If I didn't like the way the US WNT played under Ryan, I really don't like the way the Canadian WNT plays under Pellerud. The same tactical style as the US under Ryan but worse. I had the unbelievably good fortune to watch Christine Sinclair play game after game when she was at Portland. She is a great scorer but also a great possessor of the ball and a great and unselfish passer, but Pellerud wants a style of play that doesn't let her use or show those other talents. She is a quality person who never would complain out loud, but I really wonder what it does to her. Ugh!
thanks again gl. good work. confirmed a few things that were ignored on this board during our recent days of more heat than light.
wow canada must have really pissed off the soccer gods. At least we now know what int. team he was blabbing about was looking at him.
i guess denile is a river in africa in gregs mind. i especially like how he got in a knock for the team in athens. I guess he is truely an equal opportunity a-hole.
Idiots tend to gather together. Ryan and Even, the pair with the most asinine decisions in the last while. I knew there had to be a connection between them two. That connection is called Hope-Hooper. I feel sorry for the Canadian team.
Because you "didn't like the way the US WNT played under Ryan," you don't know anything about soccer, at least according to Greg Ryan in this article. LOL. Some thoughts: 1. Kudos to Fairgame for this interview/article. 2. I'm glad to see Ryan did find gainful employment somewhat quickly. I may have disagreed with his handling of things in China and subsequently, but I don't begrudge the man getting a job doing what he loves. In the grand scheme of things, what went on was wrong but not capital-punishment criminal. 3. The more he defends himself, the worse he sounds. He almost needs a PR person to advise him on the art of subtlety and diplomacy. 4. His ultimate failure was not so much coaching or (obviously) his win/loss record, it was something that even many of us who "know nothing about soccer" have to overcome/prevent/fight against: bad management. In this case, the symptoms were poor communication, lack of poise, and both tactical and strategic failure. I imagine he learned from his experience and both he and Michigan will benefit. 5. It's not the one loss in 55 games, it's the hardware earned. The Patriots only lost once, and had a better record than the Giants. But who hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy?
I don't begrudge Ryan's citing his 55-1 record, even though the team didn't win the big one. What I think is wrong and says something about his character, though, is his not taking any responsibility for the team's tactics during the WC. I watched the team playing many, many games of the pre-Cup 51 wins and did not see a significant difference in tactics from those games to the WC games. At the same time, I also saw that the team could play a more "build up" and finesse game if it wanted, particularly when Abby was off the field. This is not a criticism of Abby, I really like her as a player and think she can play the indirect game quite well. Rather, it was obvious that the script Ryan had written called for direct long-balls to Abby, letting her bang or head it in or, in the alternative, get a set piece. I think there's a place for that even now, but it needs to be varied with a build-up offense and finesse play. Otherwise, the defense knows what we're going to do all the time.
Class can be knocked down, but it gets up again. Good people who find themselves in tough situations can bounce back. Ryan ain't coming back! As I understand this interview, when the chips were down, his WNT threw in the game plan, panicked, and resorted to boom ball. These silly young girls just wouldn't listen to him, but yeah, not so unexpected-- they had panicked before in Athens.... So, hello: (1) His team was not young-- they were extremely seasoned. (2) What does it say about a coach if he works for years with a group prone to panick and can neither correct the problem or replace the players? (3) Excuse me, but who does he have to see to run in a sub? If the players have lost sight of the game plan, I thought that was why he had a bench? This whole thing just hacks me off! I will always believe the US women went out as professionals to play the game they were coached to play, and that we got a red card (undeserved) early because we were coached to put Brazil on its heels early. It was ugly, it hacked off the Refs., and we got nailed on a bad call for a bad strategy. Poetic justice. I don't believe Ryan will ever again have the respect of people who really care about the future of the women's game. This is just really too shoddy! He had a right to earn a living, but to say these will always be his gals, while going to work to "build" the Canada squad just stretches credibility. I never liked April, but Ryan redefines the basement for US WNT coaching! There may be positives and negatives about his approach to tactics on the pitch, but in terms of character and responsibility, Ryan is a disgrace. My best wishes to the Mich. squad, and so I'm wondering, how is Ryan supposed to Help their recruiting?
I'm not sure I would put down Ryan's ability to help Michigan improve. At the college level, the real talent is dispersed among the top teams around the country. Boom ball by a tall and physical team still can be successful against all but the best programs where the best talent resides. So, on that front, his teams may have success. The thing I'd be more concerned about, in terms of his players' psychological health, is whether he really knows how to relate to young women. That's something on which I have many years of experience as a brother, father, and uncle (surrounded by matriarchies on all sides) and as a many-years coach of high school girls. The absolute last thing you do is openly dis a young woman in public, particularly when you are in a position of power over her. So, if Ryan was going to even consider playing Bri against Brazil, rather than Hope, there were things he should have done well in advance: told both of them privately that he might do that; told the other team members he might do that; and played Bri in a bunch of the 51 pre-WC games so that the soccer public understood he he regarded them as close to equals and that, depending on the nature of the opposition, he might play one or the other so that it would not looking like he was dissing Hope when he decided to put Bri into a game (this is apart from the fact that he also should have given Bri the game time she would have needed to be match tough for such an important game). I know some people will say that the players are professionals and should have been able to handle it, but I think that fails to recognize the difference between coaching men and coaching women. Women and men are equal, but that doesn't mean they are the same or that they handle public "criticism" or the appearance of it in the same way. For coaches of women, this really is pretty elementary, and that's what raises a red flag here. This still doesn't mean, however, that Ryan can't produce good results at Michigan. Some college coaches do really well even though they don't treat their players well.
I wonder if this Ryan guy is getting a trip to France out of this besides his fat cheque, as the canucks are travelling to France in a few days to play a friendly there, all under the pretext to prepare for the olympics qualifications.
Wow ... I can't believe they would hire him. I just saw the US:Brazil semi-final again last night, and I kept thinking: it's almost as if this guy doesn't know ANYTHING about soccer. Who puts a goalie who's played in only 7 games over a span of 2 years into a WORLD CUP SEMI FINAL without having played any WC games prior? Did he NOT see Brazil play during the WC? Then, when they kept showing him during the game, he looked like a confused overgrown special ed kid. Funny thing is, I don't even support the US team but this doofus infuriates me. Moron, your bus is leaving!