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MLS hires Agoos as technical director

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

Jeff Agoos is making his way back to a front office in New York.

Agoos, a former standout in his playing days and one-time sporting director for the New York Red Bulls, has been hired by Major League Soccer to be the league's technical director of competition.

According to a release, some of Agoos's duties include being responsible for overseeing an annual technical assessment of the league, communicating with team technical directors and planning and implementing competition and techinical strategies to improve gameplay. He is also a league spokesman on competition issues.

What do you think of the hire? Do you think Agoos is a good fit for the position? Do you think he deserves a second chance in the front office after his stint with the Red Bulls?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. And there’s the explanation for technical director up there. OK, that sounds pretty far from scouting players so there’s at least a chance he has some quality in this area.

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  2. All I can say is, some people are much better in certain areas (e.g. MLS technical director, whatever that is) than others (e.g. scouting players). God I hope so for the sake of MLS.

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  3. I see what you are saying about the Red Bulls and that may have been his role. I always saw it as more of a player personel role which could be totally wrong. And if I understand this role it is like a technical/tacitical analysis where he will have time to go back and look at tape and make suggestions on things that can work better.

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  4. the number of managers around the world who were “flops” as players(wenger, mourinho) FAR outweighs the number that were superb players – look at the failure maradona was. look at other sports for reference – hitting coaches RARELY are hall of famers in baseball, position coaches don’t necessarily have to have played the position they coach in football and so on.

    as was stated above, there is a vast difference between those who can do and those who can teach. that being said, agoos has shown nothing in the scouting/development category and thats why this should come as a shock and not b/c he was not a good player…

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  5. Can’t believe the hate Agoos is getting here. All because he had a bad world cup when he was 34? Guess that was the first time you blokes ever saw a football game. The guy was a warrior for years…

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  6. Soo jeff “toast” agoos was an average mls players was probably the worst defender to ever don the nat uniform, sucked at his job with the NJ red metros and so that makes him qualified to have a spot with MLS? Razov, Ricardo Clark, Ching, EJ and bornstein should have a lock in the MLS if the criteria is being a player who sucked on the national team

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  7. A legend for United (States) and United (DC). He should of never played in 02′ but that’s not his fault. Always made himself available for his country.

    Kind of like a younger Frankie…

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  8. I am not saying it’s a firm rule by any means, some great minds can’t enact their own advice. The saying those who can do, those who can’t teach….comes to mind. My point was he is being asked to judge and offer up technical opinions, and I just don’t think that’s who he is. He showed some of that inability at the Red Bulls. Could he have learned from his mistakes? Sure. I just don’t see how one can go from not being able to do this at a club level, then magically be able to do it on a league level.

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  9. I think that people may not get the difference between doing and being able to understand and teach. your examples were of great technical player but one of the greatest technical and tactical minds in the game right now was never a good player let alone a great player. That person being the Special One Jose Murinho. Not to say that Agoos will come anywhere close to this but it does show that the one is not neccesary for the other.

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  10. One thing can get said is the sort of Socrates’ tyrants argument, where those who studied at the foot of Socrates who espoused the virtues of the philosopher-king later took it upon themselves to act on this vision and because unyielding despots. Maybe it wouldn’t be best to hire an actually technical player who might be tyrannical (not actually, but might be set in his own philosophical way) and higher an open-minded outsider to the world of technical football who can look upon development objectively.

    Just playing devil’s advocate, I am not in favor of this hire. Look at who Ajax, Real Madrid, etc. hire. Players like Frank DeBoer, Bergkamp, and Zidane. We don’t have domestic players like that, but who says it has to be a domestic, long-time MLSer.

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  11. You realize he was 34 during 2002, right? Was it his fault that he was really old and he was still selected by Arena? How many 34 year old defenders can you name that have killed it at World Cups?

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  12. Agoos was a good defender, not great. His accolades were a result of being solid in a league that was still growing. He was never outstanding for the National Team in my opinion, and when he got his chance on the biggest stage, was a huge flop. Nothing wrong with being a good league player who isn’t up to snuff at the highest international level.

    My complaint with this hire is that he wasn’t a technically proficient player, so how is going to tell others how to be more technical? How does he pass down knowledge or ways to improve, when he himself never had that experience? It seems like this position would have been great for someone like a Mauricio Cienfuegos, or Marco Etchverry, guys who oozed technical skills. But alas, it appears to be a good ol boy hiring instead.

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  13. Great defender? Dude was our worst player at the 2002 World Cup. Almost every goal the USA gave up in that tournament was scored by the man he was marking or scored by him personally. He was a nightmare.

    Sorry, but I’d take Bornstein over him anyday.

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  14. 😀 …that’s some funny stuff right there. By today’s standards, he definitely was a cut below the rest. Back then, he was a pretty good player. I do agree, him being on any “Best of” list is a stretch.

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  15. There are those who work very hard, are successful and get rewarded and move up the corporate ladder. Then there are those who absolutely stink at what they do, yet still get ahead. Jeff Agoos, as far as I’m concerned, is the latter and not the former.

    But, oh well. This happens at the company I work for, and I figure this must happen everywhere else.

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  16. more centralized planning for the league.. blablabla.. or maybe improving the existing and future competitions that teams are apart of.

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  17. Can’t imagine how worse of a fit MLS could do in hiring Agoos as a Technical director. What technical attributes did he display? What did he find as scout for red bull? Almost laughable – but perhaps I don’t understand his ‘eye for the game’.

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  18. What does the technical director of a league do?

    “…some of Agoos’s duties include being responsible for overseeing an annual technical assessment of the league, communicating with team technical directors and planning and implementing competition and techinical strategies to improve gameplay. He is also a league spokesman on competition issues.”

    What does that mean?

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  19. I was just ripping on this guy a couple days ago with a friend. Who thought he was a great hire? Although that goal he scored for Portugal in 2002 was the goal of the tournament

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  20. Agoos was a terrific player in his prime. He was past it when he made the 2002 WC and was a marginal international, but he was a smart, active outstanding player and the field general for several MLS cup winning teams. I am confident he will do a good job in his new role.

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  21. Agoos as soccer player was a little before my time. I know he was god awful as Sporting Director for the NYRB, but how can the guy get 134 USMNT caps, make 3 MLS Best XI’s and 1 MLS Defender of the Year award, if he’s so terrible as a player as a lot of people say he is. Sounds like he was the 90’s equivalent of Jonathan Bornstein

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