The women look better, and I am glad they are playing with the ball some now. And Hayes hasn't been there long. But results-wise, for this to be a big improvement, they have to win the Gold. They won the bronze in Tokyo, and while they crapped out early in the World Cup, their loss was 5-4 in penalties to a third place Sweden that only lost to Spain, the winner. That loss ain't much worse than 1-0 win over Japan this Olympics. If they win the next two and take Gold, especially over Spain, that's a statement. If they take a bronze, we will look better but results aren't really all that different.
Because people generally don't take massive pay and status cuts to coach a country they have no affiliation with just because Americans think it'd be cool to coach the US in a home World Cup. National Team jobs are like college head coaching jobs. NFL coaches rarely take them unless they've been fired or failed in the NFL -- and that's even with relative close pay! Elite club coaches make $10M+ a year -- I think Simeone made $30M last year. The only top club coaches in international play coach their home country. It's possible, but I don't know why people assume it's even mildly likely someone is really interested.
Prestige is more important to many. Remember Thomas Dooley taking a massive pay cut to play in the WC?
If Matarazzo takes the job, he should see about getting after Crocker to arrange an expanded Gold Cup '25. There should be any number of good teams looking for the Confed Cup type of experience in the USA one year before the WC.
I keep posting variations of this, but here's another one. Current National Team Managers who have won a league title in a top 5 league: France - Deschamps (Marseille) Germany - Nagelsmann (Bayern) Italy - Spalletti (Napoli) Saudi Arabia - Mancini (Inter Milan, Man City) That's 3 of the last 5 World Cup winners, all with managers who hail from the country they're coaching. And then there's Roberto Mancini, who is being paid $27m annually to coach Saudi Arabia (more than Pep, Klopp, Ancelotti, etc.). National Team Managers who have qualified a club for the Champions League in a top 5 league within a decade of being hired: Netherlands - Koeman (Barcelona) Belgium - Tedesco (Schalke) Austria - Rangnick (RB Leipzig) Netherlands and Belgium are both ranked top 10 in the world by both FIFA and Elo. And Rangnick has longstanding ties to Austria (as he had high level executive/coaching roles for Austrian-based Red Bull for a decade prior to coaching Austria). National Team Managers who have coached at least 2 full seasons in a top 5 league and finished in the top half of that league within a decade of being hired: Uruguay - Bielsa (Bilbao, Marseille, Leeds) Portugal - Martinez (Everton) Mexico - Aguirre (Mallorca) Turkey - Montella (Fiorentina, Milan) Uruguay and Portugal are both ranked top 10 in the world by Elo, Aguirre is from Mexico, and Montella's managerial career was on a clear downward trajectory when he was hired by Turkey (having been fired by multiple clubs after 4-6 month stints in La Liga and Serie A and coaching Adana Demirspor in Turkey before he took the national team job). [For transparency, I'll note that Petkovic also finished in the top half of Serie A with Lazio, a little over a decade prior to managing Algeria.] Vieira or Pellegrino would fit into that latter category if either of them were hired. Meaning they would arguably have an equally or more impressive club resume than all but 7-10 national team managers in the world, most of whom are coaching those nations for reasons that likely wouldn't translate to the USMNT. I can understand not being thrilled by those picks if you value international coaching experience more than club experience. But I do not understand being disappointed because their resumes don't match up to the qualifications of managers who basically don't coach national teams like the US.
How many are elite club coaches? The only one you could argue is Bielsa, who is across the river from his home country and whose club success is varied. There are plenty of foreign managers, but guys like Nagelsmann or Pep or Klopp or Simeone rarely dip into international ball, and when they do, it is almost always or always for their home country. @KALM 's post details the matter more clearly.
Matarazzo was approached when he was unemployed and told the USSF that he wanted to stay in the club game. He wasn’t hired by Hoffenheim until after Berhalter’s contract expired.
