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U.S. Soccer looking towards short, long-term coaching hires in addition to technical director

The Bruce Arena Era is over, but the search for the next U.S. Men’s National Team coach is one that will take quite some time.

Speaking on a conference call on Friday, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati says the federation will take its time when it comes to hiring a new permanent coach. For the time being, the federation will appoint someone to take charge of November friendlies before a more long-term fit is identified at some point later on.

That process could certainly come after the 2018 World Cup, when many of the world’s top international managers could be available.

“We’ve got two different processes,” Gulati said. “The first is a short-term process on who is going to take the team in November and then a longer review of the program and the decisions of the long-term planning of the coach.

“We don’t need a long-term four-year commitment to a coach by February or March. I’m not saying that won’t happen, but it’s not necessary. What we need is someone to guide the team in November and that’s a much easier, straight-forward decision because it’s a short-term situation.”

With Gulati’s status as president up in the air come election time next year, the U.S. Soccer president says the decision isn’t solely h’is. He has the final decision being the head of the federation, but a group of three or four will work to identify the hire for November while a long-term group will take their time to find someone later on.

As for where they’ll look, Gulati played coy. His past two hires have been Jurgen Klinsmann and Bruce Arena, both who’ve come with very different backgrounds and goals. Gulati said he could go international again or he could stay at home, but it really all depends on fit.

“No, I don’t think there’s a definitive profile,” Gulati said. “It’s someone that can lead the team to success and help us with the overall technical improvement. From my perspective, right now, we’ll talk internally on whether it’s international or domestic or what the specific profile or characteristics are.”

In addition to the coaching role, Gulati said the program would ideally like to have a technical director. The position has been left unfilled since Klinsmann’s departure, although Gulati said that Tab Ramos, a likely candidate for the head coaching position, has essentially performed in the role since last Fall. Ramos currently has the title of U-20 coach and youth technical director, but he has generally overseen everything on the youth level as well as player development.

That role, Gulati says, is harder to fill and harder to judge. Like the permanent head coaching hire, the federation will take their time when it comes to restructuring the player development side over the coming weeks and months.

“We’ll take our time with that,” Gulati said. “Fortunately, we have the luxury of time before we have competitive games again with the senior team, but all of our youth teams and a number of our women’s teams are still playing. We’ll probably get some external help so as to we’re not insular when we look at these things.

“Basically, everything will be looked at. It’s not acceptable to us, to leadership, to our board and certainly not to our fans and everyone else involved in the game.”

Comments

  1. and still the real issues remain regarding our pathetic pay to travel/play setup designed to make everyone money along the way but virtually eliminating a class of people/kids who could contribute big time as our nation’s soccer soul evolves, as they do around the globe from this class, to our common USA soccer good. but it’s not set up like that here and all the lip service to it has yet to make impacts. I am hopeful that some changes have begun and will continue to evolve but this is a hurdle that will be difficult to overcome imo.

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  2. re. Arena doctrine failure or not, the JK lovers here relish that right now. What we do know for sure is Klinsmann Doctrine was abject and total failure by his own stated goals. He left in disgrace a POS divided team well short of his 2018 complete BS sales pitch fairy tale that so many wanted to believe. Sunil too.

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  3. Arena blew it in his less than one year stint, ok…part of the story fellas, only.
    Recall if you can this all occurred AFTER Sunil and Klinsmann had 5+ years to deliver on 2018, THEIR STATED GOAL for all the BS shenanigans pulled in JK’s tenure. JK had ALL the power…delivered 5+ years of finely aged pure dog poop and Arena failed to clean it up in less than a year…true

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  4. Fire Tab Ramos. His incompetence cost us.

    Technical Director- Ernie Stewart

    Coach- Bob Bradley (until David Wagner can be hired).

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    • MiamiAl–
      Not that I violently disagree with any of it, but this is a classic USMNT fan comment. Has it all going…. everything from “YOU’RE FIRED” rage to 1994 nostalgia to Bradley-era conservatism to “latest shiny object” object affection for Wagner. Vintage SBI.

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  5. Everyone keeps saying who is right or is wrong. Arena was only a temporary hire to try undo what Klinsmann had to the SENIOR team ONLY. His only goal was Russia 2018. Klinsmann identified the problems but didn’t have a solution. He actually made it worse.
    The biggest reason Gulati should not be reelected is because he gave Jurgen another 4 years. We saw what happened when Arena got another 4 years. Bielsa has serious talks with USSF. That’s my first choice hire for new coach.

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    • The first step in solving a problem is “identifying the problem” JK was vocal about it and got crucified for talking about it. Like Jones said in his video, when he started under Bradley all the key players were playing in Europe-Howard, Dolo, Boca, Beasley, Bradley, Deuce, Donovan part time, Jozy.
      That JK turned out to be a bad tactician and should not have gotten a 2nd term doesn’t mean he was wrong.. frankly it just gave those people who hated him another reason to hate him.
      Arena – 8 games = 12 points.. game set match.. He blew it

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  6. Jermaine Jones saying what Jurgen said, and what many of us echoed for years to the response of being labeled Eurosnobs or MLS/American-bashers. Turns out, the Arena-docturine is wrong and highlights an inability to take a sincere/critical look at the state of our program, its players and its vision.

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  7. So… mistake made, but offer it to Boca now. At least the temporary position, with an opportunity to earn his way into a full cycle.

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      • Johnny, as manager. It’s just an all-star team. It isn’t unusual, in football countries with more pedigree than the U.S., for former international players to cut their managerial teeth on the national team before being hired to manage a club. Germany is a good example. JK and Beckenbauer before him both started managing the national team before being trusted by a club. Unless you are Ajax from the 70s, where the Dutch national team basically was a club team, it’s all-star level tactics only.

