By MICHAEL WALLACE
Sacramento Republic head coach Predrag “Preki” Radosavljevic is reportedly set to make the jump from the third division of U.S. soccer to the Premier League.
The team announced Wednesday that Preki will be stepping down following Saturday’s match vs. LA Galaxy II as the coach has accepted a new position in the United Kingdom. Paul Buckle will serve as Republic FC’s new head coach following this weekend’s game.
Preki has been linked with a move to Premier League club Leicester City in the wake of last month’s surprise sacking of manager Nigel Pearson.
“Republic FC has been one of the best experiences in my entire career,” Preki said. “Our players have worked harder than any I know. The fans, city and soccer community opened their hearts to the club as well as to me.
“This was not a decision I made lightly. The opportunity ahead is a lifetime dream for me and a chance to challenge myself at the highest level of the game.”
Preki previously played in the Premier League for Everton and Portsmouth and was an “MLS Original” upon the formation of Major League Soccer in 1996, playing for the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City) and Miami Fusion.
The 52-year-old is a two-time winner of the MLS MVP Award and represented the United States at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. He was elected to the American National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2010.
Previously, Preki managed Chivas USA–winning the MLS coach of the year with the club in 2007–and Toronto FC before taking over Sacramento in 2014, winning USL coach of the year in his first season. Sacramento won the USL Pro Championship game last season and is tied with Colorado Springs for first place in the USL Western Conference with 30 points each.
What do you think of the reported move? How would Preki fare as a Premier League manager?
Share your thoughts below.
Probably this thread isn’t being followed anymore, but here goes anyway. The BB link doesn’t make sense to me. They drew today and lost 2 points and are 5 points back in second place, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to abandon ship mid-season, just MHO.
Terence,
When it comes to the UK soccer media healthy skepticism about reports on new players and managers is always a good idea until a given event actually happens. Martin ONeill seems to be the latest hot ticket for that job.
If your big ambition is to manage a club in Europe at the highest level, and it seems that is Bob’s ambition, then when they come open and if they call you, you go if you think it is a good fit.
As for “abandoning” Staebek, the people at Staebek have made it very clear they would not stand in his way and are amazed that no one has come for Bob yet, that’s how much they think of him.
In Europe managers and players are always looking to move up. If you do well and BB has, then moving onward and upward is expected.
I think that the original article by michael wallace would have been much better had it talked about the mandaric connection, as explained by bottlcaps.
I’ve been to 9 Republic matches in the past two seasons including the opener at Hughes Stadium and have spent two days trying to wrap my brain around this. Preki is a good coach, who demands a lot from his players and seems to be an effective teacher. At the same time, I think that he’s a bit tactically rigid.
My fear is that if this goes poorly, it will set American coaches back a decade or more.
My guess is that the Mandaric connection was the factor in play with his hiring.
This pretty much ends the BB rumors
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Leicester-City-Bob-Bradley-contacted-manager-s/story-26872002-detail/story.html
The SBI article said nothing about coaching ( maybe I missed it ).
I am assuming he is playing and if so he will be their star player
PREKIIII!!!!!!!!
From BB brother on twitter Jeff Bradley
@JeffreyPBradley
@Benjamin_Atkins @craiglcfc I might have Phil Mickelson place a bet for me.
Been reading the Leicester forums, they seem to think it’s Bradley. Saw on there that Stabæk has a press conference toda, can’t confirm that with any real sources, but they seem to think it’s Bradley.
Nevermind, seems that is just a regular game day Presser, still hoping it’s Bradley
If it is Bob, then at least he may have Cambiasso who looks and plays a lot like Mikey.
Woulda been curious if Sac Republic had been named MLS expansion.. rumor was Preki was in it making that bet.
Also remember that two EPL clubs Sunderland and Newcastle, have friendlies with Sacramento this summer and while the friendlies were due to aggressive marketing by Sacramento, Preki used his connections, especially with Mandaric, to help
.If this “UK position” is with Leicester City, and NOT for the open managers job,it may be as a number #2,position which is important to facilitate getting players lined up for LC in the transfer market, while the team looks for and negotiates with an EPL experienced manager.
Remember, Preki has close ties to Milan Mandaric, a Serbian American Silicone Valley pioneer, former owner of the NASL San Jose Earthquakes and old NASL Edmonton Drillers, as well as one or two of the old MISL teams including one that Preki played for. At one time or another Mandaric owned ,Portsmouth, Sheffield Wednesday and Leicester City. It was Preki that introduced Mandaric to Portsmouth after Preki has been a player there. Mandaric does not ows Leicester City, he sold it to a Thai Consortium of Thai business men (of which he was a shareholder) and was appointed as its Chairman mandaric stepped down as Chairman when he bought Sheffield Wednesday for ONE pound in 2010 and then resold it to another Thai business man (The Tuna King) this year for 37 Million pounds, having returned the team to profitability.
