's some way out of this mess that he didn't sign up for, and Andrew Farrell, the senior statesman, who hasn't been seen/heard from and was inexplicably (literally) left off the gameday roster in Minnesota. Then there's the coming potential/likely(?) fallout - this season's playoff run, trashed reputation of the club, embittered/divided clubhouse, very possible exit of one or both Gils, ...
I dropped my season tickets toward the end of the SN era when even he wasn’t getting any support in signing players. Kraft clearly didn’t care. The hiring of The irony is that RW won! Bruce resigned! I think the radio guys said it best: If no one is going to provide us facts everyone is going to assume something. I don’t recall exactly but they basically said (a couple days ago) that everyone would conclude pretty much what they are concluding right now. If RW is a victim, I think he is a victim of the MLS (and probably but unprovably the REVS).
I agree with you about victims not coming forward due to the potential retaliation. It makes it very difficult for them to look like the "good guy." People who are verbally abused and/or sexually harassed at work should be able to bring their complaints to the proper authorities and get results. From what we know, as we will never know the whole story, BA made the comments behind closed doors. Was it a coaches' meeting, or were all the players present? The part I stumble over is that a jock made "insensitive and inappropriate remarks." Isn't that called trash-talking? For the record, I'm not a fan of trash-talking. I just hope the players can put this behind them and continue to play well this season. My fear is that next year is not going to be good.
Considering the decisions that Bilello has made in the past, the fact that he made a dog's breakfast that even a rescue dog won't eat is hardly a shock. Seriously, what did they think was going to happen in this scenario? At some point they collectively decided that Williams was not coming back next year. Someone raises a complaint against Arena for being abusive (maybe someone else who was told they'd be part of the "house cleaning?") Williams corroborates the allegations and possible (we don't know) makes a complaint of his own. They remove Arena from his role, so they need to put someone in charge... Hmmmm, of all the people, you don't think there's anyone else they could have thought of? Then when all of this comes out, they are surprised that the players want answers and are pissed off when none are coming? Pure speculation on my end, but maybe the players demanded that Williams be shown the door. All I can hope for is that somehow we can salvage the rest of the season. Wouldn't it be sumfin if somehow they can regroup under Peay and win the whole enchilada? Hey, it could happen!
That's not really fair. 1) much like the Celtics scandal, the outcome may very well not be what the whistle-blower wanted/intended 2) RW will pay as big a price as anyone - Arena is hurt, but he's already of retirement age. 3) I'll repeat again, we don't know what RW had to endure, so we shouldn't judge 4) As much as we don't like his persona or his coaching or the fact that he was a player we loved to hate, none of that should factor into this I think the only legitimate criticism of Williams in this whole mess is that he made the mistake of accepting the interim role (which he never should have been offered). I also think it is very, very likely that the abuse at the heart of this was mishandled by Revs' management early on and that it didn't have to come to this. Arena came here and replaced a lot of the dysfunction in the organization ... but not all of it. And like a cancer, leaving some remaining cells can be deadly.
What are you talking about, Onalfo and Bilello both said their relationship with the players is great!
You summed this up very well. We are all fans of the teams and as such we can have a single focus of "What is best for the team is best for me" so we naturally want to believe that Arena did nothing serious and should be forgiven and 'carry forward like nothing happened'. And selfishly that is what I was hoping would happen, but then I thought.... "What if what he did is sooooo bad that Arena deserves the suspension/resignation. Then think about how messed up it must be to be Richie Williams. Imagine taking the brunt of significant abuse, finally standing up to it, and then YOU are the one who is villified. That would be backwards and messed up." The whole issue is that we just don't have any details, so we all believe what we want to believe.