head coach ideas

no, what you're missing is a few months ago i took some serious crap taking this position. i am then going to point out people coming around to where i was/am who gave me crap at the time. that's about them and not me. if this was about me it would be "i told you so." this is about "you told me different back when we were discussing this in the fall."

part of what i am trying to underline here, for future purposes, is how the ramos article openly straddled -- maybe fire, maybe don't -- and this smacks of the same thing. i was saying cut everyone. he says keep this list, you're too extreme. if he's coming around to my clearcut then that's an analytical problem.

 

i'm in a skeptical mood on this team -- hence the "asset flip" theory of late.

apply that skepticism to HC/GM split. one reason besides "helping the busy HC" is reducing their power and public presence. kinnear used to be the face of the team. it's now almost more the GM than the coach. coaches do annoying things like ask for better players and say it to the press. the GM is an extension of the franchise. here is the happy story of what we are trying to do.

cause if it's about making the team better or helping out a busy HC with a full time personnel guy, nope, in concrete we suck worse.

one reason i wanted the GM and HC cleared out same time was to allow us to consider the org chart concept same time as we hired. if you stagger the firings that encourages hiring 2 new people in staggered fashion as well. we're just on autopilot. or we don't want to change the org chart to keep mouthy coaches in their place. to me keeping mouthy coaches down is not in the fan interest. i want coaches saying i want better players. i don't want a corporate shill painting the team picture and staying on message. same beef we have on glenn and eddie sometimes. does no one have a complaint with dead last? surely they do and have some ideas how to get out. but then that puts the FO under pressure as opposed to expecting the HC to make it happen alone.

anyhow, several years' practical experience GM/HC is worse than unified role. bruce just set the league points record without a GM. a few other coaches do well unified.

there is also the question of whether a cheap team can afford the inefficiency of 2 employees potentially working at cross purposes on personnel. abundant examples of players signed here the coach didn't seem to want from jordan. i think if we have a dedicated personnel person then they should report to the coach to supply his needs. we instead report the HC to the GM who spouts organizational nonsense. we are a bad team with a HC subservient to the GM handing them their roster. how could that possibly go wrong.

for a lousy team we aren't examining the big picture as we act. nagamura's team plays just like we got through doing. GM/HC isn't making personnel better. lot of unexamined cant. what used to make this team more than the sum of its parts was a disciplined, physical approach. and a coach who at least at first went out and got exactly the type players he wanted for his system.

 

why on earth are we keeping assistants? assistants are usually an extension of the coach and as expendable. surely we aren't so broke we can't afford to eat a year of salary for a few coaches to clean the slate.

i mean, it occurred to me before that one reason ramos finishes the year is we don't have to hire someone else and pay them as well, or upgrade an assistant's deal.

and our assistants aren't exactly "mastroeni" anymore where i might want him kept around as the "break glass" contingency.

a lot of this reads like a team hell bent on increasing FO control to distract from team performance. everyone on message. HC with limited cachet to talk or power to contest. shut up you owe me for having any job in MLS.

we're discussing this in terms of this would scare off bruce but i don't think this would attract anyone but youth and minor league coaches. like literally people so green they are happy to owe us for getting a first division head job. it's not even just that we don't make it attractive, it's that it feels designed to hold them down.

response: the team sucks. the fans aren't going to buy some BS corporate message about how this is our functioning plan. you need results to justify hamstringing coaches and taking away personnel power.

 

the USMNT is trying the same org chart crap. they get away with it because they are handed a pool, which is improving, as are their results, in spite of the politics and poor coaching. the smart fan says the coach kind of sucks but they win in spite of it. the smarter fan questions whether USSF wants a klinsi type coach, who is their own power center, anymore. when they were hiring a seeming checklist got public that would steadily reduce the applicant pool and favor subservient choices. strong english skills. office in chicago. etc. etc. they hire the brother of a then-USSF exec. who will play ball. the corruptness of this has been less of an issue because the team is becoming so good it can win almost without a coach. we don't have those "problems." we can't get away with organization men. we need some broken china and some coaches ripping the franchise. last thing we need is "comfortable."