Either way it has to be through the Mandaric connection.
My guess is that it may be Leicester City, as they just parted ways with Pearson and is the only vacant EPL managers spot open and its at a important time for EPL clubs now during the open transfer window, where it is vital that EPL clubs look for talent. The other option is as a manager or coach at a lower division. club
Very impressive bottlecaps. I suspect you are correct.
These reports strike me as a bit soft. Yes, Preki may be leaving for a position at Leicester, but which position? Something on the coaching staff would make much more sense than manager. It sounds like someone might be misconstruing “taking a position” and the overheated betting market is doing the rest.
On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong and LCFC really are taking a flier on him.
Slightly off topic, but why is the late 90s MLS promo in which a tailgating Wiz fan declares that “Preki is a god! not on Youtube? What good is the internet if I can’t watch that any time I want to.
I think that Sean357 might have got it right: BB is in at LCFC.
Any source? That was an educated guess by me. Be cool if it turned out to be true, he deserves it and I think he would do great.
Not a source, but the betting odds now have Bradley second to Preki
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/football-specials/leicester/next-permanent-manager
I’m not a betting man but I’d put serious cash on Bob Bradley if I was. Everyone assuming he’ll be the manager but he was Bob’s assistant at Chivas, has EPL playing experience and probably sees being #2 at an EPL club as > than #1 in USL. Staebek would let Bob go, they know he wants to move up and he has them safe from relegation 1/3 of the way through the season.
Sean,
Just to be clear, are you saying Preki brings in Bob as a #2 guy?
I like the idea but wouldn’t it make more sense to hire a #2 who is an experienced EPL insider to help Preki get acclimated since he’s never managed there before?
Bob as the #1, Preki as #2 or 3. They rarely define that anyway but I would imagine either would bring in a couple experienced EPL guys.
Interesting thought, would make some sense, more sense than Preki being the manager, I could see him being Bradley’s #2
I can see this. The articles never mentioned he was going to be the manager.
He was also a superb player in the old MISL along side Steve Zungul.
I used to watch him as a kid when he played for the Tacoma Stars…Kia, Chris Viccarro (sp.?). It was great!
Steve Zungul!
Leicester fans not happy to say the least
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Leicester-City-Rumours-Bookmakers-slash-odds/story-26864499-detail/story.html
The funniest thing in their messages, beyond all the references to the ULS league, is that they actually believe LC is “on the up” and had a chance either at a high profile manager or at solidifying their spot in the EPL. Keep dreaming guys. You’ll be relegation fodder no matter who you get.
Every team in England is “on the rise”. And exce[t for the ones already there, none of will ever get there.
Please god let this be a joke wot a disaster for Leicester this will be all the top managers around the world we cud draw to our club and this clown is wot we get. God help us if this is true.
tip: try spell checkin prayers. dunno for sure but cud be god mite respond better wot you askin for if he u cud understand ya rekwest.
Danny,
I don’t know if you are real or not. If you are, you need a reality check. There are MUCH bigger clubs in the Big 5 leagues than Leicester. In fact, there are clubs in the Championship (e.g Leeds). Why would you come on an American site to complain about the hiring of an American coach. In case you haven’t noticed, the British don’t currently have great managers.
Yes there are much bigger clubs in the big 5 leagues than Leicester, but not in the championship and not Leeds. I guess it depends how you measure the size of a club, but financially Leicester are one of the 50 richest in the world, 40th in fact. Leeds didn’t make the list. Leicester are th 12th best supported club in England well ahead of any championship club, the best of which was Derby, Leeds are only 4th in the championship and 20th in England. But as far as Preki goes, unlike Danny I haven’t got a problem with him coaching at Leicester, but I would like to see him as an assistant to Bob Bradley or Jurgen Klinsmann.
holy sh!t this is the britishest thing i’ve ever seen here
Wow…speechless. A massive accomplishment for American soccer, even if he’s a dual-national.
I really don’t understand why proven coaches like Preki and Robin Fraser don’t get head coaching positions in MLS, but Pablo Mastroeni, Greg Vanney, and Frank Yallop have positions.
