I've said before that I'm not sure what to make of the disgruntled employee complaints at USSF. It's certainly alarming, but I have no idea of any sort of context there. It should be addressed asap, and it seems like that is exactly what Cordeiro is doing. The eye roll on that seems a bit cynical and symptomatic of the popular fan attitude [echo] that USSF can do no right no matter what.
To be honest it reflects a lot of non-profits, where the workload is the same as high paying for-profit companies but the pay and infrastructure are not.
It's probably reflective of a lot of for profit companies, also. That shouldn't minimize the issue, but I'm not going to conclude that USSF is evil, dysfunctional, and corrupt because of it, either.
everyone is entitled to their own opinion but for me, I look at the totality of information and look for trend lines that reveal disparate impact and indicate biases/problems. It’s hard for me not to look at the USSF and a long list of problems that seem to be coming to light more often. They are all consistent with a poorly run organization that’s unstable. Minimal competence and lack of outright corruption aren’t adjectives or objectives that should be acceptable but that seems to be the counter-argument (apart from overly pedantic defenses such as if they‘re not completely dysfunctional, they must therefore be functional or that 90% is good enough in elite competitive sports). finally, the concept that the fan base is one that will accept nothing but perfection from the USSF is completely a straw man. Almost everyone would just like it not to be an insular organization that repeatedly fails to accomplish basic requirements such as hiring coaches, creating a reasonable work culture and communicating with a diverse fan base. Most importantly, having a transparent organization that isn’t overly and secretly biased towards certain constituents a la inside baseball is vitally important.
Some things that I object to there, but first I completely agree that USSF is unstable right now. The question is why.... I lean toward the fact that they are coming off an unspeakable failure on the men's side and dealing with some crazy lawsuits on the women's side that are shaking it's foundations. To boot, the entire organization has completely new personnel and a new and developing organizational chart. Is USSF too insular? I don't know for certain, but it was not too long ago that they gave just about all of their power to an outsider named Juergen Klinsmann. Did they want some crazy anti-establishment person with absolutely no administrative experience to come in and blow up all of the progress they have made in recent years during the last election? Of course not, but that is to be expected, and they are probably right with the "stay the course" philosophy regarding the overall direction we are heading. I will double down on my ynt staff stance. Having someone like Laura Harvey conducting camps and coaching youth events is more than adequate for what most of those programs need. If we don't get U17 and U20 coaches in time for them to prepare for their qualifying, then we have a problem. I give USSF more rope here partly due to the development of their org chart. Lastly, I strongly disagree that our fanbase is "diverse." It's white, male, and pitiful in size. As for the things that you say are most important to you, the "totality of information" suggests that USSF actually kind of knows what they are doing, and "trend lines" show that the infrastructure and culture of the game and our young players are developing at a rapid pace.
there is first cycle JK who was innovative in formations and kicked over rocks all over the place looking for players. then there is second cycle JK whose formation ossified, he became a big club snob and couldn't quite get why a team full of veteran bundesliga players couldn't win. the first cycle was a breath of fresh air, the second cycle was corrupt or at least misguided in its own way. the corrupt fed tossing him out on his ossified ear can be rational even if they then are as corrupt and misguided in their own way. it's like my houston dynamo missed the playoffs and have to make roster moves to change that, but can in fact make the team worse if their horrible GM replaces the sub-playoff core with worse players. the fact jordan will likely screw it up doesn't somehow make the old situation better or justify stasis. it means if decisions aren't fixing things maybe change the boss and not just the workers. klinsmann at the time he was fired had: 4th Gold Cup 4th Copa America lost regional one-off at home lost to Guatemala in qualifying semis lost both games to start hex the problem is not that gulati and klinsmann went away but that ultimately the berhalters and cordeiro aren't really change agents. granted, GB is trying to change the formation and tactics, but his selection reflexes are backwards. he would call nagbe if he could. he is fighting the new generation coming in. and cordeiro to me is the same people who got gulati elected putting in another of their guys. i don't know what changed between cycles but the guy in the second cycle was not mr. find green mr. grab morris from college mr fight for dual nationals. JK had filled holes in the team with dual nationals and innovation first cycle. once he quit looking outside of the box for new players in unusual places, we were in the middle of a lengthy development drought, and as players like jones aged out, the team became swiss cheese. GB is a poor choice because not only is he trying to change how soccer players play ball at an adult age, his instincts are to build primarily upon the same survivors of the swiss cheese team that couldn't win before. you need something behind door #3, not JK rose colored glasses or GB sycophancy. and that's true from the top down to the coaching staff.
