He was apparently very offended when he was interviewed for the job. Presumably because GB's brother was on the committee.
OT: Copa America 2024 Thread
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It doesn’t matter what the winning is, a good women’s coach has few options to make money, while you have to pay more to attract and keep a good men’s coach because he has a ton of options outside of coaching a national team.
Turner is horrendous with the ball at his feet and it is one of the main reasons he lost his starting job in England.
I was pretty disappointed in the passing accuracy of Richards in these games as well.
This actually isn't an unpopular opinion at all. I attended a very good coaching clinic hosted by USA soccer, and the first thing said was that our players lack creativity because of the way they're coached from youth levels. We promote technical efficiency over creativity, and therefore never develop the special players you are looking for.
You can easily see the difference in ball skills (passing and receiving, especially quick 1-2s and creativity) in tonight's game between Brazil/Columbia vs. the USA. I think it's from kids in those countries playing soccer all day as kids before they get into organized competition vs. in the US where everything is under adult supervision. The blog linked below talks about this.
https://www.soccerwire.com/resources/organized-chaos-the-key-to-brazils-soccer-success-part-2/
https://www.soccerwire.com/resources/organized-chaos-the-key-to-brazils-soccer-success-part-2/
Exactly.
Our country has a lot of resources (aka $$$), but it tends to go towards things that don’t directly correlate to development (uniforms, travel, facility overhead, trophies, etc.).
Real development comes from kids who have a mamba mentality about soccer, have inherent talent, and are coached by people focused on development and not winning.
All these are headwinds domestically as most parents who can actually afford travel soccer see soccer as a child’s extra-curricular activity rather than a career choice (rightfully so, IMO).
Meanwhile, in other countries, soccer is viewed as one’s only way out of the ghetto.
Basketball is becoming the same way, which is why we are seeing more and more international players — they are highly motivated to make it professionally and are put into pro development academies for free(!) at the earliest stages.
TIM HOWARD: I will talk Klopp into coaching the USA after Copa America
TIM HOWARD: I believe I could make a very compelling argument to Jurgen Klopp to take over the US Men's National Team. I know he's only been retired a few weeks and wants a break.
www.dailymail.co.uk
There's been an awareness of a couple different problems with US youth soccer coaching that's now spanned a couple decades, at least. And there have been some efforts to address some of the issues. There's the issue of how the "best" clubs and teams are typically only available to kids of relatively well-off parents. And there's the issue of pressure to win versus develop.
Most of the phenomenal coaches associated with US Youth Soccer that I've met over the years understand and preach development over winning in youth soccer. But it's one thing to say and quite another to do. Combine the over-prevalence of so-called premiere soccer clubs with typical US parental attitudes and the pressure to win, even at early ages, becomes overwhelming. So fixing things here in the US has proven to be a tough row to hoe.
Parent's with money will seek out those teams with the best rankings for their kids. Rankings are based on winning. Teams of nine year-olds are being measured by rankings/winning. This is counterproductive to focusing on development and creativity and a love of the game at young ages. And it forces a style of coaching that is counterproductive to taking a young talented player and molding them into the best possible player they can be.
For example, in order to win at younger ages, coaches will spend far too much time on rote tactical and role instruction at the expense of individual skill development. This is totally backwards, totally inefficient because kids at young ages take much longer to learn tactics and roles than those same kids just a few years older would take. And worse, human brains are way better at developing individual ball skills when they're younger, but that precious time is being wasted on rote tactical instruction instead. So the kids wind up less naturally skilled w/the ball and with a bunch of often improperly onboarded tactical and role instruction (because the tactics and role instruction is compromised due to the young age).
Focusing on individual skills at young ages and then tactical instruction at older ages is vastly more efficient. Because what might take 30 hours at U10 will only take ~3 hours at U14 or 1 hour at U17. Meanwhile, although a 17 year old can work hard to develop their ball skills, they may well never quite attain the same level of instinctive brilliance they might've had they focused almost entirely on their individual skills with the ball, and a love of the ball, from the youngest ages. The way we're doing it actually hinders many players development.
Coaches I've spoken with over the years often know all this and don't want to focus on winning. But they're forced to do it in order to be competitive and keep the team's rankings high, keep the club's money-train flowing, and keep their jobs.