Not sure robin fraser is a “proven” coach. he was a coach, yes, but I’d put him in the Jesse Marsch category of “lets wait and see”
Frank Yallop won two MLS championships and was coach of the year.
Good for him.
I’m waiting for the comments from the people who will ask why Bob Bradley is not the first American manager in the EPL.
.
The difference is Preki played in the EPL, Bob didn’t.
Then I’ll wait for the people who will say you don’t have to have played in the EPL to be successful ( Sir Alex Ferguson).
In fact you don’t need to have been a good player at all (Jose Mourinho) to have succeeded as a manager in the EPL.
GW,
I am actually surprised that Preki would beat out BB as the first American coach in the EPL, or the big 4 leagues. Primarily because BB has a vastly superior coaching resume in my opinion (even in Egypt, many consider a failure, although I don’t). Additionally you can see BB building on his achievements with Stabaek, who are in second when people expected them to be relegated. Maybe the EPL connections had a hand in the Preki hiring. Either way it’ll be interesting to watch, hopefully he can survive the season.
Grant,
Cliché warning, it’s not what you know it is who you know.
The most obvious candidates for “FIRST AMERICAN BPL MANAGER” have been Arena and BB.
I always felt they were not going to get a shot because:
In Europe managing a national team is not seen in the same light way Americans do. It is usually populated by new guys trying to make a name for themselves, fired guys between jobs looking to get back in, or older guys on a retirement gig.
So Arena’s and BB’s World Cup gigs weren’t necessarily impressive to Europeans. Both had excellent records but their managerial experience was limited to college, MLS and the National team.
And unlike SBI fans most European clubs understand the significant differences between managing National teams and Club teams.
Managers new to the BPL do not necessarily do as well as veteran EPL guys. If you look at MLS the teams that have done the best are usually very heavy in the coaching and playing staff with MLS vets.
Why should the BPL be any different?
But most of all neither BB nor the Bruce, to the best of my knowledge, has any inside contacts with ownership in the BPL. And it should be obvious that owners there are very active in manager recruitment.
Perhaps Preki has contacts.
With the increase of American ownership in places like Liverpool and Roma and so on I was hopeful that would change and Bob’s excellent stints in Egypt and then Staebek certainly help.
I think the Bruce is settled but I expect BB to move on up from Staebek fairly soon.
And I don’t see why Bob would take a #2 position.
Just wanted to say that I agree with everything you wrote! Although I would actually prefer to see BB take a crack at the Bundesliga over the EPL where he’d be eaten alive by fans and media. I think his strict and organized style would fit perfectly with the German sporting culture. But again it comes down to connections like you mentioned… you think Klinsmann would put in a good word for him??
I don’t know what kind of relationship BB and JK have but I do know that JK has always spoken highly of BB , although he did criticize BB’s preparation for the 2010 Ghana game when JK was an ESPN ( they did that WC didn’t they?) pundit.
But that’s what pundits are supposed to do..
My guess is JK would give Bob a great recommendation.
I’d rather see Bob in Germany as well if for no other reason than American coaches are less of a novelty in Germany and that JK has raised the profile of the American game over there in a positive way. .
Imagine BB in Hannover with Dolo as his #2 or whatever they call it.
Actually, I thought if anyone was going to beat BB out as FAM BIG 4 in Europe it would be Dolo not Preki.
Very poor examples.
SAF was a great SPL player back in an era when it was one of the best leagues in the world. He then became a manager in the SPL and was so successful that he made it to the EPL.
Mourinho is the only top manager I can think of that did not play professionally. He’s the exception to the rule. And even then, he was a translator for Sir Bobby Robson and learned his trade in a league that recently has produced a lot of great players and teams. Coach Bob has never been exposed to the game at the highest level apart from a couple of hours as an opposing manager. That’s not a criticism, it’s a reality. It’s a massive risk to bring in someone from a completely different footballing culture that has never produced a manager that made it to Europe before…this is why Africans and Asians aren’t given jobs, either, and even a lot of Argentines (who make great managers) fail in Europe despite having had a lot of success at home.
Preki played in the Premier League under Premier League managers. He has been exposed to the training methods, the level of play, the culture, the media…I’m not saying it’s a good hire, or even that he’s better than Coach Bob, but I can understand their thought process.
Soccer fan,
“Very poor examples.”
Really? I think they are great examples.
Here is what you wrote:
“The difference is Preki played in the EPL, Bob didn’t.”
I gave you two examples of managers who were GREAT in the EPL and never played a second in it.
The point being you do not have to have been a player in the EPL to have succeeded as a manager there.
