CONGRATULATIONS!
Whether you’d like to believe it or not, this is your triumph. I believe Bob was relieved of his duties in large part due to your collective voices.
Like the last point in my optimistic piece, 5 positive influences on US Soccer in 2010, suggested, I had never witnessed such a strong and sustained outcry for the head of our national team coach. And that voice held strong until today.
You would not allow the excuses to continue. You know, all those superficial logical ones that only carry weight among those with snorkel gear, instead of scuba gear. Well, you wouldn’t let them get away with it any longer.
You tweeted, you wrote on facebook, you rebutted on forums, and you were powerful commenters on the blogs!
For me, it was truly interesting watching the transformation in voice and rhetoric from American bloggers who were under attack. It’s not that they had a real change of heart or any enlightening soccer moment; far from it, they’re still clueless as ever! They simply bent under your pressure. Their foundation of excuses, which stem from their lack of deep understanding, and is required to support their flawed philosophy, was buckling. If it weren’t for you, they would just attribute the Gold Cup final to the Cherundolo injury, and we’d all move on.
NO MORE! If they want to appease a more sophisticated readership, they need to go learn! Because catering to the blind horde, of which ironically they are a part of, places them in your crosshairs. And many times, you make them look like the amateurs they are.
And just like you’ve forced their hand, you’ve forced US Soccer’s.
Gulati and company, don’t enjoy the support base from the cheerleading, rosy picture-painting, excuse-making, superficial-understanding media it had not too long ago. And generally, how goes the media, goes the fan-base. Which in turn, has money and job implications.
So everyone’s trying to save their asses! Bob Bradley is the fall guy.
This is an example of how you can introduce accountability. Congratulations on winning this battle.
Tonight I toast to you!
Excellent post! I was just thinking to myself today after I heard he got fired it made me feel like on a very small scale I was a part of Bradley leaving and (hopefully) the long term improvement of soccer in this country. All the ranting, complaining, explaining done by you, myself, and the many people through this site, bigsoccer, facebook, everywhere have all contributed to this. Gulati could only hide for so long. You’re right he’s still clueless, but he just couldn’t continue ignoring it. I have to give extra props to the guy who got Sunil’s email and posted it on bigsoccer so we could all flood his inbox with complaints haha brilliant from that guy! Even if it’s on a very small scale, all of us fans together actually pulled it off, it worked! And it feels great to be a part of this! Now please, please don’t ruin this and get another MLS/College coach….
I too was shocked, but quite pleased. My pleasure is tempered by the thought that Gulati will make the decision about who to replace BB with. I’m waiting not so optimistically for the answer later today. It will speak volumes about our future as a footballing nation.
I think the vision of Mexico in the ascendency for the next decade with an improved national team, and U17 World champs was part of the reasoning. Given this challenge, what does the USSF thinks we need to do. We’ll see, it will be telling. Frankly, I’m not optimistic.
Maybe I need to be an optimist! Let’s see how much power Klinsi has?
It will interesting to see his assistants, and who gets the other Team jobs (U17, U20, U23).
It’s a good thing, but only if we don’t take backward step. Arena and Bradley were sports majors, not players with deep passion and understanding of the game. We need a USMNT coach with soccer in his DNA, who gets it and has passion.
He needs to have international experiecne and clout to be catalyst for change in feeder youth ranks, senior team, and plaing style. Gulati wories me as he too doesnt’ have soccer DNA. He’s been around business end, but not a “soccer guy” who has vision and deep understanding and passion.
Even someone like Jason Kreiss isn’t good choice. Need an international coach.
However, it still is too late for 2014. What new promising players? USMNT only plays handful of friendlies yearly. So 2018 is more realistic! Not sure if new coach can last that long, but at least he can initiate new thought, new ideas, and influence youth development by setting expectaions and using his bully pulpit to push us to next level. Wishful thinking, but every success starts with a vision.
Lalo, I’m going to start using “soccer DNA”. I love it!
And yes, forget about 2014 miracles.
if it is sigi schmid, im gonna cry
you need someone who has an interest in this country and preferably someone with a knowledge of the game at the absolute highest level. klinsmann is the popular choice but it would be redeeming if gulati gives him the control he desires.
Klinsmann got the job, but it will be all for nothing if he isnt given the control he wanted from the beginning. I am eagerly awaiting the new USMNT roster, not so much for the Mexico game, but for the games after that. Aug 10 is probably too soon to make any big adjustments.
There should be ZERO judgement for August 10.
If any person or media does such a thing, it is because they know nothing of the game.
For the betterment of the whole organization, one has to realize their way is the wrong way, swallow their pride, and relinqiush the decision making to the subject matter experts, thanks Sunil for finally seeing the light.
I happy to say that we are heading in the right direction, but we must show patience and allow the process of reshaping the development of youth soccer its due process. This is not going to occur overnight and I am hoping that Jurgen has the ability to clean house of the coaches, that are unwilling to cooperate and implement his ideas.
Apparently Klinsmann got some power to change things. He has soccer DNA (played at higheste levels) and “gets it”. So I think Klinsmann is right guy at right time.
Another thing I like about Juergen is that he has lived in California the past few years, so he will have a really good understanding on the US and MLS style of play and how to fix it.
Gary, I posted this on bigsoccer and I wanted to copy it here as well to see if you could give me any feedback for this because I really respect your opinion, anyone else who reads this I would love to hear some feedback as well:
Copy of my post:
I have taken the past month or so to develop a system where I am trying to use styles of players to compare players rather than how many passes they complete or how many shots on goal they had. I have this system in mind to become something where teams can use it to try to create an identity and style of play, rather than just taking the 11 best players and trying to make them mix together.