I remember the director of US Youth Soccer coaching in NJ ranting a bit about this at one of my licensing courses many years back. He seemed to think that having all these premiere clubs was harming US soccer. I was unsure back then. But it seemed a not unreasonable theory, and over the years, I've started to buy into it more and more. Now I'm a full-fledged believer.
First of all, there really aren't that many kids with truly elite talent, so parents are being basically scammed to some extent. For another thing, younger players should be having fun in games doing crazy stuff with a soccer ball and figuring out simple combination play all on their own through small sided games that make it instinctive. That makes the game way more fun, and it builds talent and awareness naturally and deeply.
They shouldn't be being screamed at to go here, then go there, then do this thing - which is kinda the opposite of how small group tactics should be taught anyway, requiring some coach to come along and correct that player's understanding later in life.
Interesting comment. It reminds me of a related story I read in regards to education.
Some consultants trying to improve reading scores noticed that the kids who did the best at reading read the whole word (an example you might have seen is where they can mix up the letters inside a word and as long as they leave the first and last letter the same some people can read what the word is supposed to be).
So, some school districts stopped using their phonics related programs for the earliest readers and tried to use this whole word philosophy instead.
Performance actually got worse. What the consultants missed was that the best readers actually did start with phonics, they just mastered it so quickly that they blew past it and moved onto reading the whole word more quickly than their peers.
Bottom line, the point I am trying to make is that it appears that there is no replacement for someone mastering the basic skills, whether we are talking about soccer, reading, carpentry or playing music. Only after the basic skills become “natural” does a person move on to more advanced performance.
You know how kids learn to hit, catch, and throw a ball properly (for the most part) from their dads?
Well this sort of thing happens for soccer in other countries.
You’ll note many of our better players (Weah, Pulisic, Reyna, etc.) came from “soccer-first families” where their parents played/coached at higher levels.
The good news is that as more and more kids play into higher ages, we’ll have more soccer-first families contributing to the talent pool.
It’s going to take some time. In the interim, I still advocate for playing a style that maximizes our roster talent, which happens to be more defensive at the moment.
Well this sort of thing happens for soccer in other countries.
You’ll note many of our better players (Weah, Pulisic, Reyna, etc.) came from “soccer-first families” where their parents played/coached at higher levels.
The good news is that as more and more kids play into higher ages, we’ll have more soccer-first families contributing to the talent pool.
It’s going to take some time. In the interim, I still advocate for playing a style that maximizes our roster talent, which happens to be more defensive at the moment.
'Glad I'm here' - Canada boss Jesse Marsch blasts USMNT for 'lack of discipline' after seeing Gregg Berhalter's side implode in Copa America group stage | Goal.com US
Canada boss Jesse Marsch didn't hold back as he opened up on the USMNT's disappointing Copa America campaign.
www.goal.com
I'll admit this might be heresy, but this sounds way to organized for U10. Are 9 year olds in Brazil that organized, or do a bunch of kids get together and chase a ball around ?
I don’t know what happens in Brazil. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with being organized as long as the result is loads of fun for the kids, and the kids get thousands of touches on the ball each session.
Kids can start playing travel soccer at 7, on U8 teams. I once trained a U8 team, whose coach was inexperienced, for a year. The training sessions were focused almost entirely on developing skill with the ball, using small, often uneven-sided, competitive exercises/games the kids loved playing. You mess with numbers, available space, and various sorts of constraints.
Although I spent almost no time at all on tactics, the right sorts of exercises silently encourage the players to work together to solve problems to “win” an exercise. Done right, the kids start to experiment, and they often start to figure out early combination-play all on their own. And kids are already competitive enough on their own, the coach doesn’t need to say a thing in that regard.
The result is organized in that the kids go though organized progressions. But they don’t know about 95% of the organization. They’re just learning lots of different fun games played with the ball. Now and then you spot-correct whatever specific technique a given session is focused on developing. But the kids tend to self-teach a lot of it when very young, ‘cause the exercises and coach work together to promote experimentation to learn what works and what doesn’t.
Wish there was a stronger button here than "like". Kids will find a way. Make it not fun, and kids will quit. They're not dumb. We (royal we) overcomplicate the game, but fundamentally how do you get to say a 3 vrs 2, and what do you do when you find yourself in a 3 vrs 2? And the best way to perform well in the future in a 3 vrs 2 is .... play a bunch of fun drills in 3 vrs 2 scenarios.