“SAF was a great SPL player back in an era when it was one of the best leagues in the world. He then became a manager in the SPL and was so successful that he made it to the EPL.”
Your description of SAF as a “great” player is highly debatable hyperbole. He scored a lot of goals at Rangers for a short time in the mid 60’s. They were a distant second fiddle to probably the best Celtic team of all time. Outside of those two teams the best Scottish forwards at the time, like Denis Law, or Ian St. John, played in England, something SAF never did. Check line ups of the Scotland team in that era and you won’t find SAF featuring too prominently. Being a good player sure helped Ferguson but it’s probably not why he was an all time great manager.
And since you are going back to the mid 60’s early 70’s, Bertie Mee, who never played professionally, managed Arsenal to the first double in their history in 1971. And while we are with Arsenal, Wenger played 11 games for Strasbourg the season they won a championship in France but the bulk of his career was with lower division French teams Mulhouse and Mutzig. So he didn’t play a ton of games at a “top level” either. And he’s not too bad a manager.
Since you don’t believe you can be a EPL good manager without being a good pro player look up the playing careers of Gerard Houllier (Liverpool, Aston Villa) , Avram Grant ( Chelsea ) Carlos Alberto Parreira ( no EPL experience but won the World Cup) , AV Boas ( Spurs), and Arrigo Sacchi ( AC Milan, not EPL I know but Sacchi wasn’t too bad a manager) .
SAF was a horrible example. He played the sport in one of the top professional leagues in that era.
You know you’re reaching when you list Avram Grant in your list of examples. Villas Boas and Houllier aren’t exactly considered world class managers, either.
Most, as in like over 90%, of managers played top flight professional soccer. And the few that didn’t, like Mourinho or Villas Boas, were at least very close to people that did and learned their trade from the inside of top flight organizations. Coach Bob doesn’t have exposure to the sport at those levels. Neither do a lot of Asian coaches that have had a lot of success in their domestic leagues or even for their NTs. It’s not racism that prevents these guys from getting hired, it’s just a huge risk for a club to take someone so unproven. Just as it would be for an NBA team to higher the best high school coach in the US, even if he’s been undefeated for twenty years.
soccer fan,
You are getting away from the main point of this discussion.
You seem to be focusing on SAF’s alleged greatness as a player as proof that EPL playing experience is key to being an EPL manager. It’s not .
First of all, Ferguson was a very good player, not a great one, otherwise he would have been in England. The SPL at the time was way better than the current anemic version but it was still.a two horse show. It was very much the Old Firm and everyone else.
Here is what the Encyclopedia Brittanica had to say about SAF’s playing career.
“ His professional football career began in 1964, when he signed with first-division Dunfermline Athletic. Ferguson tied for the league lead in scoring by tallying 31 goals during the 1965–66 Scottish League season, and in 1967 he was transferred to his hometown Rangers for a then-record £65,000 fee. He was a solid if unspectacular player in two seasons with the Rangers and played for two other clubs before retiring in 1974.”
Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Graeme Souness and Bryan Robson were players who had much better playing careers in the EPL and elsewhere than SAF had in his SPL career. Yet they were not that great as EPL managers,
The point is being a great or even a good player in the EPL,. SPL or wherever is no guarantee you will succeed as an EPL manager.
This discussion was based on your original claim:
“The difference is Preki played in the EPL, Bob didn’t.”,
It is clear that you view Preki’s EPL playing experience as an advantage for him and a deal breaker for BB. While I’m sure it doesn’t hurt Preki’s case, I don’t believe it is a deal breaker for BB.
Your original post did not specify whether someone had to be a good, bad or indifferent manager. Sure AVB was not great but he was an EPL manager something Arena and BB do not have on their resume.
Your post implied that Bob’s lack of EPL playing experience was a deal breaker.
None of us know how good Bob would do in the EPL. A lot of good managers have failed there for whatever reason.
EPL playing experience would probably help BB’s case, but my point is, it is not by itself, a deal breaker as you imply.
So I gave you 5 guys who were never EPL players yet managed in the EPL.
Three of them, SAF, Wenger, and Mourinho were, by any standard, quite successful.
This means your original post is not necessarily valid.
In addition I gave you Sacchi and Parreira, who also never played professionally anywhere.
One was the iconic manager behind some excellent AC Milan sides and the other won a World Cup. So you need not even need to be a pro player to succeed at the highest level.
By the way, you are/were probably a better soccer player than Bruce Arena, who is an excellent manager capable of managing anywhere.
