Next manager after Poch

Richards?

No. He signed a homegrown deal with Dallas. Before he played a game for them they sent him on a training stint to Bayern Munich (which they did with a lot of their young players). At the time, FCD and Bayern were player development partners. Bayern liked him so much that they took him in on loan with Bayern II. After that loan was over, a transfer was agreed.

Folks with good memories will remember that Justin Che did a similar loan from the Dallas academy to Bayern II. It just didn't work out the same way.

As the two were development partners (financial terms of that agreement never disclosed), Bayern had "right of first refusal" on Dallas academy players. The result of that arrangement was that the transfer fee for Richards was pretty minimal. Dallas got a nice, hefty check when Richards was sold, though.

People with really good memories will remember that Richards was actually rejected by the Dallas academy when he first tried out there from Alabama. So he went down to the Houston affiliate of the Dallas Texans. They crushed it, winning a USSF DA national title. After that, he tried out again...............and Dallas brought him in. They also brought Chris Cappis up to Dallas from that team. The head coach of that Texans team? Eric Quill, the current FC Dallas coach.

But anyway, I joined the discussion late and don't know what it has to do with Pochettino.

One thing I really liked about Pochettino is that he DIDN'T just assume Euro players were superior to MLS (or Mexico)-based players. He really evaluated MLS players and many of his evaluations were SPOT ON. Look at the guys that are real Pochettino inclusions. Alex Freeman was Pochettino. MLS players BECOME the Euro players. Would it surprise anybody if another group of the MLS players from this 2026 World Cup roster are in Europe at this time next year? Arfsten, Berhalter, and friends? No. Not at all. Who's another player that got called up for a debut under Poch? Oh, poor Agyemang. Pochettino calls him up to January 2025 camp, he surges, gets a move to Europe, and starts scoring there too. I have a feeling that Agyemang was making the roster if healthy.

As an evaluator of talent, Pochettino does seem to have an eye. And he's shown it every one of his coaching stops.

 

The facts are;
3 wins in a WC, first time ever happened
Clinched the group stage with a game to play, first time ever happened
11 goals scored in a WC. Most ever
Everything else you want to call "facts" are opinions.
We shit the bed the last game. That's my opinion and everyone else's too. But I'm not throwing out the rest of the tournament because of that debacle. If people are going to do that, that's a choice.
Calling Paraguay, (who beat Germany and lost to Spain 1-0), Australia, Turkey, and Bosnia "sisters of the poor" just shows how delusional you are.
You'll never be happy because your expectations are nuts. That's my opinion, not a fact. See, facts are provable, anything not provable is an opinion.
Guess you need to prepare to be miserable and "justifiably" angry for the foreseeable future because I'm guessing the team will never meet your expectations. Sounds like a horrible existence. But go for it if that's what makes you feel better.

 

What this points out is you could care less about the play of the game. The only thing you care about is where we end up ranked at the end of the tournament. Why even bother watching any of the games if all you care about is the final result?
You'd be happier with 4, 1-0 wins, with 3 shots and 1 on goal with that goal coming in the 88th minute while playing defense in our final third for most of those wins and the loss to Turkey. And you'd call that improvement. Good lord.

 

That's a bigger worry for me. I don't think it's that hard to pick a decent national team coach every few years. But making long-term changes to the development system takes a real vision and a commitment to push on it day after day, and it's not clear to me that the Fed has that.

 

There's absolutely tons of evidence to indicate it, but you are on your yearly rant where you spout decades old information, then everyone corrects you, and then you ignore them, and keep spouting the same things.

Can't wait until next year.

 

LOL. I guess ignorance is bliss for you. Other FACTS:

- This World Cup had 48 teams, so it is almost impossible to compare against prior eras
- All three teams we beat finished in qualifying in spots that would not have qualified them for prior World Cups
- Because of this, we did not beat any teams that would have even made the World Cup in prior iterations, except for maybe Australia who would have had to win an intercontinental playoff (you can quibble with this, and I’m sure you will in your oh so desperate and pathetic attempt to make this World Cup “run” more than it is — but I’m going strictly my the math of where those teams finished in qualifying and how many spots their confederations had before)
- The first team that beat us also had to get through in a playoff and wouldn’t have if there were 32 teams
- Our squad value is within 30% of Belgium. In contrast, our squad is 2x to 5x more valuable than the teams we beat


With those above facts, it is impossible to successfully argue that this World Cup was anything more than meh because of our performance. We didn’t beat any teams remotely as talented as ours, our victories came against a weakened and diluted field, and we lost to the first team we played that would have definitely even made past World Cups.

