Ironically, Fitzgerald is now the coach at UCLA. Yes the former Columbus Crew coach. UCLA had the most players on a US WC team. That record will never be broken. Ex-UCLA players in Jones, Joe-Max, Freidel, Hedjuk, Lewis and almost made it with 6 players in Razov. So your Judas is some combination of above players. Would you actually call him a Judas or a Saint at this point?
never forget... the 3-6-1 starting chad deering throwing claudio to the wolves raising indecision to an art form kuwait, macedonia, austria roy wegerle making the team the pissing contest with john harkes (john gets credit here, too) blaming his players to this day, never taking ANY responsibility for what happened
He said recently that he was ahead of his time, and alot of teams now put 6 in the midfield. His definition of midfield must be very broad. Most of the time it was the lone forward battling two or three German giants with no help in sight. He had a massive panic attack, and thought they might luck their way to the second round with some stupid formation. He showed no faith in his players by thinking his formation would do it, and not the players. Oh and the fact he had no idea how to bring a team together. Other than that, he's a terrific manager.
An accurate assessment of his tremendous managerial skills. Oh yeah, and "Guys, this is Mr. Regis. Introduce yourselves around. Goose, show Daveed here how to play your former position. Thanks."
I would have to say it was Cobi Jones, since he looked most like the Judas from the original production of Jesus Christ, Superstar.
There are teams that do play with 6 in the midfield, but I guess that depends on how one defines midfield. Argentina crashed out of '02 playing a 3-3-3-1...hey maybe Sampson started a trend.
Steve Sampson is a funny story. I remember players talking about how they liked to play for him after the Copa America 95 and how the team seemed to be playing alright. I remember us being solid through qualifying with Sampson making some timely substitutions that produced results for us (thinking Preki for one). His entire 98 year was a wreck. BUT, it wasn't his fault that Mike Burns can hold a goal post and still let the ball go between him and the post. If that goal isn't scored who knows how we end up. His formation was obviously not effective as it produced 1 goal in 3 games. Defensively his team performed as good as Arena's team though. Sampson isn't the worst coach ever and he's not the best coach ever, but he had a solid 3 year run followed by a meltdown in the final year. And before blaming that all on Sampson, how many of his players started in this World Cup? Pope, Reyna, Agoos, Friedal...any others? It seems that Arena placed a good bit of the blame on the players in 98.
Sampson WAS ahead of his time: the 3-6-1 and the fact that he benched Agoos back in '98 when he should not have been benched until 2002!
3-6-1 is a joke. Because you need at least 2 up front to play off each other. He can tweak it anyway you want it, but at LEAST TWO forwards up top or it just will not work. Period.
Sampson In short, he did a great job of bringing a beautiful lady to the dance. Then he showed up drunk. If the Dance was the World Cup then his date was not beautifull, It was very Ugly. Germany and Yugoslavia.
He was horrible. His only success was with Bora's team. He had the team for 4 years and did absolutely nothing to develop new players. Compare it with what Arena did.
But you have to admit, he was ahead of his time. He benched Agoos in 98: 4 years ahead of when he should actually have been benched in 2002! A true visionary - the DaVinci of his day.
Arena had much more to work with given the development of MLS. I agree that Arena is better, but he got a much better hand to begin with. If anything, Sampson should be criticized for trying to "develop" players instead of going with the tried and true that got us to the World Cup.
Not exactly. Eddie Lewis, Tony Sanneh, and Chris Armas were never in the picture with Sampson, but Arena plugged them in immediately and got a 3-0 win vs. Germany. Compare with the US's performance under Sampson at the World Cup only a matter of months before. Revisiting a highlight: Sampson opts for Chad Deering in the defensive midfield over Chris Armas.