The first task I gave myself was to try to translate the USA player pool to the team and way of playing that Barcelona uses. I chose to translate them to Barcelona because they have the most clear identity in the soccer world that I can think of, and let’s be honest everyone wants to try to play like them. I don’t want to give away what I am doing to get these results yet, because I am not sure if this could become something legitimate or something just for fun yet, plus it is a probably a long way from being done.
Anyway, to make a long story short, here is the translation I came up with, I would love to hear some feedback on how much all of you agree with the results I came up with. I used nothing at all biased here and no judgements, these results are all based off of numbers.
Barcelona’s base team that I used:
Abidal-(LB,CB), Adriano-(LB,RB), Affelay-(RW,LW), Busquets-(DM,CB), Dani Alves-(RB), David Villa-(RW,LW), Fontas-(LB,CB), Iniesta-(CM,LW), Jeffren-(LW,RW), Keita-(DM,CM), Mascherano-(DM,CB), Maxwell-(LB,RB), Messi-(ST,RW), Milito-(CB,LB), Pedro-(RW,LW), Pique-(CB), Puyol-(CB,RB), Sanchez-(RW,CF), Thiago-(CM), Xavi-(CM).
Barcelona Starting XI:
—————GK—————
Alves—-Puyol—-Pique—-Abidal
————Busquets————
———Xavi—-Iniesta———
Pedro——–Messi———-Villa
Subs: Adriano, Affelay, Fontas, Jeffren, Keita, Mascherano, Maxwell, Milito, Sanchez, Thiago
-I used over 250 players in total from the USA pool and translating the Players to try to best replicate player to player and position to position this is what I came up with:
The USA Starting XI that I came up with through my results:
——————GK———————
Bradley—-Lichaj—-Bocanegra—-Spector
(Alves)—-(Puyol)—–(Pique)——(Abidal)
——————-Jones——————
—————–(Busquets)—————
————–Holden——Feilhaber——–
————–(Xavi)——(Iniesta)———
Davies————Dempsey——–Donovan
(Pedro)————(Messi)————(Villa)
Top Subs: Cherundolo, Demerit, Edu, Goodson, Ream, Torres
Let me know what you think guys.
*-Note that the results have nothing to do with overall ability, it is purely fit of style based on numbers, so having what we would consider to be most of the top players in the pool show up in my results has nothing to do with their ability and just shows that good players tend to have a similar style of play.
Interesting idea, but I don’t think the National Team player can do Barça. Our players just don’t have the touch or tactical acumen. We might be able to do a poor job of the sort of style that the Germans work with (a counter-attacking, 4-2-3-1). The USA players need much better skills. Barça is a goal for the future once we kick ass and take names in the youth ranks, and God how I’d love to see this! Ultimately, if we can shake-up the youth development clusterfuck in this Country we will be moving in the right direction.
Why did you leave the Keeper out? Valdes is absolutely essential to how Barça play. It might be nice to know how well our different Keepers play with the ball at their feet. I think this is a critical oversight.
1) The idea here is to get the closest team possible to Barcelona, everyone knows there are no 11 American players that have the same quality as Barcelona’s team but we can try to find players who are similar types of players.
2) Copying the German way of play could be good, I agree, but there just isn’t anything quite like the way that Barcelona plays, and in my opinion that really should be the target, even if it means taking some temporary hits.
3) About keepers, I have just started this and haven’t run any numbers for any goalies yet, that is still on my to do list, so that is the only reason I don’t have a result for GK.
Hi Kevin. You have the right idea!
Study the cream of the crop international role models (individuals & teams). From that, try to select players that mimic the cream & try to implement a style that mimics the best in the world too. We’ve done it at the youth level, Caleb has done it at the collegiate, but nobody has done it at the MLS or NT level. When the right people arrive, it will happen too.
But back to your player pool exercise…
You’re doing pretty much what I always do!
But it’s a terribly difficult exercise because if you want to match things up in terms of player qualities/types, people could be placed completely out of position.
For instance – looking at the current pool – if I want something resembling Alves at right back, I might say Donovan! For Busquets, I say Dempsey!
Holden, I haven’t seen in a very long time. And he’s not memorable.
So for Xavi / Iniesta it would be Torres / Feilhaber.
Up top, the highest grade quality in our current train-wreck of a pool (assuming D&D are the RB & DM) belong to Gomez, Agudelo, & Bunbury. Don’t get me wrong, I think these 3 are technically sound & tactically malleable, but they are very different players to the Barca front line. They’re more like 9’s.
I’ll think about the different variations more …
But let me just add this:
The Back Line
Ream (CB) & Cherundolo(LB/RB) are the only ones I would consider. All the others (Demerit, Goodson, Bradley, Boca, Spector, Lichaj), in their current incarnation, can piss off.
In the Middle
No way in hell Jones takes the “Busquets” role.
Holden, see above comment but certainly a better fit than Jones, Bradley, Edu, Clark, or whoever else I’m missing.
Up top
I have the same sentiment – actually a little worse – with Davies that I do with Holden. But I would keep in consideration.
D&D yes, but I might consider them elsewhere.
Again, I’ll keep thinking about it and see if I can publish some formations like you did. I think it’s a great exercise and educational!
What kind of roster changes would you like Juergen to make?
Gary — Not sure if this is where Leadbelly was going, but what are your thoughts on changes Klinsman should make? Maybe wait until after his press conference on Aug 1 to know roles and responsibilities. I think the best thing he can do is adapt a common playing style. My U13 son has had about 4 different coaches and numerous others via camps. It’s roll of the dice as each is very different. Part of Barca, Germany, Spain success is players can go from youngest ages to pro and be taught almost same stuff. By the time they mature, that playing style is in their DNA. USA’s hodge-podge of good, bad, terrible, some good coaching hurts us. Again, love to hear your thoughts or an op-ed on this.
I’m posting something tonight to get us started on the discussion.