I do not know about you but Barnhart is at the top of my list. She could not have been happy with not getting called into the last two camps
Hardly slander. Just reading between the lines of Rampone's quote from Sports Equalizer. Apart from the Algarve Cup in 2014 they had been winning matches. All of a sudden.....he's gone. But if you prefer to believe that the team had no input into Sermanni's sacking despite Gulati stating that their opinions were sought...
I don't believe Gulati actually said that did he? [/quote]"We had discussions with players, with staff, with people around the team and observed ourselves," he said. "This isn't a group of players coming to seek us out and saying 'there's something wrong, we need to do something.' That's not what was the underlying issue here."[/quote] That sounds more like "We asked people including players what had been going on around the team" than "We asked players if they wanted a coaching change."
Key Veteran. If you ever played sports a day in your life, it takes one team leader to spread the cancer through the locker room. It's not any player knocking on his office door, the flies on the walls passing information to him.
I have been in plenty of locker rooms as a player, team captain, and coach. Show the evidence for anybody. Anybody.
What I find interesting is that in one of Wambach's interviews (I believe the ESPN one with Foudy) she says they need a coach who can "blend the old with the new". Is that not what Sermanni was doing?
Well I am just guessing here, but Tom seem to have had a very hands-off approach so he may just have put them on the same team and left it to the players to blend. It may be that she wants a coach that actively helps that to happen.
I'm a little confused that Sermani appointed an assistant on March 24 and pushed Jill Ellis aside 13 days before he was fired and nobody thinks that might have been a factor. The technical director it Jill's best friend April.
If Gus Gustavsson (or someone other than Jill) is selected as coach, I sincerely hope that Jill's influence on the national team will be marginalized until after the WC. I'm not saying that Jill had a hand in undermining Tom Sermanni, but the perception of having more than one influential person running the group could have a negative impact on team chemistry.
Are you saying that he didn't actively help that to happen? I don't buy into that. I feel like his "hands-off approach" as you called it is becoming some kind of urban myth. Yes, he is laid-back but IMO he never "just put them on the same team and left it to the players to blend". I don't see how he could be such a successful coach in the past if this was his approach. I don't see how any coach could be successful with this kind of coaching. Yes, USSF wanted something else and they fired him but saying these kind of things about Sermanni honestly is kind of insulting.
Good point. I never thought about this. That makes me even more worried that Jill Ellis might be the new coach.
Add to that Sermanni's statement about having made a mistake by not bringing in his own coaching staff from the start, and the picture becomes even clearer.
Was wondering when someone was going to point this out..... So, Jill gets the job officially in May, right?
It may be a lot simpler than that. In 2013 Wambach had 12 starts in 14 games and 70 minutes a game. In 2014 she was 4 starts in 9 games and 50 minutes.
No. But what is the evidence, besides a very political statement by Gulati, that the players weren't involved? The quickest way for a manager, at any level, to lose their job is through 'Losing the Dressing Room'.
Not to change the current conversation, but does anyone have an idea what the minimum salary is for a NT player with a contract? For instance, does a rookie like Dunn now be entitled to receive a similar salary as someone like Lloyd (within 10%), or are we talking much less money? I can certainly understand the need for contracts, but a young player just coming out of college and trying to make a name for herself would happily sign for a much smaller amount just to make the NT. That way the USSF will be able to take a chance on bringing to camp and signing 6 or 7 additional players with the same amount required to sign a few veterans.