Sorry if you can’t see that. Understanding facts doesn’t make me miserable. I’m not miserable about the US’s performance. I just know we can do better.

 

It's not impossible. Lots of people disagree.

I'm not surprised that your argument here revolved around transfer fees. I don't think I've ever seen much from you in terms of posting here that isn't about how the market is essentially infalliable.

The problem is that even your argument here ... which is essentially that Paraguay, Australia and Bosnia suck and that we're very close to Belgium because we're within 30% ... it's completely contingent upon misunderstanding the curve of market value and transfermarkt's weaknesses.

We can go into them, but market prices are exponential in nature; as the scarcity rises, the prices go through the roof. Elliott Anderson just sold for about 4x Weston McKennie's TM value; he's nowhere near 4x as valuable on the field as Weston.

Likewise, TM doesn't really even look at markets outside the top European clubs; in terms of player value, anyone playing outside there is almost always undervalued.

The result is you acting like beating Paraguay and Australia were beating the weak sisters of the poor.

But Paraguay beat Brazil and Argentina in WCQ and beat Germany in the actual World Cup. They barely lost to France. They didn't give up more than 2 goals all WCQ or in the WC; they didn't lose by more than 1 to anyone but us across the two competitions.

I'm sorry, but no, transfermarkt doesn't trump that record at all. Watch the games. See the actual players. Your logic is faulty; you think Cabo Verde is terrible and that everyone sucked against them because "transfermarkt."

Where I do agree with you is that Belgium was beatable. They are a more talented team than us, but that's not why they won. We played poorly; we were clearly off our game from the start. I personally think the Trump stuff affected them but to each their own.

But the rest of your argument fails to convince anyone who understands soccer or basic market economics.

 

Would have to agree. The team's performances under Poch against the elo top-20 and Canada merely underlines this. With a team that is the 17th most valuable one would reasonably expect better.

 

Its a tough one.
The facts are correct. We didn't beat anyone in the top 25 of the FIFA rankings and then lost badly to a team in the top 10 of the FIFA rankings.

So we beat the teams we were supposed to beat and lost to a team we were supposed to lose to.

I can take joy from the nature of the victories over Paraguay and Australia. Those aren't chump cupcakes. We sliced and diced our way thru Paraguay. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Paraguay, as we'd later learn, wasn't chopped liver defensively.

It was a helluva lot of fun until the Belgium game. [A helluva lot of fun until we heard about the political interference with the Balogun red card.]

If you can't take take joy from the first four games of the event, then why even be a fan?????

When we look at the data against the "best teams in the World," it hasn't been great no matter who the coach is.

Let's take a look at our results against the top 3 teams in South America, and not even worry about Europe for now.

We've played Argentina 5 times since 2000 and have won none of those games.
We've played Brazil 12 times since 2000 and have won none of those games.
We've played Colombia 11 times since 2000 and have won one of those games.

So that's...........let's see.............1 win out of 28 games against the top three teams in South America since 2000.

Yes, we wish Pochettino would have done better against the "good teams" he faced. We've had ocassional results against good teams that matter since 2000. [2002 World Cup against Portugal, 2009 Confederations Cup against Spain, etc.] Those are the big anomolies.

The question is after a game like the one against Belgium is whether one thinks another coach would have done better. And which coach are you able to hire that will deliver it. I don't know. But the gap between the nations on that day was stark. Surprisingly stark. It wasn't one or two players that cost us that game. The whole squad played poorly.

This is a program that's lost 4 out of our last 6 games to Panama. And that includes a WCQer, the Gold Cup, Nations League, and Copa America. Under different coaches, by the way. And here we are talking about results against top 20 teams.

 

My summary: we beat average/mediocre teams at an expanded WC, and then shite the bed at the first true test. I call that a failure. Time to move on from Poch.

 

The facts are Paraguay lost to France 1-0, not Spain.

 

I always find it interesting that fans here seem to value upsets so signficantly but do not value not getting upset at all.

