Very clear upgrade, unlike most of the more likely candidates linked so far, IMO. Hopefully this is all true.
I do too at this moment because what he's already doing is what I think they will both soon be doing. Meaning that added experience could be key.
i wanted to hire pareja as gm/interim manager with matarazzo as the target before we brought in earnie and gregg (the first time) so yeah, its been a while
Matarazzo was an assistant coach at Hoffenheim with no adult head coaching experience when Earnie and Gregg were hired the first time, so that would have been some pretty impressive foresight.
Plus this brings New Jersey representation back into the picture, which is always grounding for us as a soccer nation.
I'd be pretty happy with Matarazzo. I might prefer Renard ever so slightly on the "realistic" list only because I tend to rate the club-to-NT transition as fairly difficult. But his track record in club soccer is more consistent than Renard's in NT soccer, so it's pretty much a wash for me. Yep, that's why I wasn't putting a lot of thought into the possibility. But I do note he said that both parties agreed the timing wasn't right last time -- which made sense because he had just started at Hoffenheim. He notably avoided any temptation to do a Jesse Marsch, burn-the-bridges comment on the search that ended up with Gregg v. 2.
And if our national coach is from Columbia, that might increase awareness that it's an Ivy League school and not a South American country. Just kidding. Nothing will ever get folks to spell Colombia correctly.
I mean it's a perfectly meh hire. I dont mean that in a bad way though. I do highly rate having someone who has won something, not just an overachiever. I know we all love the underdog story, taking a little team with not a lot and getting mid table. But there's something different about having actually won something. 33 percent win percentage, overachiever, +3 net GD for his entire manager career. I do like that he did garner promotion, that's something solid. With the term high profile coaches interested, to settle here, is meh. Could be better, could be a lot worse. Definitely above Vieira for me, on the same level as Dolo and Nancy. Well see if it's true.
I still want BVM or Renard because 2 years isn't enough time to learn International Football if you haven't done it before. Half a cycle is tough. Other than that his record is solid.
So I know you're not 100% serious and I imagine either NT job is a full time job for the money being offered. However, I could totally get behind Emma Hayes switching off every two years -- e.g. men from August 2024 to 2026 (WC) then back to the women for the 2027 WC and 2028 Olympics. We've already seen she can delegate at a distance. Twila Kilgore can do just fine running the WNT day to day until 2026, a job she's already done well for a year, unless she's ready for her own long-term HC job. On the men's side, from 2026-28 we'll have the perfect audition for someone like Cherundolo, Mitrovic, whoever. It would be amazing for succession planning.
The thing given that we want the national team to overachieve relative to his talent level finding a coach with a history of overachieving with limited resources is exactly what we need. Whether that Matarazzo or someone else with a similar track record.
Again Marsch burned the bridges with good cause, Mattz would not have had any cause. Or is Marsch burning the bridges a boredism of why he isn't a good coach for the USA?
Some of the media was treating Rino's not the right time quote (I'm paraphrasing) as meaning he was jilted by US Soccer and didn't even get to the short list with Marsch. I just took it at face value. Pretty obviously a few months into a club rebuild isn't a great time to leave for another job unless it's a dream job.
Not only that, but Matarazzo came up at Hoffenheim and I suspect that they helped him get the Stuttgart job. He had just been hired; to simply ditch them and walk away not only walks from the best opportunity he's ever had, but puts his bosses in the lurch. Which are also the people who really gave him his break and believed him after Stuttgart. It's just a terrible relationship move. Even a year later might engender some resentment, though the apparent pending changes at Hoffenheim give him more of an out.
Kicker says Pellegrino Matarazzo has been offered #USMNT head coach. Bild says offer in and he wants it. Sky says no offer yet, just talks.I ran through where Matarazzo comes from, his tactics, and what he would bring to the U.S. men's national team 👇https://t.co/MiLowfcFbC— Kyle Bonn (@the_bonnfire) August 3, 2024
Nothing against Matarazzo but there are plenty of similar/ more experienced managers if they want to look at guys under contract who didn’t grow up 20 minutes from where Berhalter grew up.
Who are those managers and what evidence do you have they’d leave their current jobs for the USMNT? The specific factors here are 1) he’s American so there’s an interest because of that, and 2) there’s a lot of change at Hoffenheim currently and it seems like they are scaling back on spending. It’s a pretty unique set of circumstances that isn’t really applicable to other sitting top 5 league coaches.
I just disagree unless it means they overachieved and won like Ranieri did. We tried the underdog getting to MLS cup, and it gave us 6 years of perfectly meh soccer, where we did meh, with the exception of Mexico domination, which is always nice. Overachiever is a good thing, but I prefer trophies to we finished 10th. His ability to get Stuttgart promoted is a feather in his cap above candidates like Vieira but doesn't rise above what Nancy has done at Columbus. His .33 win percentage is right around Big Sam and Gregg Berhalter. I'm not saying he isn't better, but the results don't scream "serial winner" or "big names". It's an American with a meh track record. About the same as Gregg, Bob Bradley and JK who is German in terms of CV.
That's like saying yellow-orange to orange-yellow. They're about the same. Gareth better results, but probably won't replicate it without superior talent. Matarazzo better with lower end talent but not winning enough, probably struggles with NT transition. Matarazzo with a slight edge because he has more what if scenarios where he may really over perform. The biggest question is we barely have 2 good enough CBs and he is definitely adding a third. I dont know how that will work out. Though we've seen Southgate at his best already.
Seems like a realistic hire that still checks some boxes a lot of people want to see. Should be able to avoid the “Egg!” type feedback for a while.
If you look at his underlying numbers in his first season at Stuttgart in the Bundesliga they were excellent considering it was a newly promoted team. Overachieving is how the US is going to be successful in the 2026 World Cup. We are going to be at a talent advantage against the top sides so the ideal for a coach is someone who has some experience performing better than expected in those circumstances. I’m not anti Nancy at all but I think Matarazzo is a better choice right now. His track record is significantly better than Bradley and Berhalter when they got the USMNT job. It’s not even comparable. At Hoffenheim he just took a team that was fighting relegation into Europe. Nothing about his track record is meh.