You lost me..... About JK and Berhalter, though: I was on board with Klinsmann's hire and gave him the requisite year or so that I believe international managers deserve before starting to judge them. It was not long after that that I began questioning and doubting his ability to manage and coach. It was not long after that that I completely lost faith in him. I am taking that same approach with Berhalter. I was on board with his appointment, and we are now a little over a year into his term. I have started to question some things about how he is developing this team. We'll see where it goes from here.....
to me you really needed an ex player instead of these mbas and economists, and then an end to the clubbiness in the executive offices below him. but that gets into who elects the president. to me it stuns that we had all those issues before the election and basically the voting bloc is so "in the tank" that gulati can pick his successor despite how the term ended. with the issues with the women's team and the development failures and the men's team missing qualifying, this should have been clearing house at levels above coaching. but in reality we kept the same boss people and/or mentalities and then berhalter doesn't fall far from the tree. i think at least part of it is USSF protected MLS' interests, and that bloc of pro votes wants the status quo. but this version of USSF is clueless on the men's team and ironically MLS voting them in is making MLS less and less productive for the NT by increasing roster exceptions and international slots. so you have a symbiosis that is good for the pro league, which i think is improved, but not very good for the NT.
heres some information: good: - women win 2019 World Cup - us to co-host 2026 World Cup - dest choose USMNT over Netherlands Bad - women players sue the USSF - USSF re-ups SUM contract in a no-bid situation close to the last night of the outgoing president’s term - usmnt doesn’t make World Cup - USSF hasn’t sent out a Spanish language tweet in over a year - NYTimes writes about organizational dysfunction - takes a year to hire Berhalter, after only interviewing a select number of candidates - our ELO rated has declined more than any other coach in their first year - prior coach made terrible statements about biases against dual-Americans and then backed it up with his call ups (there are players in MLS who play that position) - new coaches follows old coach in MLS preferences - there are no youth coaches across the board - we hear from dual American prospects that they think the organization doesn’t treat them well - Mexico poached one of our elite talents who plays professionally in the us - jay Berhalter is being considered for promotion despite all of the above - our best youth coach calls out USSF/jay Berhalter for interfering with youth development - the number of 6-12 years has dropped 14% in recent years I’m sure I’m forgetting other items but I’d be interested in hearing why you think the USSF knows what it’s doing
my point re JK is c. 2011 Bradley had lost the plot and we needed a new coach. JK for a period of time was fresh air on tactics and personnel. but by the 2014 world cup he'd gone negative tactics and in the second cycle he became a conservative big club advocate who couldn't see the development hole in his team. i feel like some are suggesting getting rid of JK in 2016 was corrupt. no, based on performance it was just as rational as 2011. post 2014 JK was just as bad as post 2010 bradley. firing JK is not proof of corruption. now you can argue that the instincts to go to arena, or to have sarachan caretake, or to hire berhalter.....corruption. you can see that corruption in other areas not necessarily specific to soccer. but corrupt people can do the rational thing sometimes. firing JK would have happened under a different set of bosses for the same results. might have happened earlier since flynn couldn't hoard the decision to himself on all the way to the hospital. it's kind of like, in theory the GM job might be a rational response to execs running around unilaterally deciding the fates of managers. but if the GM choice is stupid and he's just one of the boys then the supposed fix can turn out worse medicine than the disease. doesn't mean you don't need to see the doctor. means you need a different doctor.
I was optimistic about every permanent coach we’ve had at the time of hire: arena, Bradley, Klinsmann, arena and Berhalter but 1) never want to give a second term to any coach ever 2) the flavor turned sour under Bruce and Gregg extremely quickly as their clear preference for MLS became obvious.