Yep. I watched the interview where he said it.'Glad I'm here' - Canada boss Jesse Marsch blasts USMNT for 'lack of discipline' after seeing Gregg Berhalter's side implode in Copa America group stage | Goal.com US
Canada boss Jesse Marsch didn't hold back as he opened up on the USMNT's disappointing Copa America campaign.www.goal.com
When many of us were young, we'd go outside and create new games using balls or branches or whatever with friends. It was pure fun.
IMO, good coaching for the youngest age groups is about simulating that natural unsupervised environment as much as possible, but with some session structure blended in and with the added benefit of having a coach/trainer there to correct bad individual technique and maintain some order when chaos evolves, as it has a way of doing, especially with boy's teams.
Very well said. Sports and even after school activities (play time) are way too structured. Let kids be kids. They will figure out pretty early on if they enjoy an activity and if they want to take it more seriously.
When I coached and ran clinics/camps much of the “structured” activity was merely monitored by staff (by design) to allow creativity and self correction. Activities need to be fun. Give the kids encouragement and a baseline of fundamentals and let them run with supervision.
Hard core coaching doesn’t need to creep in until kids that want to be coached 10-12(some younger)have risen to that level.
I’ve seen super talented kids scared away from activities from coaches and parents taking sports/music/dance too seriously too soon.
Wow, Ecuador ties up Argentina in stoppage time and almost scores the winner too. Unfortunately, Copa goes straight to PKs after regulation in the elimination rounds (except the finals), which just sucks.
Damn, Argentina's Martinez is just amazing on PKs saving the first two (after Messi missed the chip) and they go on to win the shootout. Still hate shootouts.
I wonder what is the rationale for going directly to penalties. Is it to placate the players' club teams?
I don't see that happening. That said - hard to argue with anything Tab says here: https://www.socceramerica.com/gregg-berhalter-tab-ramos-usmnt-copa/
I think Ramos mostly just stated the obvious and most experienced coaches would say pretty similar things. Defending is very poor. The roster is missing some key pieces. We’re not so much being “out-coached” as coach isn’t getting it done over time. I agree with it all. There’s a real need to bring in some other players.
And it’s a fair criticism of GB to say he’s not being very flexible when conditions change (e.g. the misuse of Reyna, sticking him on the wing where he is neither fit nor fast enough in the context of this USMNT squad, instead of having him stay center as a facilitator with a bit less defensive responsibilities).
That’s (falling into ruts) a failing of virtually every coach I’ve observed over time, including me. We tend to rely too much on prior analysis and it becomes very hard to see with new eyes when players have improved and deserve more time or when formations or strategies or tactics need adjustment.
I used to ask other coaches to observe some games and critique me as a way to try to overcome that tendency. Assistant coaches can help, but are bound up in the same prior analysis, so an “outsider” is better.
This is why keeping Berhalter is a very hard argument to make. He doesn't have the results, and the natural inclination of falling into ruts as you say suggests a new coach would be beneficial simply to avoid that.
To me - the team looks too comfortable for a team that hasn't really accomplished anything.
Well 1) if he was being seriously considered he'd be a fool to give this interview right now and 2) in the interview he basically says he wouldn't hire himself:
TAB RAMOS: I hope we go after an international coach. We just need somebody to come in for 18 months who knows the World Cup and can prepare this team the best he can to give this team the best shot at having a great World Cup. That’s it. No learning-on-the-job person. Someone who has been there and done that. Win as much as possible at the World Cup, and then we will see what happens.
Canada - Venezuela has been entertaining with Canada up 1-0 - and could be up 3-0, easily. Ref is not good, letting a lot of pretty rough play go. Having fun watching the Canadian wing Shaffelberg run and run and run (he's also the goal scorer).
In the last 15 minutes the ref went from bad to worse, unfairly favoring Venezuela on several calls, with the worst being when the Ven keeper came out past the side of his box to kick the ball OOB to the side to prevent an oncoming Canadian player from playing the ball with a good chance to shoot/pass, but then that keeper ran a few feet further to the sideline to knock the ball out of the hands of the Canadian player about to make the throw in. Obvious yellow card and nothing from the ref. And several other fouls not called fairly.
