Saw Jones play for my club live many times (and of course watched him for the NT for years). One of the most talented players to ever wear a US shirt, a genius really. I think he's undermined by a tragic flaw, which is, maybe, that he has more heart than good judgement. I don't agree with everything he says, but as an American who's played at a very high level, I hope he can add his voice to chorus of ideas when it comes to soccer in this country. The best thing he can do to make change is succeed and pass on his knowledge.
Opinion based on many observed or experienced facts. A belief based on terms not understood by the belief maker. Sociopath implies antisocial behavior, on a team of 11 for 20 years? Working now in a fully social business? Idiot? Hmmm a thought I am sure you can pull from vast personal experience - first hand, day to day, first person experience.
As a well known forum moron you should understand JJ better than the most. And, of course, whatever personal shit you can direct at me will make me feel better. So thank you in advance.
Quote from the story: Though Jones did stick around for a bit—his last game for the national team was a 1–1 World Cup qualifying tie at Panama in March 2017—he played little under Arena, who says Jones was at the end of his career and had seen his form slip. From Jones’s perspective, he says he would have been fine had he been axed from the team for someone who was better. But he doesn’t feel like his replacements were an upgrade. Jones and Arena started off on the right foot. Jones played 1 of 2 Camp Cupcake matches and then started the 2nd qualifier (Panama away), but he was suspended for the 1st qualifier (Honduras home). After that, Jones suffered an MCL injury on May 6 that knocked him out of action until July 19, and he suffered a "graphic" toe injury that caused him to miss matches in late August right before the two September WCQs. However, Jones was healthy, or at least healthier, and playing in Sept/Oct 2017, but Arena didn't call him in for the decisive final 2 matches.
More Herc: It was just one game! Relax. Everything is fine with US Soccer. https://t.co/oQPNVUoOYy— herculez gomez (@herculezg) February 25, 2020
Sociopaths can sometimes be great athletes. Coaches, not so much. It hasn't helped anyone that the USSF's harshest critics have been maniacs.
Yeah Herc put blame on Arena, Jurgen, and said the players need accountability. Where he is not wrong. As for JJ? His points are not entirely wrong. MLS is starting to make pretty big strides but I think sometimes it's easy to forget that while MLS is going into its 25th year a lot of the growth really didnt start until within the last 10 years and there was a lot of struggling to determine what type of league they wanted to be. It seems like now as expansion is happening you are seeing more of a vision not just from coaches but from organizations. Still ways to go of course but I think it is also fair to mention the improvement going on. As for the whole discussion... at the end of the day anybody not named Christian Pulisic that was involved with the Hex just needs to just accept that they blew it
my concern with the "This is the system we want to play in America." is we're now on the second iteration of changing everything to suit one guy's theories. it's like you write a definitive book, how to make money, acting like such a book could be written, but then completely change its contents every few years without irony. yeah, the money tree has moved. and then claim it's ok to order everyone to do it one way even though your own experience should suggest there are no such guarantees. this is also part of the reason i keep saying pick an actual winner if we're copycats.
i don't buy that jones necessarily should be the beneficiary, but i think we need more of the former players involved in USSF, coaching, NT staff. he can be both right that i don't see why Kenny Arena and be wrong that it should be him instead. i think there was definitely a cliquey thing for decades where we would recycle coaches within MLS before considering abroad. but i think that is changing/has changed, at least at the head level. i think there may be some distortions on assistants. i was glad we got pablo mastroeni in as the assistant in houston. there should be a higher standard of who gets those jobs, less of players walking right into those jobs the year they quit. go coach the academy or USL or something first. i'm glad to see mcbride involved, lots of formers coaching in the USL. maybe if more of that happens the brain trust trickles back to the next generations more, and maybe the idea of what constitutes a good former player as coach rises well above this berhalter malarkey. i get amused people think a bench back with a spotty resume has a bunch to say about where this needs to go. like he needs to rewrite how this is done? pull the other one.
my deal on mcbride is going to be that while "alot to say" sounds nice, what we need is a more results oriented process that pulls the plug when it deserves it. i do want thoughts trickling down from former players, but i also don't want naive missionary ones sending us up blind alleys. alot to say depends on what that is. i am interested whether the elevation of parlow and mcbride and the disappearance of cordeiro and berhalter brother starts to erode the clubbiness and the lack of objective guardrails on this experiment. whether berhalter in fact still has the immunity he appeared to have when he reported to stewart and the key executives were in place. in plain english, whether he would now, justifiably, be on thinner ice and accountable. like they all should be. you get results, you keep your job. you experiment, i test you on getting results. if it doesn't go well, i assume whatever ideas you have don't actually work.
in terms of the loyalty and motivation discussion, I would be more interested how the players play than whether they say the right things. show me on the field you care and will sweat blood for the shirt. saying you will is hollow. my issue with FJ is not speechifying, it's visible loafing and asking for a sub. my only red line is i don't think we should tolerate people pulling a "dest" in the future. you don't come to our camp and say well i may represent holland instead, while here. other than that, you demonstrate dedication with the work and not words. i do think the coach should talk to his players and prospects about his concerns and questions. but this is initial screening. the real question is put up or shut up on the field.
No, Alejandro Bedoya gets no calls because he's about to turn 33 and is not good enough anymore to play on the USMNT.
I am not much of a fan of Herc as a USMNT player, I don't think he really got the talents for it but he does give his efforts when his name was called. But as a soccer analyst/personality, I greatly enjoy listening to what he got to say. I think he and JJ are the few that has the guts to call it like it is and speak some truth.
As for MLS coaching, if they want to vastly improved their league they should put their egos aside and start importing some of the best South American coaches. Look what Tata did with Atlanta in a few years. They have already begun importing more young South American players, which is very good progress; now they need to start importing more South American coaches rather than recycling through mediocre American coaches.
Does anyone have a breakdown of MLS coaches nationalities? I know that Pareja, Schelotto and Savarese are from South America but can't remember if any others are.
It would be interesting to know what the consensus opinions are for the various coaches. There are a few, of course, that have not coached for a significant period of time in MLS but for those that have coached in MLS for at least one season I'd be interested in hearing what people think. for those that haven't been in MLS speculation is ok too but it is still nice to have apples to apples comparisons.
Just various thoughts from having watched a bunch of MLS over the last few years. Americans: Vanney, Schmetzer, Vermes, Bradley and Arena are all pretty clearly quality coaches, even if they all kind of do it a different way. They all (except maybe Vermes and Arena) tend to have a bit of a talent advantage, but I've seen strong skill development, disciplined play and/or good tactical choices from all of them. None of them have anything on their record that screams that they got lucky or are just riding talent. Fraser has been a top assistant and really helped make Colorado pretty good last year, but we'll see with time. Juarez did the same with RSL. Curtin's Union played pretty well last year, but it took tactical changes implemented by the GM to do it ... so ... I'm not ready to say he's any good, really. Olsen has long been passed up and doesn't seem to have developed as a coach. He's holding DC back. Luchi and Ramos are too soon to tell, but I don't think anyone was overly impressed with Luchi beyond playing the kids last year. I don't love Porter. But it's hard to judge him since Savarese seems to have the same issues with Portland that he did, and he hasn't gotten a huge chance with the Crew yet. I think Alonso and Almeyda are the class of the foreign coaches right now. GBS seems to not really have a formula. Delia might be the read deal; too early to tell. DeBoer has been conservatively good for Atlanta ... is that a mediocre job or a good job? Dos Santos inherited a tire fire but has done nothing to improve it which doesn't speak well. Savarese was hyped but I'm not seeing anything special out of Portland, either.