Cherundolo has been pretty outspoken about the spending restrictions and roster spot handicaps in MLS. And he got fined for complaining about the Snowbowl in Salt Lake earlier this year.
the biggest red flag for southgate imo is- however miserable the gregg-wars have been over the last 6 years- the waistcoat/vest wars could get downright brutal.
so many interesting threads going on: 1. McBride really did call out the USSF for an integrity problem (despite his past support for Berhalter) based on Marsch statements. Where there is smoke is there fire? ... so is there an integrity problem with Crocker and Cone etc.? Who knows. Where does this lead us with Crocker concerns? If this is the case - what kind of boat rocking does the next manager need to be able to do? https://beyondthe90.substack.com/p/jesse-marsch-showing-us-soccer-what https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/40158711/jesse-marsch-unhappy-us-soccer-usa-coach-canada 2. Southgate, Pochettino ... whoever ... I still go with Crocker's statement (till his integrity is gone) that the previous coach - or the next coach - needs to get the potential from the players that the US has .... and in WC2026 we still should have a reasonable crop of players - based on total aggregate salary (it is a decent way to evaluate relatively speaking the quality of the player on the pitch) ... 3. Berhalter did a good job with bringing in dual nationals and with developing a positive vibe among the team ... so whoever the next gaffer is - gets to start there .... so if we consider: Dolo Nancy Southgate Curtin Pochettino Renard Mourinho (can't stand him but have to put it out there since I have been told only great club coaches make the best international coaches) Sanchez which of the above - (starting with current culture/vibe ... have the best chance to achieve the teams potential) can get the best out of the pool we have? I don't give a damn about style frankly or tika taka (for the US we have years to go with USSF till we have a complete shift to achieve the technical skills for that - even though that would be great) .... our best results have been in the counter attack mode .... just sayin. all other things being equal - decision makers are going to go with that of which they understand and are comfortable (less risk in the known versus the unknown) .... perhaps Crocker really wants Southgate because (a) he knows him and what he is likely to do/be, (b) thinks he can maximize available US talent (not get grouped in the WC), (c) is reasonable with tactical decisions and (d) will continue to support the building process with this crop of players .... it may be vanilla for sure and boring but being tactically set up properly, defending well, and having the intrinsic respect of the players (US players will likely respect Southgate more professionally than Berhalter) may be just the ticket for the next 24 months. I think Pochettino has bigger ambitions, it may be too soon for Dolo/Curtin, and Nancy seems focused elsewhere .... then again as others have pointed out Renard I will add another one - the US team needs to be on the road in Europe and South America for a bunch of friendlies the next 18 months .. I could see Southgate driving this. will be interesting to see what Crocker actually achieves here .... I could get behind Southgate. Maybe even he wants to join the Colonies. We serve our beer cold and our eggs fully cooked.
I don't think Pochettino would be a good choice. There are other Premier League coaches that I think are much better. They are under team contract. My list would include Marco Silva at Fulham, Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace, Andoni Areola at Bournemouth and Unai Emery at Aston Villa. I tend to watch teams with Americans on them (which accounts for 3 of the 4 on this list), but these coaches to me are getting their teams to perform above their talent. Their teams have an identity and play cohesively. None of the four are available. My point is Pochettino compares unfavorably to them. In Italy I watched a lot of Juve and Milan this past season. I was much more impressed by Pioli than Allegri. Imo Pioli would be a superb choice.
I'll throw out one other thought. We should be thinking in terms of a 6 year hire. I know 2026 is at home and is what from a PR perspective we have been banging the drums about. And I know second cycles often dont go as well. But in terms of the talent pool coming together I am much more excited about what kind of team we'll have in 2030. If we make the right hire now we could build toward that rather than starting over after 2026. If we make a brilliant hire and he guides us to the quarters in 2026 and gets out of Dodge, that would be a great outcome. But it would be much better if we got someone who is at least open to taking us through a second cycle. It should be discussed during the interview process and carry a certain amount of weight.
Anyone expecting Pochettino to come in and use this group of players in an attacking setup is setting themselves up for disappointment... on two fronts, frankly, because what does he care about the US coaching job? They should be ********ing ashamed of themselves. But of course many clowns that "support" the US will eat that up, and parrot those same lines. Pathetic.