The Canadian keeper totally yakked a long ball from the Ven keeper, coming way out off his line and then retreating when he saw that he wasn't going to get there, plus his defender was in decent position, but the ball then fell well to Rondon, who put it over the retreating Canadian keeper's head from at least 50 yards out. Terrible.
The Canadian keeper totally yakked a long ball from the Ven keeper, coming way out off his line and then retreating when he saw that he wasn't going to get there, plus his defender was in decent position, but the ball then fell well to Rondon, who put it over the retreating Canadian keeper's head from at least 50 yards out. Terrible.
Some terrible PKs, but Canada wins 4-3 (out of 6 attempts), which is good, as they were the better side tonight. I hate PKs and I hate having them right after regulation without any OT even more.
This USMNT isn't a 'golden generation' - the data shows it lacks top-end talent
Analysis by The Athletic and Twenty First Group suggests that perhaps the USMNT's expectations should be lower on the world stage
www.nytimes.com
How a Soccer Star is Made
NY Times article from 2010 about Ajax academy always stuck in my mind. I’m not a NYT subscriber but I accessed the entire article a moment ago, it wasn’t blocked by a paywall.
However, the youth development approach doesn’t always connect to the national team. Sergino Dest, a top young player from the Ajax academy born and raised in Netherlands chose to play for the United States. After representing the US youth national teams, Sergino decided he preferred the US soccer system better, and Gregg persuaded him to play for the US.
How Sergino Dest, a ‘different sort of Dutchman, was drawn to the USMNT
NY Times article from 2010 about Ajax academy always stuck in my mind. I’m not a NYT subscriber but I accessed the entire article a moment ago, it wasn’t blocked by a paywall.
However, the youth development approach doesn’t always connect to the national team. Sergino Dest, a top young player from the Ajax academy born and raised in Netherlands chose to play for the United States. After representing the US youth national teams, Sergino decided he preferred the US soccer system better, and Gregg persuaded him to play for the US.
How Sergino Dest, a ‘different sort of Dutchman, was drawn to the USMNT
This is kinda what I’ve been saying and thinking lately. With M Rob and Dest, we were somewhat more talented team than we appear to be now. But this generation’s team has always lacked depth of adaptable talent.This USMNT isn't a 'golden generation' - the data shows it lacks top-end talent
Analysis by The Athletic and Twenty First Group suggests that perhaps the USMNT's expectations should be lower on the world stage
Very skilled players can fit a system of play and excel. But move them outside that system and not all players demonstrate the same fundamental quality. International play is often necessarily a very different system than a player’s club team. Some adapt and thrive in either environment. Some clearly don’t.
The US has skilled players but maybe not so much adaptable skilled players. Weah and Puli seem pretty adaptable. Then some of our mids. Reyna is mentally adaptable, I think, but not physically adaptable because he lacks pace (and maybe fitness, although that’s hard to imagine). Maybe A Rob is adaptable, but I don’t know what system of play he’s used to playing with his club, and he plays the same role all the time with the USMNT, so can’t be sure.
The team needs an infusion of fresh talent that is highly adaptable. Easier said than done. But that’s what’s needed.
Jedi plays for a team that is great on the counter, but also funnels the attack thru him on those overlaps and lung busters up and down the sideline. He was one of the top 3 left backs in the Prem this past season. The big point is that a lot of our best players are at big clubs but aren't getting minutes. They are good enough squad players, but not week in, week out starters. Reyna probably should have been left on the bench considering that he barely saw the field for Forest, a relegation level club. He barely played the whole season at both BVB and NF. On the flip side, Tillman was really good for a dominant PSV and barely got a sniff of minutes in the tournament. Adams is our best #6, but he was coming off injury...we don't have any realistic depth behind him. Weston looked really fat and off, despite having a pretty good season at Juve... maybe the club really wanting him gone weighed on him...literally. in terms of our talent levels...I think they are higher than they used to be... more guys are at big clubs now, which is great for them. However, it may not be the best thing for the USMNT. We need our guys playing regularly and match fit to punch above our weight class. We also need a coach who knows how to get blood from stone with his setups and tactics.
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