it bears reminding that the USWNT exists in a different landscape where there are a limited amount of well funded teams or professional leagues and we have both. if you look at who is currently competitive it correlates to the countries who are professionalized. before when it was a college sport at most, it correlated to having NCAA and putting any money in. the USMNT cannot feed off the same dynamic because so much of the world has professional leagues, including more and more of the region, and it no longer suffices simply to have MLS pay a living wage and us simply have more soccer players employed than most of the region. you now have to develop better pros than the next guy and we have a U17 YNT that struggles. that's because throwing money at it is insufficient at which point i think it shows up that (a) it's a non profit board many of whose leaders weren't soccer players and (b) we have become aspirational followers rather than pragmatists. perhaps the two are joined in the sense that i think naive MBAs or club parents might be easier to fool into "drop English/German style" and "go Dutch" than former soccer players who know what wins and what doesn't. and who might be annoyed to be inaccurately stereotyped as clods. i don't think wynalda or marino would just accept that US soccer was nothing but organized thugs before 2018 but berhalter will fix it. i also think that ironically alongside the FIFA corruption investigation we led, we have become our own little executive fiefdom like the corrupt countries we hunted. i think we used to have some power mad people but they were obsessed with success. i think once this became MBAs and economists instead of soccer people it became more of an end in itself. they want to be president of something. they want to control it. they want the perks. i think there is less inherent grasp of what is needed for soccer success. i think there is more concern with the money machine. you hire MBAs this is what you get. they can milk the fans for more money. no knowledge of soccer is needed. in my other sport when they hired a former olympian all of a sudden everything started getting fixed. all the backwards processes and stupid red tape for years disappeared because they had experienced it all for themselves. they knew the solutions we could use. they knew the issues if they didn't know solutions, and could ask for help. and they wanted to listen to the players. their constituency was there instead of the executive suite.
over-simplified. GB i think has his weird analytical ideas and MLS wins out because it's easier to get time in MLS at which point you appear in his analytics. how do you analyze a U19 at Barca or Werder? the normal process is you call them in. but he has a lot of it sorted before the players even show up. look how sargent's treatment changed when he became a first team player. but he already had NT goals. why do we then care how his club treats him? Arena i think it's a fairer cop. that last pair of qualis before we lost, he didn't call a single one of the dual national germans. and since he shares GB's anathema to playing kids, i would be curious how soon pulisic would have come in if he had to choose. they both would wait until pulisic himself crossed the first team threshold, which costs you months or years. talent is talent. that shouldn't change because your club slow walks your progression or is hyper competitive. if anything we should be more interested in prospects who have such backgrounds. you can already see it setting up. LoN and quali start next summer. if you don't get capped by the next two sets of games you have for the most part missed the train. in GB's case i don't think it's pro MLS so much as risk aversion. unlike JK he would never have had pulisic in to get his first caps in a qualifier. i don't see that as pro MLS so much as aversion to risk at certain stages of a career, stages which Euros have to endure more of. it just looks pro MLS because it's easier to break in and start here. hence "starter" baird over "development" weah or de la fuente or others. i was never optimistic about GB because i thought he had the worst objective resume in decades. if flynn doesn't get rid of the rule that you had to have a league trophy then berhalter can't even make the cut. we openly watered down the criteria to allow the eventual choice to survive. everyone else we've hired for decades has won at MLS or NCAA or been a high level international coach. GB wasn't that and i think it's wish fulfillment to pretend that he would "level up" given resources. SAF didn't need more resources to win at aberdeen nor mourinho at porto.
personally i thought we should have hired an outsider coach because they would be more objective about the pool, less beholden to the fed, and i thought one of the arena lessons was selection objectivity. for some reason the "lessons learned" to which GB was responsive were 2011-esque notions and not 2018 dynamics. i remember this snob change conversation back in 2011. i remember JK tried opening the games up then changed his mind after looking how we did. i feel like someone who lost the decision in 2016 got GB their second run at him. by then he's a midtable MLS chump. i say not 2018 dynamics because berhalter is even less objective about the pool than arena, who had his own issues. i am not against MLS coaches but failing tata i didn't think marsch yet had the objective resume. i wanted proven winners. i think berhalter was hired because while nominally and foolishly a tactical wannabe change agent, he is controllable by the fed. unlike JK he isn't going to reverse himself tomorrow and try to run the show alone. he and stewart will predictably and irreversibly guide us on our errand even if he's taking the boat over a waterfall. if you think about it, JK's error, beyond performance, was dissing MLS. this places at risk the voting bloc that keeps the leaders in the lead. GB can suck as bad or worse but he doesn't threaten the relationship which keeps the leaders on their throne. in that sense his lack of voiced critique of MLS serves the powers that be. except our coach should probably have a thing or two to say about MLS. not to be snobby but just because x% of our players will always be passing through that pipeline and you should want it to work as good as possible. pulling that punch only hurts your own team. you work for the NT now and not MLS.
