Southgate was super involved on the youth development side and the program as a whole and was overseeing youth development and coaching at all levels of the FA (which is not typical for an English coach). And him and Crocker were the ones (along with Dan Ashworth) who revamped the development system in the first place (and he was the U21 coach before he was the senior team coach). This side of him probably fits well with the more holistic vision of the job USSF has.
Just watched a replay of Nancy's 5-1 beat down of Cherundolo's LAFC (@ LA). I hadn't seen Columbus play in a while. Maybe we should have a poll: Nancy or Cherundolo? to decide on who the best MLS manager would be for USMNT. My vote would be Nancy but I'm not sure how his player selection would have held up without Columbus' front office.
I've heard the Crocker/Southgate path with their kiddos. I'm not sure if he was a part of the guys that made this current group or the group before the group, or the older group. I know it was the '17's that collected an absolute crap ton of silverware, and their recent U20's in the '23 U20 WC were outstanding too. Just scrolling through, their U17's made a bunch of runs in the first half of the previous decade (2 titles, and a semifinal run between '10 and '14, then finished 2nd in '17, gone since), at the U19 level, they had semifinal runs in '10, '12 and '16 before winning it all in '17, at the U21 level they are current champs and had one other run last decade (semifinals in '17). I tend to view the 2017 collection of silverware impressive because they did it regionally, and then won both tournaments at the world level as well (U17 and U20 WC's) something they'd never even come close to doing before let alone done. So yes, I'm aware of that stuff, I just don't know what it means, in terms of him as a HC, because the evidence there, is just monumentally suspicious. Like the Bills making a gazillion runs to the super bowl 35 years ago, but what did it really mean, when at the same time every single other good team in the NFL was in the NFC: The giants, the eagles, the niners, the redskins, and the cowboys, the only afc team remotely close to any of them was the bills, and they always got their heads kicked in once they actually played a power. Well, same thing with England, all these runs were achieved stomping over the same teams the previous lesser Englands also stomped, it's just those England's ran into Germany's, Argentina's, Portugal's, and Italy's much sooner in the brackets and so got smashed earlier. Its pretty telling to me that their big QF wins have been against Sweden, Ukraine and Switzerland....like, isn't that exactly who'd we want in a theoretical QF instead of: Germany, Spain, England, France, Brazil, Argentina or Portugal? That's the proof right there. Their QF foes were all weak sides, the one time it wasn't, France, boom, good night Irene. That's pretty much the run in a nutshell. Even the SF Opponents they beat when they did actually make finals were Denmark, at home, via a dubious penalty, and the Dutch, via a last second goal before Extra Time, and not the Dutch of 1998, or 2010 or 2014, but rather the meh Dutch who have struggled to qualify and had never made a semi in a decade, until this path opened up to them, just as it had for England.
Luis de la Fuente has a UEFA U19 Championship, a UEFA U21 Championship, and an Olympic silver medal. It's one thing to be super involved. It's another to actually be winning things at the youth level. But really, if USSF vision of the head coaching position gets them Gregg and then Southgate, something is desperately wrong with that vision.
Yeah, I'm trying to pin down exactly what parts of "England DNA" and the rest of their development planning were done by whom -- Southgate, Crocker, both together, or somebody else. Some articles make it sound like GS was The Guy. But he left the FA in 2012 then came back as the U-21 coach from 2013. Did he (and/or) Crocker build it from scratch? I'd like to know. But anyway holding the FA's talent development against Senior National Team Coach Gareth Southgate is kind of a funny way to make a case, in his particular instance.
Counterpoint is that England has apparently done a pretty good job of integrating the TD role and the HC role over time, even if by accident.
I don’t know precisely who played which role but it was definitely a combination of Ashworth, Crocker, and Southgate. There have been a bunch of articles over the years but I don’t remember the specifics. And during Crocker’s first tenure at Southampton the development and who they brought up through the first team was fairly impressive.
To be clear Southgate is not who I’d pick. Of foreign candidates I’m the most interested in Potter, Pochettino, and Thomas Frank (who may all just not be interested). And the domestically Cherundolo and Nancy.
I do not have access to the full article you posted, but it starts with Crocker having a plan and a process. Could it be the writer's complaint as more to do with those that derailed Crocker's plan and then basically rewrote the criteria to justify the rehiring of Berhalter? Earnie Stewart's comments from his exit interview are a mixed bag and may provide some insight. He indicates he doesn't want to hinder, but thinks there's not much to change. He's stated elsewhere where he was overwhelm by his bottom-up approach; now, that's he's exposed every day to current professional players and the European media, has he significantly changed his post WC assessment? All modern sports team in a media-rich environments expose their coaches and players to intense scrutiny; aided widely available analytics and video. If Earnie couldn't complete a staff review within a week of WC, then I question if any of 'data-driven' KPIs have any value for the modern era. https://www.si.com/soccer/2023/02/20/earnie-stewart-exit-interview-usmnt-sporting-director-world-cup
Coming into Arsenal Rice was seen as more of a 6 and he has played in both roles. I simply don’t rate him as high as his transfer fee but I think he can do both jobs, as did Arteta: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5439408/2024/04/30/declan-rice-arsenal-tactics-interview/#
No, it's mostly targeted at the slide that's been posted before that does not have results under key coaching responsibilities, at least directly. Which is valid, though I'd suspect that the coach's actual performance review has those things while a publicly available slide does not.
He was definitely seen as more of a 6 coming in but they ultimately have played him more as an 8 and he’s been very good there (with Jorginho or Partey behind him). And Arsenal has said they see the 8 as his position long term and want to bring in a 6 given neither of those players are on the younger side.
