He's answering questions at a presser after a dispiriting loss and having both to comprehend the nuance of a question and give an answer in what must be his 3rd or 4th language. Since I speak English, a bit of Italian and even a smaller amount of Spanish, I'm sure people watching me respond to questions in Italian would consider me an imbecile with the personality of a wet rag.
All those people who shat on Ben Olsen should be sending him apologetic cards now. Same owners, same culture, same management, LESS money on players, and he got this team into the playoffs five out of eight season. And they haven't even sniffed the playoffs since he left. Say what you want about the tactics but his teams were at least as talentless as these teams and they never quit. Ever.
He actually had an entertaining team in Houston for a minute there, when their ownership briefly gave him the players would could do that. I've always pushed back on people saying coaches should be fired for 'accountability.' Firing coaches is so often how badly run clubs evade accountability.
Garber owning that the Apple deal was not a good idea, stating that if we knew then, what we know ... Anyone objective could have seen this coming. https://awfulannouncing.com/mls/don-garber-season-pass-misstep-apple-deal.html
He's not saying Apple was bad, he's saying the separate paywall was a bad idea. “In light of what we know today, we would do the same deal other than the subscription,”
In the actual interview he also said he wants Apple to be more transparent with viewership numbers. I would like more numbers too, but I think its good that it doesnt happen soon because Apple ({and the league) will get pummeled by nattering nabobs reinforcing the 4th (5th?) class status of pro soccer in the US.
The numbers I assume are absolutely terrible. I don’t think Garber truly wants the world to know this.
Listened to the Total Soccer pod discussing Donadel's firing and what a mess Montreal is under the Saputos. They then talked about coaches on the hot seat in MLS - spoiler, they didn't mention Weiler although the pod was made before the USOC matches. That got me pondering Matt Doyle's take that Weiler "should" be on the hot seat. While I'm not advocating firing Weiler because that would mean just another reset and a roster composed of picks from three coaches and three CSOs -- assuming you are in Levien's head (fearful space I know, but clearly a great deal of empty space in "how to run a soccer club" area) what should you do? I have two options, neither of which I believe would occur, but it's fun to speculate so here goes. 1. Jim Curtin -- just hand him a blank check, tell him to write in the numbers and the duration and made him coach and CSO and have his contract provide that whoever he recommends as a player, Levien simply signs the check for the transfer and otherwise dummies up. 2. Wilfried Nancy -- same terms as Curtin, although I don't believe Nancy wants to return to the States and I'm partly convinced that his success was directly linked to having Darlington Nagbe on the pitch.
My role for Levien in those situations is like a sperm donor -- he merely jizzes money to the CSO and otherwise STFU. Good point about Nancy and Montreal.
I think we all knew the paywalling 90%(?) of the games was solidly awful and that was the dead obvious flaw in the plan. You can question the wisdom of a fully streaming only option too, but the paywall dead on arrival.
Roche reskeeted another emo posting by the good Doctor referring to the "3 stars" on the crest. Maybe DCU has been deducted one star for continuously sucking for the past decade.
Not exaggerating here. Among all the DC United coaches and GMs and technical directors going back to Arena and Payne, Sorgut is my least favorite. This hybrid LinkedIn/Hallmark lingo ("in moments like these") is subhuman--we have an AI general manager. And still trading on the team's "history"? F you!
The latest edition of "Soccerwise" is just devastating in their critique of DCU. Doyle does a really funny breakdown of how ChatGPT wrote Sogut's emo post after the Philly game. From Trump to Levien to Sogut, I think DC has become a black hole that is sucking all of the stupidity in the universe into one spot.
Just listened. It's right here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...-wiebe-gass-talk/id1752138229?i=1000762443617 They also note that they're hearing that the locker room hates Weiler, probably because he's been throwing his own players under the bus with casual regularity. Usually the coach losing the locker room would be a cause for pearl clutching. But in this case, there's barely anybody in the locker room that I want to see on this team next season.
Coach and the GOOD DOCTOR will be gone this year, so get ready for another “two to three year” rebuild!