New York City FC are trying their hardest to hang onto head coach Patrick Vieira, but if reports out of France are to be believed, he could be taking the vacant coaching position at Nice.
Nice general manager Julien Fournier was in New York last week to speak with the 41-year-old Frenchman and reportedly left feeling like he convinced Vieira to make the move. Some sort of deal would have to be struck with NYCFC, who have Vieira under contract until the end of this season.
City Football Group, owners of NYCFC, are trying to retain his services. They are trying to convince him to stay by offering the potential to be Pep Guardiola’s successor at Manchester City.
However, reports indicate he could prefer the Nice job and an announcement could come as soon as the end of this week.
Patrick Viera is one of the great players of his generation, with a world cup and the best season in EPL history to his name. He was always using MLS as a stepping stone, and anyone who thought differently was fooling themselves. If you want to find a way to feel some pride in this, consider that MLS was considered a legitimate stepping stone, which I am not sure would have been the case a while ago. Also, do you think Nice is his final destination? Just the next stepping stone.
Wow we are a whiny, entitled bunch. Nobody is surprised that PV is moving on. MLS is a stepping stone for young players and coaches. Deal with it.
I mean, sorry, but leaving your team mid season to be ready for the new team’s season, is like we don’t matter much, they do, I need to be there for opening day. For those of your pretending like this makes us look better. This makes you look like you can drop the best record team in the East right now, on its head, walk midseason, because the job and the league are a stepping stone.
Just like how Bradley left Le Havre mid season to join Swansea. It happens all the time.
It’s a global game. There is no “off-season” that applies to all leagues. If he decides to only move during the MLS off-season he would be shooting himself in the foot, career-wise.
You are confusing “shoots self in foot” versus “does MLS justice.” If a coach turning down a foreign league job until the season is over is foolish that kind of suggests keeping a MLS job is foolish. I get the argument and on some selfish level it may be how coaches of a type operate, but I don’t see at all how it benefits MLS. He didn’t win anything here, he didn’t stay long enough to birth a line of mentored coaches, he didn’t spread tactical DNA, he just used us for a first head job and then cleared out midyear second season. Wow, that really sells us to the next guy. Well, maybe he might sell another no-resume guy who wants in and out quickly too.
Like I said elsewhere in the thread, I think the ideal is more like Henry, comes here and stays for years, acts like he enjoys it, and starts to be identified with the MLS and his team. BWP is another like that. That sells MLS as a destination. All this sells is “you can use MLS to start a career — never win, don’t spread your knowledge — then drop them like a bad habit.” We want something out of it, association for a while, winning, knowledge.
Good for Vieira! It’s nice to hear sustained Top 6 League interest in MLS managers (Viera/Marsch). Perhaps MLS becomes a magnet not only for young players, but also relatively young and talented managers to hone skills. It could certainly help strengthen MLS’ technical and tactical gene pool so-to-speak. Perhaps the next great MNT manager is a teenager out coaching U-8s somewhere? <–Ideally in the US, but anywhere is cool.
No, because the coaching equivalent of a retirement league, is a league where the coaches are barely here, accomplish little, and are eager to jump to the next lily pad. I don’t mind “Bradleys” eventually moving on to other opportunities, but he gave the league a lot for years, tried some things abroad with some mixed success, and eventually came back. That redounds to the benefit of the league. Vieira taking off for Nice just sells that Ligue1 is better.
I also think if you start letting coaches wander off midseason like players on a transfer, then the contracts are nothing more than paper. I want committed coaches here.
Put up or shut up question: what is Vieira’s MLS legacy? What tactics has he passed on? He wasn’t even here long enough to add to league DNA.
Viera’s legacy is the fact that he started in MLS and got recruited to a much better league. The real question here is who gave you the right to come up with the only valid list of requirements needed to build a legacy. I would love to see your credentials on this
Rob: can’t disagree with my content — and you didn’t — so you run me down personally. No one appointed me anything but neither you. And I’m defending my league by saying I don’t care for coaches who are here 1-1/2 years, don’t do anything, and then run off to the first ok job they find in a more venerated league. That doesn’t make MLS look better. That makes MLS look like a lily pad jump to a meh destination like Nice.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. This is what I meant to say: “Viera’s legacy is the fact that he started in MLS and got recruited to a much better league”
Hope it clears things up for you.
His legacy, circularly, is that he got out of dodge fast, to work on a legacy someplace else where he really wanted to be? I’m not confused, I just don’t think it benefits MLS much. I don’t want “pit stop” coaches. I don’t think they are here long enough to contribute knowledge and tactics to league DNA. All this is, and you almost admit it, is an “image thing” where you think it makes us look vicariously better to be on his resume for a year and a half. I think you’re missing that the leagues and teams that look better are the ones he stays at like he cares.
Agreed! Also, I hope his success at NYCFC makes more MLS teams open to trying newer coaches (particularly with great pedigrees). MLS was stuck in a coaching carousel for a lot of the past 10 years where teams just kept recycling the same mediocre coaches. It feels like we are starting to break out of that now.
“Success?” He got a bye last season with a high dollar team and was eliminated in the first playoff round they played, by a cheaper payroll team coached by an American. Every other Eastern playoff team last year was coached by an American. So. What.
I support us taking risks on experienced coaches like Tata with resumes, but Vieira basically used us to risk his first head coach job, did a tepid job of it, so long.
I think the better legacy of MLS is players like Henry who come here and spend years giving to the league. They stay here long enough to transmit actual knowledge, and the fact they stay a while sells people on our league as opposed to their next destination. I do not want to be the league where foreign coaches put on a show for a year and then go get a job they want more.