News: Matt Crocker steps down as Sporting Director with immediate effect

Where have you gone, Grant Wahl (Joe Dimaggio)?

Miss that guy when stories need cracking, like this one

 

Do you have an article or resource where I can learn more about this?

 

A much bigger deal than the performance of the USWNT has been the turn around of the youth teams, both of which sucked so bad between 2011-2019 that I bet hard against the women at the WWC in 2023, betting that the generalized decline in performance at all levels of then the '19 WWC abberation was likely a sign of heavy decline within the program alongside significant improvement around the world and especially in Europe.

U17's: After failing to qualify repeatedly, and sucking if they did qualify throughout the previous decade pre-Covid, his U17's on the womens side took 3rd place in '24, and the made the knockouts before getting beat by the runner ups Dutch squad in penalties 7-6. Not bad at all, especially if you take a peak at how this team had done before Crocker arrived (total --- for essentially 13 or 14 years straight).

U20's: After sucking for the bulk of the previous decade as well, if not quite as badly as the U17's, his U20's finished in third place in the '24 tournament. Suffice it to say, those are 3 performances stronger in succession at the women's youth level than anything we've seen since 2008.

So yeah, for the haters out there, I get it, but I think the evidence from his work in England, with the women, and with our youth teams suggests that he is a significant loss to the program. His biggest mistake was made w/the most important team in relevance for all of us, and had downstream effects which related to the worst USMNT's performances since Couva and Klinsmann, but I think the bulk of the evidence suggests it was basically 1 mistake, and when you consider the rest, plus his CV, that dramatically outweighs that mistake in defining his work here and the overall quality of his ability.

I will say, the handling of the Marsch situation, however we may feel about Marsch, was ridiculous, and not acceptable.

 

Then how did he get a job in such a pro feminist country as Saudi Arabia?

 

ESPN or Athletic had an article on his resignation and frustrations. On the Saudi money that’s how they handle things unless they just kill you

 

Or maybe he will have something once he has had more than a couple of hours to do reporting.

 

Is it weird? Yes.

Do I think we'll find out that the Saudi Arabia opportunity is more money than anything he could possibly have conceived of? Yes.

Matt Crocker's base salary with the USSF is listed at ~$650k. There are a bunch of bonuses and incentives listed that can take it higher.

..........................what do you think he'll get paid in Saudi Arabia??????? I don't know. I'll go on record and saying its a helluva lot more.

 

Per Goff, “It was all part of a job paying him about $1 million a year, the third-highest at the federation behind Pochettino ($6 million) and Hayes ($1.5 million). Safe to say, the Saudis will pay him much more than $1 million.”

Yes, SA could have said, “Here’s the deal, take it or leave it: $10 million/year if you drop the US immediately. That number drops $1 million/week until it expires in ten weeks. Think it over.”

But that’s fanciful, not how offers are made, and although posters seem to think Crocker’s completed his job and is no longer needed by US Soccer, why couldn’t he have moved on after the World Cup? What justifies the suddenness, the rush?

 

That's a kinda ********ed up thing to just WAG on unless you have some actual info to that effect

 

If we're all presuming Poch is gone post World Cup, this might actually be a good thing he's leaving now. If he left after The World Cup, you gotta find a replacement, and then you gotta give that replacement time to find a new coach, which quite possibly means an interim coach this fall.

Ideally the next guy in charge will actually have a full cycle now.

That whole awkward 6 months of interim head coaches before rehiring Berhalter thing came about because we didn't have a sporting director when Qatar ended. If The USSF doesn't drag their feet on this, maybe we'll have one before or shortly after this World Cup ends.

 

The timing seemed very much like a red flag when I first read the headlines, until I visited this thread and saw several of you point out that this could be a good thing if we know we need to replace our head coach after the World Cup. Gives us a 2 month head start to find a new GM, who can then immediately hire a new coach if we part ways with Poch (or vice versa) after the World Cup.

As for Crocker – on the womens side, I give him a lot of credit for the success hiring Emma Hayes.

On the mens side, jury is still very out. He re-hired Gregg Berhalter only to fire him a year later after a disastrous Copa America at home. He hired a big name coach in Poch, who has subsequently posted a 13-2-9 record, with failures at home in the Nations League, multiple blowout losses at home, at times questionable call-ups and poor positional squad selection, and generally inconsistent results.

 

BTW, Landon Donovan had an unabashedly Landon Donovan blunt take on Crocker's departure: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0JanglaDPSA . I LOL'd during portions and reading the comments.

 

Good points, and I must add one more thing. I can only speak for myself, but I am glad we did not hire Jesse Marcsch (for reasons I won't get into), and at the time choosing Poch was a no-brainer. THAT SAID, Crocker and the Fed did do Marsch dirty, if reports are to be believed.

Jesse was about to accept the Leicester City job, but turned it down last minute because the Fed said they were going to hire him - only for them to promptly announce Poch, leaving Marsch in the lurch.

I still contend that JM was not the man for the US job, but the point is that it is poor form from Crocker.

 

Marsch said it himself. Also loosing all the talented kids is n him. Good riddance.

 

I urge people to watch that. It’s short. But if you don’t…Landon isn’t a Crocker fan. At all.

What is this referring to? Banks and Vargas I guess?

 

And Esmir, and even Guti. And nobody in from abroad.

 

Crocker didnt lose Gutierrez. Poch did, because he doesn’t rate the player. (I don’t either.)