If you watch how they play, the chances they generate, the goal dangerous reality they represent it is night and day. That's the single biggest thing to me. Even when they aren't putting the ball in the net, like that ugly friendly with I think Costa Rica a few weeks ago, they're still peppering the goal with chances. The attack just looks a billion times better. I am HUGELY disappointed she wasn't hired for the men instead. I think she's probably better than all of the options or nearly all the options that have been mentioned and have a chance of happening (not Klopp for instance, not LVG who I'm hugely skeptical of being interested at all, but would be ecstatic if he was). Thats the big thing to me. It was ridiculous that had a broken down and completely done Rapinoe even made the team, but that's not why they were bad. They just couldn't build an attack AT ALL. They rarely were goal dangerous despite having a plethora of options. It is worth noting that they were also missing Mallory Swanson who as we've been reminded is perhaps the skeleton key to the attack or damn close to it but even when she was healthy, the team was underwhelming.
She's made clear changes to the style, and the choice to actually possess the ball and not just kick and run is an obvious and smart change. Vladko was a terrible coach, in large part because he didn't really believe our players could actually play. And Emma is a better coach. But the offense really isn't clicking all that well, in large part because the attack is still pretty young and the midfield is less creative than people want to think -- people blame Horan but Lavelle is supposed to be the 10 and we're not getting a lot out of her. I expect them to get better, but it's just worth noting the improvement so far has been more aesthetic or subjective than objective. And against Japan, I'd argue the offense didn't really look much better at all -- Japan bunkered and did a great job of frustrating us.
More interesting to me is 7 of the 16 Copa America teams had Argentinian managers. Which says to me that maybe Argentina managers are more willing to take international jobs because it’s harder for them to break into a top 5 league. Which would have pointed to trying to hire someone like Gallardo before he went back to River Plate.
Please remind of their international record again? Every international starts out a club coach but not every good club coach makes a good international coach. We have half a cycle before we host the world cup and in the genius of USSF and BS members we should definitely try someone totally new in the international arena with very little time to warm up to the job or meaningful games. Yup makes total sense.
Sorry, just caught this. Been busy lately with the health stuff. Matarazzo is a pretty typical Bundesliga man in a lot of ways: gegenpressing, attacking on the counter, etc. But he's pretty flexible and he learned a lot about possession play along the way. I think he'd be a good fit. He's demonstrated the ability to work with unheralded players and develop them, and to win with something of a talent deficit against better sides. He doesn't miss too often on his setup. And he handles games well. I'm also intrigued by his preference for the 3-5-2. I've often wondered why Berhalter didn't try it given our talent pool, but I guess he was just wedded to his system and wasn't willing to get outside his comfort zone. I don't think Pellegrino would be quite as reluctant. When he was at VfB, he certainly worked with what he had and didn't try to shove square pegs into round holes.
You think we have the CB depth? At the start of his tenure Berhalter had us leave 3 ATB in possession.
By the way, reading over that post, I'm not sure why I limited that last category to coaches who lasted at least 2 seasons AND finished in the top half of the league. I suppose because that was a feat that both Vieira and Matarazzo both accomplished. But if you just look at coaches that lasted 2 full seasons in a top 5 league in the decade prior to their national team hiring (regardless of how well their clubs did), my list above would look unchanged. If you're curious about current/recent international managers who coached, but did not last 2 full seasons, in a top 5 league in the preceding decade, that list includes: Denmark's Hjulmand (Mainz), Canada's Marsch (Leipzig and Leeds), Georgia's Sagnol (Bordeaux), Algeria's Petkovic (Bordeaux), Scotland's Clarke (West Brom), Norway's Solbakken (Mainz), Albania's Sylvinho (Lyon), and Jamaica's Steve McClaren (Newcastle). All but one or two of those names lasted less than a full season at each club they managed in that time period.
https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/08/german-bundesliga-stats-2023-24/ Last season Hoffenheim were bang average in terms of direct speed (how fast they moved the ball upfield) and passes per sequence. They were solidly below average in the pressing stats. Their backline shape also wasn’t exactly static. They would shift between 4 and 3/5 ATB shapes depending on the phase and in game after a sub.