If you are upset we did not generate upsets that are, by definition less than likely to happen, you should also value not getting upset.

Winning the group was far from guaranteed. Even those that listed us as favorites to do so had us at a less than 50% likelihood. But that is now written off as something anyone could do or was guaranteed.

 

I agree that we did not do anything special. We beat no one good and reached our well established ceiling under Poch like we did with previous managers.

Poch did make the team more fun to watch at times though. He reached our ceiling with more flare, so I am fine with keeping him or someone similar. No coach will overcome the talent issue that defines our ceiling, so it may as well be fun to watch.

 

I want to say they met my minimum expectations but I didn’t expect such a complete meltdown in the round of 16. For me it kind of canceled out the shiny feeling of six points after two games in the group.

 

Your definition of good, then, is what?

It is simply that only a Top 10 team is "good"?

What makes a team good?

We have an ever-moving target that is only established after we lose; we have an every moving target that does not align with the words used.

Losing 4-1 is an embarrassment. Beating a team who beat Germany and put a scare into France 4-1 is meaningless.

If we had beaten Belgium, they would have been described as old and slow and overrated. Certainly not a team that put a scare into Spain.

--------------------------------

This isn't that hard.

Coming into the World Cup, this group was considered slightly below average in quality, but a large part of that was the US being a subpar Pot 1 team. It was an average group -- no big time opponent but also deep.

It was not as difficult to get out of as some prior groups, for sure. But also, unlike prior groups, we required zero help -- no last minutes goals, no danger going into the last game, no other big upset to carry us over. We didn't even need luck inside the game.

Were we stylistically lucky? Perhaps -- our risk taking style of play certainly matches up with with teams whose strength is defense, and our three wins were those.

But Paraguay beat Turkiye, who everyone hyped, Germany and played France 1-0. Australia beat Turkiye, and went to pens with an Egypt team who was up 2-0 against Argentina.

None of these are bad teams. People want to portray them as such to make our World Cup looks worse.

We did shit the bed against Belgium. Unlike others, I don't think that was merely talent. But the positioning of who we beat as "not good" is completely belied by actual, real world games.

 

Overall, I gotta say I agree with gogorath. There is no reason to downplay the wins we had against Paraguay, Oz and BH... Each of these teams had significant runs to qualify (and in the WC) and we played some of the most attractive attacking soccer in US WC history to beat them. We scored more goals than ever before and won the group w/ an entire game to play. Those are significant achievements. Regarding our opponents... it doesn't make much sense to me to dismiss their recent form. They were legit WC teams and we beat them w/ relative gusto. That being said... the way we completely imploded against Belgium takes a lot of luster off the tournament overall. I am completely convinced that the public perception of futility in a sports situation adversely effects the players. There was already a lot of noise going into that game that the US struggle against top Euro sides and I think that's at least a major reason why they choked so bad. They beat themselves mentally before the game even started. And a performance like that will make it even more difficult to pry that monkey off their backs. I have seen this kind of negative reinforcement rear it's ugly head for 50+ years for my local sports teams (Chargers, Padres). I worry that the US has gotten to a point of momentum w/ this embarrassing loss that will make it downright difficult to overcome. Most of the time a sports team mired in this kind of negative mental cloud requires the addition of one or more VERY special players to will the monkey off their backs. Every time the Chargers or Padres appear to be taking the steps necessary to exorcise their demons I invariably become Charlie Brown and somehow expect Lucy to hold onto the football this time. And literally every time she ends up pulling the ball when I am striding to kick. Curses are not actually real but the perception that they are can have very adverse effects on a team's performance. The same happens from the opposite perspective. When a team finally gets over the hump then it is that much easier to win again in the near future. You do that enough in a period of time and the players and fans expect to win and lo and behold.... they actually do more often that not.

 

Oh no, I got the wrong Top3 team.

 

ELO of the opponents of the last three wins the US had at the World Cup: 1550, 1709, 1809. This runs all the way back to 2010, so it took us four World Cup cycles to accomplish. We scored a total of 4 goals in those three wins and won them all by a single goal.

ELO ratings of the three opponents this cycle: 1622, 1834, 1839. We scored 8 total goals in these games and won them all by 2+ goals in less than one month.