I'm incredibly whelmed by Southgate but if I can play devils advocate for a second, I think this summer was his worst tournament for them I think we're judging England's Qatar performance semi harshly since their worst game of the tournament came against us. I thought they were fairly entertaining to watch in their other 4 games. They definitely were sluggish in the group stage of Euro 2020 though did improve leaps and bounds when the knockout stages hit. Russia is kinda hard to judge since their best performances largely came against overmatched teams. If you are someone who subscribes to the belief that NT managers should never stay longer than 4 years because things go stale, that could be what happened here
I don't know. That's my honest response. I don't know if I should give Southgate some credit too, or the players all the credit, because I think what available evidence we have is that: #1 England started making it farther in tournaments, and generally speaking, played well when under pressure most of the time. #2 The horrendous history with penalties, which is just comically awful going back decades and decades, generations upon generations was upended at WC '18, and at Euro '24, even if they lost Euro '21 on PK's. They won 2 of 3 Penalties with Southgate, a guy who has his own heart crushing history with them. They also were pretty good in extra time, winning 2 of 3 matches that were decided in extra time pre-penatlies, putting them at 4-2 in knockout games that were tied at the end of regulation. So the one area I'm inclined to give him credit, w/o necessarily being justified in doing so, is in mentality building, because yeah, they played like crap, and played rarely beyond the abilities of their opponents but they were also 4-2 in those "squeaky bum time" matches in the knockout rounds which is just super, super not England at all....So maybe he helped there. Otoh, I like to point to that England crew from 2017: the U20s and U17's that won both youth world cups, and then at the UEFA level, U16, U19 and U21, I believe they won 2 of the 3 UEFA championships as well. Not all of these guys are from that cohort at all, but some of them are, and it definitely feels like 2017 was a moment for them, the same way I felt that our U17/U20 run 1999-2007 kind of sneak previewed our WC performance 2002-2014, their 2017 youth performances were so damn good, so damn good, I wonder if the mentality was built there maybe? Was Southgate coaching one of those teams? I think he might have been. So I might give him some credit there...But it's all speculative. This team was and is monstrously talented compared to previous teams. It's not a complete team, but in terms of attacking talent it is filthy rich, and they NEVER play like it, which is just astonishing to me. Why aren't they using this talent? Its where they are richest, use it. But he just wouldn't do it, and it was hard for people to ever aggressively ----- about the performances because tournament after tournament, yeah the performances mostly sucked, but the results were consistently deep and more impressive than prior teams....but for me? Again, I just think this is 1000% a team winning in spite of their coach, not because of them...but the mentality? Maybe that might be something he should get credit for, because there is no question they handled pressure far better than prior England's. Even this crap tournament performance still featured them pulling games totally out of their --- against Slovakia, Switzerland and the Netherlands, when they were looking like the more likely to lose in 2 of 3, and 99% likely to lose in a 3rd...that they pulled that crap out? Yeah, maybe some of that is him inculcating self-belief, but then who's to blame for them being beyond vastly inferior sides over and over and over again?
This is all a performance vs results thing. There is no arguing the scoreboard, the questions are though: who did they ever beat? and secondly...why were they so consistently underwhelming playing meh squads and never, ever capable of beating top 5 squads in knockouts. Each time they faced a team inside the top 10 in the knockouts the past 4 tournaments, they were immediately escorted to the door. The woeful, underwhelming performances that found a way through against Ukraine's, and Colombia's, and Senegal's and Switzerland's, and Slovakia's and Sweden's of the world prove to be no where near good enough against Croatia's, Italy's, France's, and Spain's. That's telling to me. Credit for the depth of the runs, but nuance is needed, which I think quite well explains why the runs happened in the first place and why they ended where they did.
I was referring to WC '22 just reversed the tourney's (trying to juggle 4 tournament result sets, can lead to that happening lol).
Probably the worst hire Crocker could make is Southgate (other than Viera). So I’m now expecting it. Gads, what it takes to be a fan of this program.