The point is, having been a player at a high level probably doesn’t hurt but it is not an absolute necessity to be a successful manager anywhere.
After all the guys, all non- excellent players, on my list, as a group have won the World Cup, the Champions league, the EPL Championship and the FA Cup.
That’s not too shabby.
You’re not listening.
My point was not that you have to be a great player to be a great manager. Nor was it that a great player makes you a good manager. You’re making a strawman argument.
My point is that you need to be exposed to the top managers, players, tactics, training methods, media, etc. from a young age to be a great manager. Alex Ferguson got this while playing in the SPL. 95% of managers got this while they played professionally. Jose Mourinho got this while being a translator for Sir Bobby Robson. And Wenger and Sacchi, the other two exceptions to the rule, got this by working their way up through the system as coaches at a young age. They came from cultures that have a long tradition of producing great managers. Villas Boas started as a scout (by meeting Bobby Robson) and got his coaching licenses by studying at European professional clubs.
Coach Bob never got this. He made it as a player and coach in the stone age of NCAA soccer and then in the early days of the MLS. Later, he became a manager in CONCACAF, CAF, and now Stabaek. He has basically no exposure to the level of play in the Premiership, the tactics, the psychology of its players, the media, the pressure, etc. Neither does Arena, neither does any great Korean or Japanese coach. Your claim that Arena would make a great manager anywhere is ridiculous because a), it’s counterfactual, and b), you’re suggesting that all of the scouts and directors of football have it wrong.
Preki, on the other hand, came from Yugoslavia, a place with a strong football culture, and played in the Premiership. He has been exposed to top-flight soccer. Even though it would be crazy for Leicester to hire him, I can see why they’d be more willing to take the chance on him than Coach Bob.
soccer fan,
I am listening (actually reading).
It’s just that your arguments are not very convincing.
You are so rigid and narrow minded in your views.
If you want to get an EPL manager job, I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to have studied and played the game for years at the highest levels in Europe. But not everyone who managed in the EPL got there by following your prescribed formula.
I continue to address your original statement which you seem to be trying to back off from:
“The difference is Preki played in the EPL, Bob didn’t.”
Preki may have a job in the EPL.
BB has yet to be offered one.
The primary reason for this is most likely that Preki appears to have better personal connections inside the EPL, as bottlecaps has so eloquently pointed out.
EPL experience as a player, while helpful, is very likely not a deal breaker or a deal maker for either Preki or BB when it comes to an EPL job. After all, Preki last played there 20 years ago. The EPL is more than a little different 20 years down the road, you know. Jordan Morris was less than a year old when Preki was there.
And remember the argument here is just getting a job in the first place, not how well someone does once they have gotten it. You can’t be a success or a failure at a job if you never get hired in the first place.
Look at Arsene. Why would anyone have hired him in the first place?
Wenger spent his entire managerial career in France before moving to Japan and managing in the J League. This is a prescription for success in the EPL? When Arsenal hired him the headlines were “Arsene Who?”. He finished 3rd that first year and then won the Double the next season. Not a lot of exposure to the EPL beforehand.
And it turns out he and David Dein, the Arsenal Vice Chairman at the time were close friends before he got the job. So there is every reason to suppose that the personal connection did not hurt.
Mourinho worked as Robson’s translator and I’m sure that was helpful but if you are saying that experience alone gave him the inside scoop on winning in the EPL then you are ignoring the fact that Jose then went on to manage Benfica, then Porto where he won the league, the UEFA cup and then the Champions league before moving to Chelsea and winning the EPL in his first season.
Jose is a savant but you seem to be under the impression that BB and Arena are morons and know absolutely nothing about the game in Europe or that they have never spent any time with a guy like Robson. What makes you think they haven’t?
Maybe you are right but you don’t make a real compelling case.
You mention Grant as a failed manager.
When Avram Grant took over from Mourinho Chelsea fans were upset because, like you say about Arena and BB, he had no background in “top class football” and worse, he had no proper UEFA coaching credentials.
Okay, that seems reasonable.
One year before, Grant was the Technical Director for Portsmouth overseeing Harry Redknapp but otherwise his resume was not unlike BB’s and Arena’s. Given that Redknapp was an old school manager, i.e. basically did everything himself in terms of player transactions and the like, you have to wonder just what exactly Grant did at Portsmouth.
But guess what? It turns out Grant and Abramovich, Chelsea owner, are friends. That old personal connection thing rearing its ugly head again just like with Preki and just like with Wenger.
Wouldn’t it be great if we all just hired people based strictly on what their resumes said?