Esmir is nowhere near good enough to be a regular with our Nats now and may never be. He went for the playing time and I’m happy for him.

Blaming Crocker for those two seems pretty extreme.

 

Guti is questionable, but Esmir could have made our WC team, would have been the top player on the OT, and might end up the top player of his generation.

 

Yeah, well, I sure hope we don't see USSF wait until November to replace Crocker, and then have the replacement take until next May to hire someone permanently. Alas, even with the head start I'll bet that's the timeline.

 

Perhaps but he seemed very dialed in to where he went. It's like some of the dual Mexican kids and our Italian American loss. Some kids grow wanting to play where their dad and family are from and no coach is going to convince them to switch. I just wish they'd be stand up guys and not play for our youth teams if they feel that way.

 

I don't blame Crocker at all for losing a dual-national like Esmir or Gutierrez.

Crocker had a high level strategic position overseeing ALL national teams. USMNT, USWNT, USYNTs, Futsal, Beach Soccer, CP teams, etc. etc. etc.

He's not getting into the nitty gritty of a couple of dual-nationals.

Pochettino evaluated Gutierrez and picked others. People with good memories will remember Gutierrez was on the Nations League roster in 2025. He was sitting on the bench against Panama. One wonders if Poch would have played him, and permanently cap-tied him, if we were up 3-0.

A coach has to make those choices. What does Crocker have to do with it???

Esmir wanted to play for Bosnia in the same way Araujo wanted to play for Mexico. We weren't first choice. We don't need to behave like a guy that was rejected by the Prom Queen. Sometimes nobody in the federation or coaching staff does anything wrong, and a player just wants to play for somebody else.

Esmir Bajraktarevic sends Bosnia and Herzegovina to World Cup
“The decision (to play for Bosnia) for me was very easy,” Esmir Bajraktarevic said in an article in the The Blazing Musket in October of 2024. “It was something I knew I wanted to do since I was little. It was just a process that took a while. I’m very happy I made it. There’s no feeling like representing your country.”

The Story of Esmir Bajraktarevic, A Rising Star In American Soccer
“[Being Bosnian is] obviously a huge part of who I am,” Esmir said. “My name is Esmir Bajraktarevic, so it's who I am. When people ask me where I'm from, I say, obviously I'm Bosnian. So it's something that's a huge part of me. I grew up in a Bosnian household. I speak Bosnian to my parents every day. It's a huge part of who I am. It's my blood, it's my roots.

 

Im going to sound like a hater.

The only thing Matt did was to hiring Emma. I would say Emma could have been hired with or without Matt just for the fact that they are paying 1.6 million. The USWNT already had the players.

USYNT has improved. I don't know whether USYNT's improvement is due to Matt or to player development. 2011-2019 don't have the amount of talent that they have now. Let's be honest, the coaches aren't great. They have questionable call-ups.

Most of the money that goes to USSF comes from the USMNT. (Outside of donations). Matt (who many people have told me feels like he's not invested) hired another person who isn't invested either (Poch), and hasn't been great. Matt left before fingers started to be pointed at him
.

 

question- how important was crocker to hiring emma hayes? or to put it another way, was her hiring in any way dependent on crocker?

we have the best womens national team "program" in the world- thats inarguable- but even more pressing than other nations "catching up" we were underperforming. you all can argue entitlement and arrogance all you want (leaving me out of it), but we were not winning top competitions commensurate with our pool/ability.

my point is hiring the obvious best coach in the womens game was a complete no-brainer, and even in making her the highest paid womens coach she barely makes more than gregg did. calling her hiring a masterstroke is laughable (imagine how insightful and brilliant the guy who hires pep will be, finding that diamond in the rough!), but more importantly how, exactly, did crocker tip the scale for us? his soothing accent and a proper cup of tea?

and what is the case that we should miss this guy at all if you take that off his pros list? or even mitigate it?

the mens team overpaid (relatively) for a top manager thirty years ago (and if you want to keep the comparisons to the mens side that one was at least a top intl manager). it doesnt even matter how big a shitstorm you through firing bradley for klinsmann was, rehiring and firing gregg was way worse. the cost in both dollars and time is inexcusable- and saying crocker was just doing what the board wanted isnt the extenuating factor some of you seem to think it is; id just as soon our people do the job theyre hired to do.

so again, how do i feel about "losing" matt crocker? good.

 

...............................Matt Crocker isn't leaving so fingers won't be pointed at him.

We'll find out how much Saudi Arabia is paying him to turn his back on the USSF. And everyone on this board will probably say to themselves "Yeah, I get it. I might have taken that money too."

 

Henry Bushnell has a little more on this in the Athletic: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/71...er-us-soccer-sporting-director-exit-world-cup

Three sources suggested to The Athletic that the Saudis had offered to pay him multiple times more than he was making at U.S. Soccer. (He received $658,787 in base compensation and $179,100 in bonuses and incentives in the tax year ending March 31, 2025.)

What seems clear is that he was not pushed out. He was respected and well-liked in U.S. Soccer sporting circles. Even across the youth soccer landscape, he’d been working to earn trust.

It also says that other than hiring Emma Hayes and Mauricio Pochettino, Crocker didn't have significant responsibilities related to the USMNT or USWNT ("After hiring their coaches, Crocker’s influence on the men’s and women’s senior national teams...was relatively minor.") Instead his main responsibilities have been working "to implement processes and philosophies among youth national team coaches and within U.S. Soccer departments such as talent identification and coaching education."