Feel however you want, but we beat better teams than we have in recent cycles, beat more of them, and beat them by more goals.

You can repeat the thing about qualification again, but that doesn't say much about their overall strength at the time of this tournament. The teams we beat this cycle aren't weaker than the teams we beat in the past. (With the exception of 2002, but that run is the exception.)

 

The same people who said they were worried about us going out in the group stage are the same people saying we failed because we lost to the #9 ranked team in the World in the Round of 16.

Poch got the US to the same place that Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia, Japan, Mexico, etc. etc. got to. Only 8 teams can get further.

Is our talent pool one of a top 16 nation or a top 8 nation? And people need to be honest with themselves here.

I'm not even sure our talent pool is top 16, but here we are.

Flo Balogun was the 4th leading scorer in Ligue 1. I like him as our starter. Sure do.

The leading scorer in Ligue 1 the last two seasons has never been capped on any youth or senior level for France.
The second leading scorer in France is Argentine. He has one cap for the Argentine national team. He played 4 minutes against Angola.
The third leading scorer in France is from England. He has one cap for the England national team. He played 12 minutes against Iceland.

The 5th and 6th leading scorers in Ligue 1 this year behind Balogun are both French. Neither have been capped by France.

There's a gap. Its real.

Are we going to live in a delusion and pretend it doesn't exist?

I'm not. I think the Round of 16 is right for our talent pool. Do I wish our team pulled off an upset and got further? Of course I do. But it would be called an upset for a reason. I'm very happy with how the US team performed prior to that. We won our first two games against non-cupcakes in such a way that the 3rd game didn't matter. Then our team battled their hearts out against Bosnia despite being down a man to bring that win home. That was a great performance. Pochettino gets credit for both. For the great work prior to the Belgium game and then then the disappointment against Belgium. To ignore the good is................................bizarre.

 

Hate to break it to a lot of you but going forward due to Nations League we're most likely never going to be in a position to play a higher ranked team again until the Copa, if we're invited or it's played here, and the next World Cup. So if you only use how we play against teams ranked higher than us you've got a loooooong time to wait. Good luck. Sounds like a crazy way to determine whether or not we're getting better.
That's what happens when you're ranked 16th out of 200 plus countries and none of those ranked higher than you, besides Mexico, are in your Confederation.
If the WC goes to 64 teams and 16 pots we'll most likely get a seed and not have any kind of chance to play someone ranked higher than us until the 2nd knock out round like what just happened.
So again, only using the results of maybe 3 to 4 games every 4 years to determine whether or not we are improving or getting worse just seems outright dumb.

We absolutely shit the bed against Belgium. But if you're judging the entire WC based off 1 game (that the GD President meddled with ) that's a deliberate choice.

 

The US have been a Rnd16 team for the last 25 years. Nice performances against mid teams did not move the needle.

 

Well, Canada and Mexico are 3W0D0L against the US under Poch. NL should a decent of barometer of progress for this team.

 

Who are we moving onto that’s an upgrade on Pochettino?

 

The connection is someone said Poch will not be a recruiter

we desperately need a recruiter.

Nothing indicates anything is going to change re mls lack of production of players for the NT.

Hell even our mls prospects need to be recruited. I’m all for using the first 2 years of NL, GC after a WC for U-23’s. If a guy declines a call up, next man up.

 

More accurately, in the six World Cups before this one:

• We made the World Cup 83% of the time. CHECK.
• We were a Round of 16 team 67% of the time. We were not a Round of 16 Team 100% of the time. CHECK.
• We won our group a mere 17% of the time. CHECK.
• We won 25% of our matches and won .83 matches per World Cup. In this World Cup, we won 3 matches and 60% of our matches.
• We won exactly 1 match across six World Cups by more than 1 goal - 5% of our matches. Again, we won 3 matches by more than 1 goal and 60% of our matches.

As someone noted, our wins here were as good or better than many of our World Cup wins.

No one is saying this is some massive step forward, but acting as if nothing is different or as if it is regression is just moving the goalposts.

I don't think rehiring Poch is some slam dunk and I can understand someone not wanting to. I can understand being disappointed in this World Cup.

But the framing of the World Cup up to Belgium as beating up on the Sisters of the Poor and of no level of accomplishment is incorrect. Germany would love to have had so little problem with Paraguay.