It's funny listening to the England fans. Basically replace Southgate with Gregg and it's all the same chatter. Same complaints almost verbatim.
I’m torn on him because his results have been excellent, but I don’t think he did a good job this tournament despite making the finals (though I didn’t think this in past tournaments).
We need a manager that has demonstrated he can get more with less talent. That’s not Southgate. England have elite talent.
I just think England has a massively superior roster. To me though they are the same coach essentially with the same short comings
The thing about a market is that prices are relative. I agree that $6M for him feels like a lot, but I also don't have a clear idea of who would be the next best choice if we turn him down, or whether their salary requirements would be a better value. And then, it's sports so we get into this desperation mode where everyone will crucify the USSF folks if they don't overpay and then have to settle. You know the reaction if they turn down Renard at 6M and hire Cherundolo at 1.5, so.... IDK.
I see the parallel... although the difference in talent is bordering on the ridiculous. As a matter of fact, England's squad puts nearly every NT roster to shame IMO when it comes to talent. Why on Earth were they considered underdogs against Spain? Why did they play like one? I guess each team is under-performing WRT their level of talent... so bringing in Southgate seems like a mistake to me. We need a coach that gets value added to the sum of the parts rather than diminishing returns.
I never said compared to club jobs .. I said it was a reasonable gig for a good foreign coach - I stand by that. It is not a five year 7 day a week commitment like Man City or Liverpool or Barcelona .... it will require travel (likely first class which makes a big difference) to observe players in their club habitat ... but other than that it should not be soul crushing as some club jobs can be (they deserve the money for the massive grind that is) .... the point is they will be coaching a good crop of younger players with potential (who for the most part have a good attitude), in the host country which helps the coach, and (assumably) decent pay. All in all - a good gig for 24 months for a decent international pedigree coach.
No they most definitely do not, they just play much, much better as a team. Far better. But the results England has generated have disguised how thoroughly they've underperformed. England was a heavy favorite to win the tournament before the tournament, their odds were if memory serves around +340 last spring while Spain was +600 to +700 even into late June. The odds reversed because Spain put together a pattern of outstanding play throughout the tournament, smashing Croatia, beating Germany, coming back to more or less thrash France after falling behind early, beating Italy w/their own medicine. It was a comprehensive tour of past major tournament champions (2006 WC and '21 Euro champs, 2014 WC champs, 2018 WC champs) and a Finalist (2018 WC), all strong teams. England needed a miracle to beat freaking Slovakia, and late game heroics to beat middling Swiss and Dutch teams, after being meh in the group stage at best. The bookmakers watched and reversed the odds for the final, I've just about never seen that happen before, but it was that bad this tournament, England was so ----, so ----, that they literally reversed the odds. In the space of about two weeks.
what do we think the ceiling of this team under a better coach is? An X% chance of winning a QF against a traditional powerhouse. 40? That might be high
Spain plays tika taka so well and forces the opponents to simply work like crazy to get the ball back .... I can't remember which interview it was (translated) - but the essence was (I think it was Rodri) he who controls the ball controls the game. Individually England certainly has more highly paid players - but as a team Spain just controlled most of the match.
It doesn't matter if you said it, that's the competition. We're going to get a lot of buzz, but only a percent the rumors are really interested. We're easy to create buzz.
It’s also that 1) he’s been publicly very pro Berhalter up until he was fired, and 2) he’s been very careful in terms of what he’s been willing to say about anything about USSF. But that’s why the precise quote matters whatever it is.
When we have the exact words he said, you can trust him if you want. That would be my inclination as well. Sooo.... what did he actually say? Was it posted in here and I missed it?
No, but the number of foreign coaches who coach foreign squads isn't that large. There's guys like Renard and Bento and so on, but the sample is much smaller than people want to admit. And a lot of the ones interested are interested it as time off, or come to later in their career, where maybe their ideas are a bit dated. There's folks, but let's not pretend the US job is massively in demand. It's a weird job in the overall context, and Americans want to believe it's amazing, but by merely by a national team job, it's massively down the list for most coaches.
Benitez did great at Newcastle and would be a good fit for our talent pool. He's the type of guy who will get us wins against top 10 teams even though we don't have top 10 talent pool. We should absolutely be looking into making him a serious offer if he is interested.