      • That’s not to say anyone can do it. You don’t want to hire a complete idiot. But Boca isn’t an idiot. He has a lot of soccer smarts, and seems to have the personality and drive for it, too. For instance, Donovan was a better player, but I’d take Boca over Donovan in a heartbeat as manager. Besides, I personally think that former attackers tend to make lesser coaches.

  8. Boca should have gotten the call instead of Arena. This isn’t a club team. Simple, all-star level tactics and player selection directed by a name the players will respect, and a name who knows CONCACAF qualifying.

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  9. Tata seems to be the ideal coach for us. His resume is impeccable and he doesn’t mind working from the ground up which is exactly what our program will be going though.

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  10. Something I meant to mention. Ramos may be a good choice for technical director, but if not, I think Claudio Reyna might be a good pick, if he would want the job. As sporting director for NYCFC, he must have a close relationship to Man City and their organization. Also, he has so much international experience he knows how other countries do it. He must have a lot of contacts in England and Europe that would help with getting our promising youth spots overseas.

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  11. Thank you Jermaine. Man do I wish we could’ve had you on the field against Trinidad. I hope his post gets picked up across the US Soccer world. JK was definitely right. MLS needs to get this through their heads. HELP our best players get to Europe, don’t hinder them!

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  12. At this point any coach will do just keep the same damn players on the field so they can go through the pain we are going through
    ——————

    ————————ALTIDORE—————————

    NAGBE————-DEMPSEY————–ARRIOLA

    ————-BRADLEY———McCARTHY————-

    ——————-
    They need to know what its like to play for nothing because they sure don’t know what its like to play for something. They need to experience the booing and the ridicule for there lack of effort, motivation and dedication

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  13. hire interim coach maybe Ramos until July or August 2018. Gulati needs step down but get at least friendlies for USNT programmed.

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  14. Gotta say, whether you agree with him or not, whether you fault him or not, Arena cowboyed-up and did the right thing in resigning. Big respect.

    Gulati, on the other hand, clearly doesn’t have the same caliber of character. His excuse to stay on as USSF pres basically boils down to “Well, my name is already printed on the Federation’s checks…”

    Grant Wahl has the right idea: let Sunil stay on in the capacity of leading the campaign for 2026, bringing in cash from sponsors, signing the checks if that’s such a big deal for him, but NOT making decisions about coaching hires. And NOT in the capacity of Fed pres.

    He has already abundantly proved that contracting coaches and developing the vision for long-term progress within the domestic/ international game, is not his strong suit,

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  15. Atlanta FC’s coach Martino is both domestic and international. Please check out his bio on Wikipedia. He has coached at the highest club level and 2 different teams in the WC, achieving success almost everywhere he goes. He reached the quarterfinals with Paraguay in the 2010 World Cup and took them to the final of the South American Cup in 2011.

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    • Gary-
      Not sure if Tata is looking to get back into the international game or if he will want to leave ATL so quickly. A Boca technical director and Tata manager duo has worked this year for ATLU why not with the US. I suggested Brad Friedel as caretaker because of his experience as a player and as a manager at the US youth level. There is no reason to hire a full time manager until next Summer after the USSF President is decided.

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    • “Jordan Morris mom just bought him and his girl friend a dog and his father is on the medical staff for the Sounders”…..so he didn’t go to Germany. THIS IS THE TYPE OF SOFTNESS WE SAW AT ALL LEVELS OF THE USMNT GAME!!!!!

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      • Maybe this is beating a dead horse, but whatever his faults, Klinsmann was absolutely right about this and Arena was the wrong coach for this time.

      • And you gotta think there was so much more Jones wanted to say…
        I know he’s older and definitely not the player he once was, but there’s nobody that will convince me that we didn’t miss his leadership.
        Big mistake to send him his retirement papers too early, his presence was sorely missed

  16. Everyone should see Jermaine Jones’ rant about everything, it’s on YouTube.
    He gets it, and don’t care that he grew up in Germany and is only 1/2 American… dude bleeds Red White and Blue, and tells it like it is..
    P.S. – If anyone thinks Jordan Morris will reach his full potential, just think of his new dog .. smh…

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    • That was brutal comment from JJ regarding Morris, but JJ is absolute right. MLS can throw enough money at young players now that makes MLS a compelling choice but damn. Pretty sure Morris would have learned to use his left if it was necissary for him to get minutes in Germany.

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  17. Who ever is in elected in Feb should pick the permanent coach. Gulati is far from a sure thing at this point and he should not sign a coach if he well could be a lame duck. Gulati is not the right person to make this decision anyway. If you look at his last 3 hires (Bradley, Klinsmann, Arena) they really did not take the program forward at all. The next one is critical and we need a totally different approach. Most think he should resign now but he has no honor and won’t. Too bad he can’t be fired, he’s earned that

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  18. 1) USSF has been talking about transitioning to a full-blown 4-3-3 for years, kept not doing it at the senior level to accommodate veteran “irreplaceable” personnel. The result: no identity, no philosophy, a team with no direction that didn’t know if it was an attacking, defending, or possession-oriented team.
    2) Stand up to the predatory pay-for-play clubs that run off competition and aggressively conquer field space. Stop rubberstamping their certifications and take a hard look at their rates. If they’re exhorbitant, DE-CERTIFY THE CLUB. Pressure local parks & rec departments to open their field spaces to smaller clubs. Keep grassroots alive.
    3) Focus on small-sided! Establish a natonwide indoor soccer/futsal league and provide funding and subsidies so it grows everywhere. That was EVERY KID has a place to play regularly (or irregularly) even if his club or school situation doesn’t work out – which is often.

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