 

re walker suggesting resources will take time, that's not resources now, is it? usually when one says they are fixing to turn on the shower it's not a several years' concept to see water.

that being said, it rings true because nothing we have done feels like resources. some defend certain choices but it's all cheapness and moneyball. no checkbook shortcuts.

the implications for me are problematic, i've put up with years of this, i am getting sick of it, and i held off a second after the owner made promises. if it's not a today promise then i may be on strike until i see that promise beginning to be fulfilled. i will know that is happening when hiring and acquisition decisions start looking like we care. they can play word games trying to keep me watching, "we intend to give this team the resources to compete [soon but not yet]." i didn't sign up to play scrabble or scattegories. i didn't know i had to parse "we're gonna try harder." put up or shut up.

last point, in october 2016, "Make no mistake, though, Mr. Brener cares deeply about the club and wants to see the Orange at the top of the table." talk is cheap and if resources aren't promptly applied you may be gone before ever sincerely pursuing your supposed goals. to be fair, at least he had the xmas 2016 splurge......before fizzling back out.

 

i mean, the problems of this team have been obvious for YEARS and we never do anything about them. incredibly bad road form. lousy defense. no 10. scattershot finishing. mediocre keeping. awful academy. little HGP retention. poor drafting. inability to get young prospects on the field. green GMs and HCs with no positive resume. vulnerable formations. soccer meant to be more entertaining than controlled and effective. playoffs rare.

ideally you'd chase them all but the failure to pick some of them -- even on a budget -- and at least fix those, suggests we're just here to make money as a plodding business. "ok, we're going to be a young, academy driver attacking team that makes money selling talent." "ok, we're going to be a well-organized defensive counter team that acquires mid-career solid veterans." sit down and try and come up with a coherent big picture idea what we are trying to accomplish in a soccer sense. you can rapidly do so business side. keep expenses down. market. occasionally slap some paint or a new concessions on the park. periodically sell a chunk of the team for an appreciation profit. fact i can't explain what the parallel soccer goal is -- besides field a team to provide the business a product, and periodically freshen elements when we get angry -- says something. and the reality is that is ceasing to work because most of us are frustrated on a more general basis with this. at a point you have to provide a good steak and not just benihana drama.

i mean, we seem lamely aware how many people we have on the senior roster ("with this acquisition we have 25 people on the senior roster") but not whether they are any good or how they fit into some sort of winning whole. we pendulum swing between being focused on 23 year olds or 30 year olds. we persist in tactics that don't work with cheap personnel. either the green people in key positions don't really get how to assemble a soccer team and win games, or we just go through the motions. steres to me is the epitome of "just sign someone, anyone." quintero is like you'd rather have a familiar security blanket than hit the market. teams sitting bottom of the table aren't usually scared of change. not unless the stress of the organization makes attaching yourself to a new acquisition and his cost more scary than bringing someone back and losing some more. the fact we hire cheap people and then seem scared to get new ones -- even as we struggle badly -- suggests cost is god. if you are sitting last and worried about expenses or change then you're screwed.

 

in terms of my dissipation argument, ie i think this is just steadily eroding. if i can articulate an argument that brener was better for the team than this, and AEG better than that......and we all thought the previous owner was nickle and diming at the time.

i also think in terms of evaluating franchise sincerity, within 2-3 months of brener buying further in we had a new coach, machado, leonardo, quioto, sanchez, elis, delagarza, and then the following summer was senderos. the two seasons that followed were the playoffs and meh USOC but we did win. we also had a CCL run. that team erred in terms of the age of the defense, and perhaps tactics, and to be real, that was "playoff" level and not even championship competitive. it was dismantled by seattle. but the hondurans were up and coming attacking forces. we had all heard of senderos. the defenders had some awards and reputation. that felt like trying.

to me that is minimal "sincerity." this right now is insincere and just changing the boss at the cash register.

 

walker is the spokesman because our owners are absentee and we want organization men preaching the gospel, not a coach who might ask for things while selling our soap.

well, really, we hadn't even hired a coach in 2 months so there wasn't that option. but usually a sport's teams face is the coach. because it's focused on sports. atleti, the long term faces are the ownership and simeone. you don't know the businesspeople because it's intended as a soccer team.

we're a business first. this is the business face.

to me it's a bad thing when the macnairs and easterbys come to the fore. it suggests you have some sort of ego or politics or business distortion going on. sports are usually the big thing and people want to talk to players and coaches. interviewing the owners and the money men is for the business publications and industry press.

