***Official Copa America USA 2024 Thread - Begins June 20th***
- Thread starter Menace Sockeyes
- Start date
I always thought that the US went back to Gregg because there just wasn't at lot of interest for the job.
There isn't. . . at least not from top quality managers. Their options were Jessie Marsch who succeeded in Austria but failed everywhere else and their pick of whichever MLS coach they like the best. That's really about it. No elite managers are interested in this job.
It's not about the pay. Even if Ball State could come up with the money to pay Nick Saban, he's still not going to take the job at Ball State.
Elite managers who have made names for themselves like that only want to go coach teams where they have a chance to win trophies.
USMNT is Iowa at best, Ball State at worst and we're calling Nick Saban and trying to get him to take the job. Doesn't matter how much money we have.
And actually it's even worse because Nick Saban could theoretically at least use his profile as a top coach to recruit better players to whatever team he is coaching and by that way give himself a chance to win trophies. Klopp coming to coach the USMNT, he can maybe recruit some dual nationals, but there are not enough dual nationals of a high enough quality to win a major trophy that we havn't already won.
It's crazy how USMNT fans seem to not realize that they don't have the capacity to win a major trophy yet (Copa or World Cup) AND that big name coaches with great resumes want to coach teams who have the capacity to win major trophies.
I don't think that's a fair comparison at all. College football and international soccer are completely different. FWIW, the US is ranked 11 so I don't see how Ball State is relevant in this discussion. Soccer coaches also don't stick with their clubs for 15+ years like they do in college football. There are maybe 10 teams more attractive than the US and none of them have a World Cup on home soil.
Are we realistically 11th though? We play in a pretty weak conference.
Besides even if you go with there are only 10 jobs more attractive. Elite managers want one of those 10 jobs or they want a club job.
If all things were equal you’d be more right with your point. But coaching a host nation is a huge feather to put in your cap; there aren’t other major openings out there currently, and from a talent perspective, we are in a fairly good position with most of our best players being 25 and under…it’s not like they’d be asked to squeeze out one more run from an aging roster.
Idk if CONCACAF being viewed as a weaker federation matters much in this instance - after all, we won’t have to go thru qualifying the next two years.
Reality is probably somewhere in the middle here. Not as desirable as we think, more desirable than you think.
We'll end up with an MLS coach in the end.
If it was a desirable job we would at least get a decent European (as in coached in a top 5 league, not necessarily that he is a European citizen) manager.
Will see; there’s a few coaches in Europe that would be desirable and might have interest imo; at least based on the list provided by espn.
I don’t necessarily hate hiring an MLS coach, but a little jaded by GB, as we never saw the stuff he did in MLS materialize with USMNT.
Somewhat intrigued by Cherundolo, tho, as he does have his years of playing abroad at least.
I think that in the past this wasn't very attractive, but right now it has to be pretty interesting at a pretty high level due to the fact we host the WC, have a pretty solid and young roster with 2 more years to improve/develop whatever system is put in place, the $$$ is going to be there for top tier guy and it's only a 2 year commitment.
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