So what does Grant, the non top flight coach do in his first and only year?
He gets Chelsea into the League Cup final but loses. He gets Chelsea to the Champions League final but loses. And he gets Chelsea close to winning the league title but loses it on the very last day.
Failure? After Mourinho set the bar up in outer space, of course it was a failure. But are you going to tell me a man who does what Grant did can’t manage a team in the EPL? That the players did all that w/o any help from Grant and in spite of him?
As many games as they had to play to do all that, I don’t think so. Anywhere but Chelsea and Man U. that would have been a good season.
At Arsenal Dein knew Wegner, had faith in him and was willing to take the heat and hire him. Fortunately he did great right away.
Abramovich was buddies with Grant and gave him a shot. Grant “failed” but I have a hard time saying the man was a complete disaster. Then again I’m not a Chelsea fan.
It looks like Preki has someone who is maybe willing to take a shot on him at LCFC.
If BB or Arena were buddies with owners like Lerner or the Liverpool owners maybe those guys take a chance on BB or Arena. While you seem to think BB and Arena are “stone age” managers, I’m pretty sure an EPL owner could easily do a lot worse, because they have.
By the way, since we are talking about Liverpool, take a look at Brendan Rogers’ playing career.
Always thought he was one of the best coaches in the game. Will enjoy seeing what he can do in the EPL.
Well ain’t that something… Preki could be the 1st American to coach in one of the Big 4 Leagues!
He was an excellent coach with an unexpected Chivas USA and he did not receive enough credit for making the Goats really competitive. Well done sir.
I guess he is American at this point, been here the last half his life. But if wikipedia is to be believed, he was born, raised, trained, and played in Serbia/Euro leagues until 27-ish when he came to play here and got his US citizenship. I hate this debate over who is american and who isn’t especially with our international USMNT team, but those ties are pretty flimsy. At least some of these guys are coming over younger, or were here and moved at a young ages.
jon,
Preki has been a US citizen since 1996, almost 21 years.
Is that long enough for him to earn the right to called an American by you?
He was with Red Star for about 7 years.
Other than his stints with Everton, Portsmouth and one season in Sweden,. he has been with soccer teams in the US or Canada since 1985 or nearly 30 years, a pretty dramatic period for the sport.
He was inducted into the American National Soccer Hall of fame.
in 2010.
Is that long were enough and North American enough for you?
As far as breaking the stigma against American coaches, whether Preki is perceived as American in Europe is more important than whether any of us consider him American or not. I’m more than happy to claim him as one of us, but if he’s perceived as Serbian (I have no clue how’s he’s perceived), it may be premature to unfurl the banner of an “American” coaching at a high level in Europe.
For me, it has never been about where the person was born or how long they’ve been a citizen, but rather: Where did they learn their skills or their trade?
For a player, I think about where they learned to get good enough to earn their first pro contract; for a coach, I think about their early years learning to coach.
I realize that still begs a lot of questions, but if you look at his bio, you see he played very minimally in Europe, and learned all of his coaching in the US. I have no trouble considering him to be an American coach, and don’t care if EuroSnobs try to claim him.
He didn’t come to America until his 20’s. He developed as a player in Europe and even ended up spending several years playing in the Premiership after moving to the states. Europeans will probably perceive him as “European.” That has absolutely nothing to do with our own dual-national debate, we’re just discussing whether or not Preki will change European perception of American managers, and so in this case, the only thing that matters is how Europeans perceive him. My guess is that, fairly or unfairly, this won’t change their perception much of someone like Coach Bob, who was completely developed as a player and manager by the American system. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Actually if you look up a few posts you’ll see that the discussion indeed turned with an assertion that his ties to America are “pretty flimsy.” That has everything to do with “dual national debates”(i.e. immigration) and little to do with soccer.
As for soccer, sure, most Europeans will regard him as a Serb. That has to do with many European people’s attitudes towards immigration and/or their refusal to believe the US could produce a soccer manager of note.
Yeah, but I wasn’t answering those posts.
Anyway, if you were a European club trying to find a manager, and someone from Korea recommended a Korean K-League manager, who spent his entire playing and managing career in Korea and has a ridiculously good record there (as well as a successful stint as the Korean NT manager), would you hire him? (Let’s assume for this example he speaks good English.) If you were an NBA team, would you consider hiring a high school coach, even if he was undefeated for the past twenty years?
It’s not anti-Americanism, it’s the simple fact that it’s a huge risk hiring a 57 year old who doesn’t really have experience with that level of the game.