 

i remember people arguing that whether we had the cushy team chairs or people sitting on a hard BBVA bench under a half shell mattered too. amusingly i got a "yellow card" on here for arguing it didn't matter, only time that ever happened. i think it was that speaking critically about BBVA wasn't kosher at the time.

my general impression is players or their agents don't do NFL-style tours where they pick a short list of target teams and actually visit them for "feel." they instead remotely through their agent talk terms, perhaps consider fit and reputation, but at a distance, and then show up when they sign. so likely they would see the facilities first time when they put pen to paper. maybe some player shows up and is horrified and doesn't sign the paper but i haven't heard of that at all/much.

my sense is money is what matters. if your idea is well we can't offer money but we did slap some fresh paint on the practice facilities, i don't think they would actually see that before signing, and you're kidding yourself that's a priority and deciding factor. now, it might fold into "reputation," as a secondary thing, like, "don't sign there, they are cheap and the practice setup looks like it hasn't been painted since it was built," but most players are going to run with will i play and fit and how much is the offer.

and i personally think "effective" reputation management would include an overall picture. "they are more serious now, paying what people deserve AND even put a fresh can of paint on the practice setup. it's like a whole new team." but they aren't going to accept paint in lieu of payroll. and as i argued above, i am not sure they actually usually SEE such things until it's signed and delivered. in which case your efforts would be somewhere between ineffective and subsumed into some general sense of whether we are getting our crap together. which to me would lead with staffing choices and player payroll. are we trying or not.

to me this is lipstick on a pig like making a big deal out of sprucing concessions.

 

i'm not saying don't do it, i'm saying it shouldn't be a priority and it's not a fix at all except in grander efforts focused on sports and pay.

it also strikes me as somewhere between cheap and procrastinating. like some people just spruce up their desk on a slow or no-concentration day so they can say tell the boss they did something with their day if asked. it's busy work when we need basic core effort. the product sucks. work on the product. this is like no one wants our used-to-be biggest selling but tepid tasting dessert anymore, and the response is re-design the package. and i am sure some graphic design firm will take your money to do it. and you can say you didn't sit around while it struggled. you were busy. you tried.

that's not going to fool anyone very long. you need a new cupcake or candy people want to actually buy. that will initially cost money, before it makes you money and saves the business.

like, we can improve the package or rebrand our fig newton of a team, or we can shoot for some mix of a cupcake or cookie people want or at least an organic snack that seeks to be effective in some niche.

 

last question, are the supposedly forthcoming resources a new shirt sponsor and when does MD Anderson run out?

it would be typical dynamo if the "resources" are OPM when the current tax driven sponsorship runs out and we can monetize the shirt. as opposed to the owner invests.

 

response: the better coaching candidates bailed and rodriguez would rather play in the weaker saudi league for more money. whatever we're doing behind the scenes isn't selling. a line isn't forming out front of the HQ.

 

far be it from me to point out that incremental facilities sprucing isn't at odds with an asset flipper theory. it's what they do. patch up holes, new coat of paint, some fixture upgrades justifiable on ROI. but they won't try and make it incredible if the profit from an upgrade is uncertain. they're not out to win house of the year or be shown in architectural digest. they want it to be more attractive in resale. that's flipper mentality. our owner is a real estate guy.

worth noting that "resources" that are a gambling sponsor is "OPM." as in the owner doesn't actually pitch in the resources. Other People's Money. not a darned thing would have changed.

 

the lack of personnel movement to date and getting outbid by a saudi team would suggest that the sports gambling deal is not just the gravy but the steak itself to pay for our transfer window. if the owner was bringing resources then we snag a good GM or coach and maybe rodriguez from existing funds then accelerate with the deal. this feels like maybe he didn't put in a dime to move us from broke yet, so every move was low rent so far, but if you wait we'll spend some gambling cash. but that took so long to finalize we had to start hiring staff and bringing players back.

i don't consider OPM "resources." "resources" to me is what brener did in winter 2016 AND THEN SOME.

at some point we have to start spending and bringing in better staff and players than the next team, period. not around the edges on the last couple people, which amounts to the difference between SJ and HD. like more of the roster.