and to remind people what JK tried and dropped, he went like 4141 or 4231, spread out the team, and had them manically passing at rapid tempo. we would win possession but struggled to find jozy in the box. i think he dropped it because it looked nice but our fitness would fail after '60 and games would turn south, and we weren't creating enough chances. he then went with this 433 stuff but with a more violent midfield, and ever since we seem to be more concerned with 6 and 8 types and less with having a real 10. at a point the lack of a true creator shows up. and ironically for teams picking defensive oriented midfields but bradley is an awful choice to clean up messes post-2015 when he jumped the shark. but i liked JK's version of passing soccer better because like curacao he had the team spread out and using pace and tempo, playing on athleticism and spacing, as opposed to trying to build up the middle or create passing sideways. and at least JK grasped that when he tried to play a passing offense you go hunt the people down in the pool.....who can pass! he just blinked right before brazil and went negative tactics. it is an interesting albeit academic question if that tournament goes better or worse if we opened it up. did he save us from a thrashing with a single man central midfield or turn us into a shell of ourselves.
1. How long does it take to "come off" of a failure like that of the US in Cuova? The Dutch failed to qualify in 2018 too, and they've weathered the storm of that failure, a mere footnote in the American sporting consciousness, faaaar better than us. Not only have they swiftly integrated younger talent, but their coaching searches have been handled far better, although that's at least partly due to the fact that they have a superior coaching pool. But, we're not the Dutch, so perhaps some time is in order? Perhaps 6 months? You certainly don't keep your interim coach for over a year, during which you interview a pair of candidates, with the winner being the brother of a top USSF executive (whoops, funny how those coincidences seem to work out!). 2. You cite lots of corporate nonsense surrounding organizational charts, concentrations of power, and "new leadership" as evidence of the organization changing. "New personnel"? 95% of the people at the top are the same, just in new roles, and power is now further concentrated on the USSF Board, instead of the de-facto control of Flynn and Gulati. A handful of new positions have been added, with the asterisk that they're also subservient to the Board of Directors. Inspiring. 3. I don't really care how "insular" USSF is/isn't... until they stop getting results. I don't think anybody would care about the group of people from which USSF picked its executives... if those executives were clearly competent. The reason you see the anger from fans and suggestions of an "insular" organization, is because USSF has handled its WC failure poorly. Fans wanted a clear sign that the USSF would do things to ensure that such a failure would not happen again, not "stay the course"! Right after the Titanic, do you think White Star Line decided "let's stay the course"? No. Sweeping changes were made to ship safety procedures, future ship construction, radio communication protocols, and the scouting of navigable ice routes. 4. So, because the USSF added to the top of the org chart, lengthy YNT coaching absences that were previously unheard of are..ok now? Yikes. 5. As to the ethnic makeup of the US fanbase, I think you've made a baseless assertion that hurts your argument both ways. For one, I'd bet that there are more female and minority US fans that go to games than you'd ever care to acknowledge. And two, even if that assertion were true, it's the USSF's job as the steward of the game in the US to attract a diverse fanbase! Soccer is the primary sport of choice for most immigrant families and is especially popular within the enormous Spanish-speaking communities that exist all over the US, yet the USSF has failed to attract a significant Latino following since its inception. And it doesn't stop there. Their efforts at fan engagement are soul-less and unappealing to the small group of dastardly White males that you think makes up this fanbase, and their pitiful, desultory attempts at engaging other communities, have been even worse.
re second coaching terms, the indifference towards short term results and the emphasis on "change" suggest berhalter has in fact been tasked with a 2026 home tournament project. setting aside the wisdom of his ideas or his competence level, as you're saying, seems like every coach held over sucks the second go round. so you have a general curve they follow and he sucks to begin with. i want to hope that the talent overcomes his failings, to some extent, but then you run headlong into his pro-veteran instincts which mean the potentially helpful new talent will be slow-walked into a team whose ideal new add currently seems to be a 23-24 year old veteran and not some U20 phenom. JK would be the opposite but the whole point is this isn't that team anymore. i could get a long term project behind a big name, but your second term argument would question even that. but it's crazed and arguably corrupt to bet on a long shot horse as your best chance for 2026. that's perhaps the dumbest way to approach a home world cup is change how you play and bet on a coach with no winning history and worse immunize from critique or retention concerns. to me the riskier the coach the shorter the leash. this guy should have been no more than an interim with a requirement to prove his worth, based on resume.