I disagree with this on Pochettino. He’s got a track record at multiple stops of really maximizing the talent of his team and bringing through young players. He started his coaching career coming into an Espanyol team facing relegation and finished the season comfortably mid table and followed it up the next year and that’s generally where he was with a team the doesn’t spend much (with a high finish of 8). During his time at the club no coach in La Liga took more points off Pep’s Barcelona. Then he goes to Southampton and in his first full season they have their highest league finish in ten years and their highest point total in 20 years. All while he’s bringing through a ton of young players who got sold off. Then he goes to Tottenham where he has way more success than anyone in some time at the club and more than his successors. Finishes as high as second and makes the Champions League final. Both huge deals for Tottenham based on their historical standard and their spending power compared to other big 6 club. And once again he brings through a ton of young players. His time included their highest ever point total for Tottenham since the start of the EPL and their highest league position in 54 years. His players also very much formed the nucleus of the England team that went to the 2018 World Cup semifinal. The next stop is probably his worse coaching stop at PSG. But I’d note that a number of coaches have not met expectations there as of late, including Ancelotti a couple years prior to Pochettino. And Pochettino‘s system is very much based on pressing and he had a front three in Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe who refused to do so but who he also couldn’t bench. The club was not really built to be successful and was more just a collection of big names. And his record wasn’t any worse than recent managers who have come through. And the most recent stop is Chelsea where he took a team that was basically entirely brand new, under an ownership group that’s had six coaches in two years and improved the team from 12th to 6th despite all that (and then was let go because of disagreements between him and ownership). So you have a record of someone who has 1) done it at multiple stops, 2) has at three of his jobs taken a team and punched above their weight compared to historical performance, and 3) has a consistent record of bringing through and playing young players. PSG was its own mess, but he’s got three stops where he’s got a team to play above the level it has before and another stop at Chelsea where he did fairly well considering the circumstances. The sitting EPL coach that’s of interest to me is Frank but I don’t know that he’d leave and I don’t think any of the four coaches you mentioned would either (Glasner even turned down interest from Bayern this offseason). Pochettino there’s a good chance he’s not interested and even if he were he probably prefers England. But he’d be a great hire if we can get him.
That would be Cherundolo who is the sort of coach who could in theory grow with the pool. A big name foreign manager probably won’t want to stay longer than two years.
Let's steal Ange Postecoglou from Spurs. I don't think he'd do worse than most (and perhaps better than several), and at the very least, our press conferences would be elite.
No to Southgate, please, for reasons many have mentioned, primarily that England looked like less than the sum of their parts which is the problem we're trying to get away from right now.
Pochettino deserves the nickname "Loco" more than Bielsa. He has a very weird set of beliefs mixed with superstitions, emanations, energies, presences. Very rational players may find issues with that, and a few in our team strike me as quite rational types. Even Klopp is a couple of steps from becoming a preacher. As a scientist, I must admit most of the very smart people I've come across in my life were more than a bit weird. Perhaps it comes with the territory.
Good coaches can be very weird people. Jim Harbaugh is one of the oddest public figures I’ve seen but awesome football coach. Similarly Belicheck has always struck as a pretty weird guy, but best NFL coach ever. I’m more surprised by the good coaches who seem like normal dudes.
IMO the Southgate hesitancy from the fan base is recency bias. I don’t really want Southgate, but if that’s the hire I’m ok with it.
Pochettino would be a very good hire. The only two clubs he didn't excel at were PSG and Chelsea, which are both complete sh*t shows. It's not like he did bad at either, in particular at Chelsea where he was clearly turning that team around for the better and would've been really hitting his momentum this upcoming year had he been retained.
Anthony Hudson laid it out on a platter in terms of what kind of coach this group needs right now, and it was clear it is not BFF Berhalter II. FFS, what is Crocker doing?
It has to take in consideration what coach is willing to come, too. And, unlike what many seem to think, not everybody is for sale.
I’ll support whoever the coach is because I want to see the team succeed, but Southgate doesn’t seem like he’s the best fit amongst the potential options in my opinion.
From January 1 to the end of the season, Chelsea were 4th in the Premier League with 32 points from 17 games. It is insane that Chelsea let him go. He'd be an A+ hire for the US.