This looks like another terrible decision by US Soccer. I love McBride and I love his dedication and heart. He was one of our best. Unfortunately, he has never held ANY administrative or managerial role in professional soccer. AT LEAST Berhalter had coached two teams before (fired once, didn't win anything). AT LEAST Stewart had some sort of administrative position for some team he previously played for in the Netherlands. What I want as a General Manager for our National Team is a cerebral proven innovator who knows the game inside and out. Have you seen McBride on ESPN FC? He can barely form sentences. He was picked because he is an American soccer hero and he will not "rock the boat," especially with regard to Stewart, Berhalter and Berhalter. This is all bad news.
He can hire two assistants: one to check the advancing of the youth, the other to deal with the clubs, while he focuses on spreading the culture and the rest of the lingo. The more the merrier. Or, at least, the less chances of drawing the short straw when time to blame comes.
I hate this move because I really dislike the federation and McBride is one of my favorite players and a good guy. Now he has chosen to work for this piece of sh*t corrupted federation. Hopefully he gets to see how dysfunctional it is internally and tells us when he quits.
Did you read the article and job description? Earnie is keeping the responsibilities I think you are putting on McBride. McBride seems to be more of a media, player and club liason than someone with key development or strategic responsibilities. Stewart had a very successful run across three teams as technical director in the Netherlands, and then built a strong development system at the Union.
FWIW, I think GM is probably one of the worst titles the position could have because it already exists for professional teams where one of the prime duties is to build a team through acquisitions (an extremely limited pool). the coach then determines how and when to use each player...who is fist string, second string etc In the context of the national team, there is no building of a team through acquisition. The pool is what it is and the coach can choose who he wants and how he uses each player. (I suppose it is possible that someone else could do that but then they would be the coach).
I think the problem in hiring coaches has been that people don't want to work for a dysfunctional organization that shows no signs of wanting to actually make the necessary deep changes.
so, "club liason" i guess i can see- deals with wolfsburg in getting brooks into camps only to be released before the second match. send him to the world cup draw. keeping earnie from ever having to talk to press again is a win for everyone involved. i think he can do all that. no problem. but again- what does this effect? and is giving earnie more time to focus on what hes been doing so far? is that a positive to anyone? we know he works "under" earnie, no word on above or alongside berhalter. absolutely no mention of his position in relation to youth teams/coaches. is hiring (or suggesting hires as it was worded when earnie was hired) under his purview? and the whole developing culture thing is just a non-sequitor, what is that even supposed to mean? some combo of earnie, gregg and jay pick these rosters, with greggs "system" and "principles". theyre way too mls-reliant (which- before anybody whines about mls-bashing- is only to say it limits our utilizing the entire player pool). theyve gone out of their way to undo everything tabs done with our youth program while any plan going- if there even is one- is yet to be seen (chicago residency being the only tangible requirement). hence the jokes about mcbride being qualified- whos to say who is (or isnt) qualified for a random pile of responsibilites? the entire fed is just a sloppy pile of people doing things with no clear definition beyond the most inbred guys making sure nothing ever changes. so hiring a guy everyone likes and, more importantly, is uniformly respected in world soccer more than anyone else involved isnt in any way a bad thing. i imagine it will be like any other positive resource us soccer has at its disposal: he will be mis- or under-utilized in general. i dont see how hes going to make anything worse.
It’s likely not that it is Chicago. It’s the fact that few want to potentially uproot themselves or a family for what is probably not a really well paying position that probably has a 2 year life span.
Thought I heard on the radio that at least some candidates have given the reason as not wanting to move to Chicago. If they didn't want to work for the organization why are they interviewing? There can be reasons for not wanting to move to Chicago other than not liking Chicago.
Maybe USSF is setting their sights too high for coaches of their youth teams relative to the salaries they are offering. And maybe you don't like the vision set out by Earnie Stewart et al. But, if you're a coach without high-level head coaching experience, wouldn't you want to have "US U-17 head coach" on your resume, even if it's only a 2 year job that doesn't have great pay?
I haven't heard that, but am not disputing its veracity. This is a good question you ask, so I'll ask it as well: if they don't want to work for USSF why would they interview for a job?
completely agree. When I saw this announcement a few thoughts came to mind .... 1. great reputation and example for all players 2. if it does not go well will he tarnish his reputation 3. what are his actual responsibilities and authorities going to be 4. is he even qualified (what is/was his track record as a GM person) 5. does he have the authority to fire Jay certainly as opposed to Klinsmann the troika of Egg, McHead, and Earnie are now firmly joined at the hip one way or the other ..... does not give me a sense that USSF is going to dump Egg. Bummer.
How about we give him a chance before y'all bash how bad a choice this is.....Seriously there are far too many people on BS who seem to know it all.
I think the problem is not Chicago, and while the org probably may be an issue for some, I suspect it's more the job itself in terms of content and career path, and then, of course, pay. Van der Bergh wouldn't move to Chicago but then moved to New England like a week later. I'm willing to bet the Revs are paying significantly better than the USSF and he gets to actually coach the players every day.
i think most of us are saying mcbrides probably a great choice for anything soccer related- but us soccer is a hot freaking mess. the (potential) problem isnt him messing up the fed, its the fed messing him up.
Yes but how about the opposite affect? Perhaps McBride can get the fed to pull their heads out. Likely? Eh probably not but from all accounts he's no dummy.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/club/un...-it-will-take-time-and-money-to-fix-us-soccer Nice interview. I though Brian sounded thoughtful and not completely delusional. Let's hope the McBride in this interview is the same one making decisions. I agree that being able to reach all the talent in the country is a huge obstacle in terms of cost, but that doesn't mean remote cities or rural areas have no talent. Quite the opposite as Brian suggests.
When they created the job of General Manager they said it had the responsibility of hiring and firing the USMNT manager, i.e. Berhalter.
I think that was an astoundingly good interview and analysis of US soccer on Nov 2017. So much better than "talent gap" nonsense we were fed. While his judgment seems sound, you have to wonder how he decided he could walk into the nepotism trap at US Soccer.
His performances on ESPN could be crap but I think that was because he isn't cut out for all the media bull***t. He tried but wasn't very good at being all things to all people.
You may be right. So then, with all the vacancies and apparent inability to fill them and, with the amount of money USSF currently has, they should probably increase the offered salaries, at a minimum, in order to fill those positions with people who have some credibility.