FTR, I also don't know what you mean there? Like? I'm not complaining about the talent. I'm suggesting this is the most talented England ever. Is it because of him, or because of a golden generation or golden generations, I have no idea, but I'm certainly not criticizing him for the team having a golden generation, I'm suggesting that w/the best England pool and roster ever, he under achieved, and essentially beat no one, and while that's an opinion, I can back it up w/the routes, and the teams he was beaten by. As for crediting him for the pool existing in the first place. I don't know man. Haven't we been saying for years that clubs develop players, not youth teams, which is why we had to get away from Bradenton #1, and #2 isn't it super super coach centric analysis to give him credit for them having talent in the first place? Certainly seems like it. It would also be fair to suggest that I'm too coach centric in my analysis for explaining why they failed instead of putting it on the players (similar to the Berhalter argument), but I'd point to the fact just like w/Berhalter (most of the time, not always), that these guys looked far better with Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Dortmund, Man City etc than under Southgate. But regardless, with a Southgate, if Crocker wanted to run the show with Southgate as his lietenant like Stewart and McBride, I'd be fine w/that. I am just no impressed with Southgate the coach. I don't think he elevated the performance of players at all during his term, other than perhaps, and this is highly speculative, but perhaps in ET/Penalties, because its hard to ignore that they were 2-1 w/penalties and 2-1 with ET wins pre-penalties, when historically this team tended to immediately crap its pants the second anyone even mentioned penalties, heck even the guys who caused the one L in their penalties under Southgate were key penalty takers who succeeded after Euro '21, so I'll suggest that he was helpful at least w/mentality.
The US and England have had some problems in common, largely due to the disproportionate influence England/the UK have had on our Anglo soccer culture. There are also significant differences. Basically England have always had the raw capacity to be regular semi-finalists. They’ve just been operating under poor methods for 60ish years. That included how their culture defines what the proper way to play is, how they developed players, and the tactics their managers used. Due to the Bosman ruling and globalization their insular island culture started to get exposed to other ideas on how to play the game. A lot of the ManU players talk about the influence Cantona had on them. Then you have Arsenal under Wagner. Then there was Mourinho. That process continues at the highest levels to today where Pep and Klopp and the best talent are drawn to their league. It went from 60% English to 35% (closer to 30% of actual minutes played), 80% British to 40%. That means that high level senior players are exposed to modern methods along with youth players from the elite environments that subscribe to them. The grassroots and lower levels are still subject to cultural inertia, but it is changing. I see the “England DNA” thing as just codifying those global influences into the FA coaching staff’s methods. That means that this change was kind of just picking some low hanging fruit. They have Pep and his Barca boys to come in and revamp City’s academy and now get Sancho, Foden, and Palmer to win them some youth titles by just adapting their game model to the general school of thought those guys learned. Our challenges are different. We’ve also been moving away from British cultural influences at the highest levels. Claudio Reyna as the Youth TD did this in 2010. The Belgian consultants. Our former heavily Low Countries influenced TD and head coach. However our challenges are more systematic, and the things that need to change are harder to accomplish than just landing in the vicinity of the right tactical model at one organization.
The US got grouped out of group that included Bolivia and Panama. That's not any kind of a systemic issue. The trend in the modern game is to separate these roles so as to maximize the performance in each.
https://www.goal.com/en-us/lists/ch...smnt-gregg-berhalter-exit/blt7852d44d141cfee3 SIAP but it’s being reported that Pochettino is now a top target. Not a lot of details though. Pochettino would be a great hire, imo.
It's a question of whether the 2022 team should utilize the tools available to a 2022 European sporting director. Earnie may now be in position to answer if his past strategy for USMNT was one that should have taken. Unknown to Earnie when he started, the US would field a team of Dortmund, Ajax, PSG, and Arsenal Academy players and would have playing experience against the top players. He recommended against a reset, but now has experience of Americans that ventured off to Europe with less of a plan of how to become a successful European soccer player than their peers (physical attributes, culture, how to develop and work one's way up, etc). In US sports, most college coaches fail in the pro league as it's more about fine-tuning players to perform at their highest level versus similar high-level opponents. Lot's of college coaching techniques are insufficient and not honed against the competition; wasting a professional time. Since it is a significant hurdle for most to adopt, it's easy to see how these coaches may perceive all is well when they do not realize it's their limitations. Collecting the wrong data doesn't help identify issues. If it did, wouldn't we know more about how they distinguish players' performance from a large number of poor playing conditions? Against teams that scout us, but we don't prep similarly? Travel is a huge factor and modern PEDs of blood doping and Addrell, which are ways to enhance one's recovery and field alertness. Did any team travel more frequently and spend more time in transit then the US?
LAFC was missing 2 critical starting pieces; Tillman who is their version of the Nagbe tight spaces possessor while also making 3 tackles per match. Missing was also Oliveria who is their relentless wide attacker! Looking forward to the rematch!
Visit all those alternative universes and tell us what happened. I'm sure there are universes where Panama won, universes where the USMNT won and universes where all the players on both sides died of heart attacks and the game was cancelled.
I don't think he matches our pool well. He has had the luxuary of perhaps the most talented pool since Ramsey. And his style of conservative patience and building through the wings feels too much like what this pool has already tried and had trouble with. Plus, I would be suspicious that Croker has gone with the familiar and safe (again) as opposed to really looking for the best fit for the US. Southgate can't be called a disaster, but it would indicate laziness in the search to me.