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Report: Mexico to hire Atlanta’s Martino as next head coach

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The Mexican National Team may have its new manager and Atlanta United may be the team providing him.

According to Azteca Deportes, current Atlanta United head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino will be hired as Mexico’s new boss once their MLS campaign comes to a close.

The report indicates  he will be officially hired on December 8, which is the same day as the MLS Cup Final. He will take over for Juan Carlos Osorio, who resigned from the job after the World Cup last summer and took over managing the Paraguay National Team.

Martino was Atlanta’s first-ever coach and he led them to the playoffs in its inaugural season last year. It was the first time an expansion team made the playoffs since the Seattle Sounders did back in 2008.

He has international managing experience, too. He took Paraguay to the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup and the Final of the 2011 Copa America. In 2014, he took over at Argentina following their run to the World Cup Final. Over the next two years, Martino led them to the Copa America Final twice, losing to Chile on penalties both times. He resigned from that job in July of 2016 and took over Atlanta United shortly thereafter.

Atlanta is currently leading in the MLS Supporters Shield standings with two games left in the season. The Five Stripes are guaranteed one of the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference once the playoffs begin at the end of the month.

Comments

  1. What makes you guys even think Tata was interested in the US job? Yes, Tata did work in an English-speaking country but did anyone ever think that he might be more comfortable in a Spanish-speaking country? That might be his preference. It’s possible Tara’s people may have put that out there which discouraged a US approach. We don’t know. We probably won’t know. But to lay blame on Stewart or USSF for Tata choosing Mexico is a cop out.

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    • Why did he take a club managing job in MLS instead of the Mexican league? I’m sure a good Mexican team would have paid top dollar for him and he would have had more money to spend on shaping his team. i thought from the beginning he made a strange decision if he wanted to get a top job in South America or Europe since MLS isn’t considered that important in those areas. Logically, then, he must have been positioning himself for a national team job either in the US or in Mexico. The job in the US would have been more likely to be open since even if Klinsmann had stayed and gotten the US into the WC he would have been through 2 WC cycles and almost certain to step down or be asked to step down. I think US Soccer will regret letting him get away.

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  2. To e honest, I’m a bit disappointed. Tata Martino will be a good USMNT manager, fully understanding US players and MLS culture. I can careless whether he speaks fluent English now because 90% of the US players speak fluent to reasonable Spanish. Communications are not an issue here. US fans have long been looking for attractive and beautiful soccer. I hope Greg Berhalter can also provide the same qualities, if not better.

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  3. Feels a little like a lost opportunity, and that we may be reminded of it constantly. Martino has a much better resume than Berharter or any of the other options I’ve heard thrown around for the USMNT. If he wasn’t seriously considered because he doesn’t speak English well, then that’s not a good enough reason for me. Is USSF looking for a soccer coach or just a pretty face to put out in front of the fans? Gimme a break.

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    • How do we know he was offered the USA job but respectfully declined? I was surprised he even came to MLS to begin with, did he embraced the American style of play? Not really, he went out and got himself the best South American players the team could afford. That doesn’t sound like he wanted to foremost teach our American players how the game should be played. Look at Carleton, he is given a few chances but nothing like let’s say how the Philly Union does with their young American players.

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      • I guess we don’t know. But I remember him being asked about the USMNT position directly, and he responded that he would be willing to listen to offers. If he’s taking the Mexico job, then it’s a position of similar talent and pay. If he was approached and wasn’t interested, or if Stewart and co. felt like it wasn’t a fit, then ok, no prob. But to disqualify him due to his English, or to not even consider seems like an oversight. I guess I am frustrated with the lack of transparency and the inaction of US Soccer. And this year-long delay is going to put added pressure on Berhalter or whoever is finally picked to produce.

    • How can you downplay not being able to communicate with players without the use of a translator??? It’s one thing in a club setting where many of the players might speak Spanish as their first language, and they are constantly around each other, but in a national team setting where they only get a few days around each other a year, the language barrier would create an inefficiency that could have disastrous results.

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      • News flash! It’s done all the time on the club level where the manager has daily interaction with his players vs. monthly interaction for national team coaches until there is a tournament. Martino has already been here 2 years, I suspect his English is at least passable now but he obviously is more comfortable in Spanish. Stewart’s requirement that a manager be fluent in English seems to me to be a cover for hiring an American coach he wanted from the first. By putting in the requirement, which is pretty bogus, then he doesn’t have to justify not considering all the good foreign coaches.

      • Actually I’d imagine this is probably much easier to implement at the club level (where the club can employ full-time translators on-site, and where the players and coaches get a chance to develop a functional communication system over the course of months of daily interaction) than it would be at the national level. Certainly, it has been tried by other countries before (i.e. pretty much every Asian side or non-Francophone African side who has experimented with a foreign coach). Would be interesting to hear the perspectives of these coaches and programs on what (if any) the impact was.

      • Yes, much easier at the club level where the coach/manager relationship is much deeper than at international level.

  4. Fine. They’ll be looking for a new coach before WC 2022. This dude never sticks anywhere for long, and Mexico aren’t satisfied with managers for very long.

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  5. Damn…..
    “To rival the U.S ??, Mexico ?? is trying to select a coach in our league that is proven to produce better than the coach the USMNT selected FROM OUR LEAGUE”……hmmmm ?

    smh…We see you, it will not work ?

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  6. So this means the road is clear for USSF to hire the guy who’s been coaching in MLS for years longer and is 18 points behind Martino.

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    • This argument is so shoddy it scarcely merits a response. Atlanta’s budget is almost twice the size of Columbus. Which do you think matters more to a team’s chances success? Ah well, I suppose the great Tata would maul poor Gregg and Columbus if they ever met in the playoffs…. Oh wait, that already happened. Remind me who won?

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      • What I remember is he made a MLS Cup at home, his team came out flat as a pancake and lost. So people are telling me with the right tools he’d be awesome. The one time he made a final another budget team beat him at his own place.

      • Hilarious. Knocking a guy for massively outperforming his team’s budget and expectations year after year because he once lost a cup final (that nobody expected them to reach). Wanna see a series of legendary choke jobs? Check out Tata’s 2013-2014 Barcelona team. Crashed the bus in the Copa Del Rey final, flamed out in the CL blew the league championship on the last day (at home). All this in spite of inheriting of the greatest collections of players ever assembled. He also inherited a loaded Argentina side which blew a pair of Copa finals in which they were favored.

      • “The Imperative Voice” has all of the answers doe!!! It makes you wonder why USSF doesn’t just hire him instead smh

    • The dude doesn’t even speak English. I am not even close to a xenophobe, but — Bora Milutinvoc in the dark ages of US Soccer aside — not being able to communicate to players in English is pretty much a disqualifier.

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