I believe the "toxic" atmosphere was based on the opinions of people who worked in USSF offices, not coaches or players. I've seen this happen in other non-profit organizations. Take a developer friend of mine who could probably command a 6 figure salary at a Wall Street bank but joined a non-profit sports organization on a modest salary, with modest benefits, as he is an avid participant and it seemed like a dream job. Unfortunately for him the management of the organization came from corporate America. They were using to working with people on 6 and 7 figure salaries and expected the same of this non- profit's employees. So my friend ended up working 60 or 70 hours a week for peanuts. Fortunately for him the organization's senior management were let go en masse and their places were taken by long- term employees. Although this was meant to be a cost-cutting measure, it actually worked out for everyone. Take note Carlos "Goldman Sachs" Cordeiro.
By the way, Bobby Robson had a terrible record as England manager before taking them to a World Cup semi- final, yet he's regarded as an all-time hero. 1984 Euros - failed to qualify 1986 World Cup - beaten by hand of God in the qf 1988 Euros - failed to qualify 1990 - qualified as 2nd best 2nd place finisher (thanks to Romania's final day win over Denmark)
By the way, Bobby Robson had a terrible record as England manager before taking them to a World Cup semi- final, yet he's regarded as an all-time hero. 1984 Euros - failed to qualify 1986 World Cup - beaten by hand of God in the qf 1988 Euros - failed to qualify 1990 - qualified as 2nd best 2nd place finisher (thanks to Romania's final day comeback win over Denmark)
sorry but the org chart stuff is bunk. so they hire a GM. the GM then in turn hired the biggest insider coach we've ever done. exec's brother, no NT coaching experience. no title winning history at the club level. lots of midtable years at ok club teams. no other NT our level would have chosen him. tata, yes. berhalter would be coaching american samoa or curacao. berhalter's resume would hit the can if he applied to holland or italy. that we are the only ones who see him this way says something. forgive me but that sounds like you hired a GM to do something that otherwise would be a conflict of interest/nepotism. one assumes that a GM is hired to expand the applicant pool and get more objective and deliberative (though not 13 months??) decisionmaking, not to hire the exec's brother. and his YNT choices have thus far been abysmal. look how we did at the U17 world cup. does that sound like moving around the deck chairs have made this less titanic? said exec's brother is then seemingly given a long term project with the team and seeming immunity from firing while he does it. some of the other coaches in history with better resumes had to earn their way off interim. he is handed the full blooded job, on his self serving delayed timescale, like he is a star. he is allowed to play around dramatically with formation and tactics, like he is a star. he is basically immune from the same pressures that got no less than jurgen klinsmann fired. without his resume. we have transparently admitted the tactical changes, but i don't think it's been other than implied -- by stewart -- that he is not to be judged short term on results. what coach gets that? with his resume? the incentives currently are all jacked up. MLS seems to control who gets president with their voting bloc, and they seem more concerned with their self interest as a league. the GM is joined at the hip with the man he is tasked with hiring and firing, which makes him less likely to make the right decision and at a slower pace than ever. and then a nepotism hire gets a 2026 project which has the side benefit of locking him and anyone associated with him in a job 3/4 of a decade. to me, unless you change the president. you change the president and your unwritten gentleman's agreement disappears. either that or we don't qualify again, but i think the talent influx makes that unlikely. an idiot could pick half the people wrong and the improved talent will get us no worse than 3rd or 4th. i hope. but if so GB gets phase 2 of the project even if he's making the team worse.
That’ll teach Atlanta United to reject player call-ups 😂. That’s one hiring down for U.S. Soccer, 74 youth national team coaching jobs to go. #ImKidding #ItsOnly13 https://t.co/LT08ZRTova— Ives Galarcep (@SoccerByIves) January 3, 2020
I don't think MLS candidate lost the election per se as MLS had two candidates. This election almost reminded me of an episode of the hit TV show Survivor where the votes are split for two candidates. The split vote will pretty much knock everyone one else out of the race. Strategic voting is key for these type of elections.