It's not disingenuous; it's an exaggeration meant to convey a point. Nowhere did I truly think you were stumping for a high school coach. Stats are useless without context. Winning percentage and goals per game are stats. But the expected stats for England are a lot different than for a club coach of a mid to low table team. Heck, look at Berhalter's US winning percentage -- 62% in the first run, 50% in the second and about 2 goals per game. Context is merely recognizing that those winning percentages are not really comparable to a club coach's, and perhaps not even Southgate's, if you don't adjust for level of competition and level of talent. I get the general idea that you are whelmed by someone you need to provide context for, but there's no evidence there's a clear context-less coach out there that is interested. And those that do have bigger numbers, like Southgate, or a very successful MLS coach like Cherundolo, the context should downgrade the value of the bigger numbers.
I'm fine with Pellegrino but he's not exactly what I was thinking when they said winner with a passion for development.
he managed youth teams at nurnberg and stutgart. his head jobs have been with selling clubs getting their best players poached by bigger teams ever year. i dont know if you see development in there or not, though. in spite of that he built hoffenheim into europe league squad- what development are you looking for? "winner" is tricky. was southgate a winner before taking the england job? is he now? how does the "phil jackson" thing apply? how much of a winner is zidane walking into madrid? is xavi not a winner walking into barca after all the talent flew to south miami? matarazzo has improved not great teams. im not sure how thats not a pretty perfect description of exactly what we need.
yeah, i got that timeline completely wrong. but from feb 2018 (before earnie was hired): my support for matarazzo kicked in early 2021 (from june 11) for context, thats when gregg was drawing el salvador and insisting on arriola over weah, which is where my confidence in him began eroding. funny enough, i made the same supporting argument for him as i do for dolo now (july 2018) which im sure is suprising since i was an irrational hater since day 1
I think therein lies the issue. I don’t know what the other European options are but there’s a lot to like about Matarazzo even if he’s not as big a name as some of the other names that have been thrown around.
In terms of going to an NT from club, I think winning hardware, even with superior talent(including promotion), means more to me than getting better results than expected but failing to win. If I'm a club team, it doesn't matter as much. The reason is that I've got enough time to buy specific players and train and instill the players with my beliefs. The one thing most teams who overachieve have in common is a real familiarity that's bred through day to day interactions. Taking Gregg for example he took a bad situation in Columbus and got to an MLS Cup. However, he never overachieved with the US. He met expectations for the most part with the results not always inspiring confidence. And I also think that winning hardware, like you mentioned, would allow you to step into a NT position and have better success. Often times it means you have adapted, overcome injury, rotated squads heavily, and understand how to manage different scenarios. I think those traits from winning transition better than those from getting better than expected results. We aren't targeting to win 26, that would be a pipe dream BUT the players and coaches should be. They should go out with the intention of winning every game. A manager who has won, I believe, inspires more confidence than one who hasn't. All that saying Matarazzo may be a tremendous hire. Just underwhelmed that we have to qualify his managerial career to get a conclusion that he is a good hire. But if everyone else turned them down, his floor is lower than some of the other names mentioned. Just think it should be better.
But that's still 40 percent. I would feel a lot better if Matarazzo would be closer to Potter than Big Sam. If his teams had won more, I'd feel better than his resume currently stands. I'd like a manager that says he did a great job, not he did a great job for the circumstances. But it appears I'm in the deep minority there lol. I prefer winning than winning more than your supposed to, I think those traits translate to more success at your next stop. JMO.
This is where we have to be realistic about who we can actually hire. Matarazzo has found decent success at a high level, while Dolo has thrived at a lower level. Any coach we get is going to have some obvious flaws or question marks. A Mourinho or Van gaal has won big trophies, but their best days are behind them and their heart might not be in it. We apparently went for Klopp and Pochettino, who were about the highest profile managers who we’d have even a slim chance of taking the job. Even an Eddie Howe or Unai Emery wouldn’t even entertain the thought of taking the job, let alone Pep. International soccer and the U.S. job just don’t attract the top managers.
Your opinion is way better than mine at this point. I have zero idea what we need in a new manager. I know I don't want another manager who will come in and consistently pick the wrong players and play a way that just does not suit our pool.
It has been reported that Bielsa wanted the US job before Berhalter was rehired. Given how Bielsa has elevated Uruguay that would have been a great fit.
Winning percentage without any context is meaningless. You always have to consider winning percentage relative to the quality of players you have at your disposal. Likewise, you have to consider the quality of the opponents faced.
Yeah the coaches with a history of winning trophies are ones we can’t really get (Pep, Klopp, Zidane, Ancelotti, etc). Someone like Southgate is also as successful as you can be as an international coach without winning a trophy but I very much prefer Matarrazo to him.
This was never reported. Biesla was also hired by Uruguay before Crocker was hired so the timing never lined up for him to even be part of the process. He was considered by Mexico but he had some very large salary demands we would have struggled to match if he had been interested. There were some rumors that were never really sourced that he was interested in the US job around when Klinsmann was let go but hard to know as Gulati just went straight to Arena.
That’s beautiful, but Bielsa hadn’t done much at all in the past decade prior to taking the Uruguay job, and there’s plenty of reason to wonder whether he’d fit as well with American culture and the English language as he does with Uruguay. He left Marseille after a little more than a year, spent two days at lazio, and 6 months at Lille. He was at Leeds for like 3.5 years but found most of his success in the championship, had one good year in the EPL, then saw things fall apart and left a mess for Marsch. It’s easy to act like he should’ve been hired last year, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a ton of flaws and question marks as well.
I read the Mexican board occasionally and I’ve seen a few of their fans post that he was asking for a lot from them because he didn’t really want to be far from Argentina. No idea if it’s true but it’s believable.
Me neither. Hearing Matarazzo talk about playing soccer in the states in the 90s and how he understands how far we’ve come makes me remember that I really do prefer an American if he’s a good coach. And I think he’s a good coach.
In a perfect world? My ideal hire is Sergio Conceicao or someone with that type of a resume. That's a serial winner, who is currently out of a job and seeking a short term thing to get a big 5 job. To me thats the candidates we should be seeking. I understand, where you're coming from, but winning is a habit and takes winning habits. You don't get those overachieving, you get them by winning. I'd take someone winning 5 years at MLS over a euro Journeyman who is an overachiever. So context can be important for clubs, but also you can make mistakes when you add context to a resume for a NT coach, sometimes let it sit as it looks. I dont think you have to get Pep to get better than Matarazzo. If you swung for higher and they all said no, that's all you can do. But if the leaks were right it sounded as if some of the bigger managers were interested. But those could be lies. So who knows.
Nah that's the good thing about these boards. We can come and talk soccer, even if we disagree. I also think it's important to have someone willing to play the way the team shows is best, whether that's bunkers press, counter press , tiki taka, whatever. Just as long as it's better.