U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker has officially stepped down from his role, and while it won’t have too much affect on the upcoming FIFA World Cup in North America, the optics are negative no matter which way you look at it.
Crocker is reportedly set to take up a similar role with the Saudi Arabia Football Federation, ending a three-year stay with U.S. Soccer. The Welsh-born Crocker did help U.S. Soccer make some major moves during his time as sporting director, but ultimately his departure at this stage of 2026 is shocking.
Crocker was influential in the design of the federation’s new $200 million+ training facility in Fayetteville, Georgia. He helped in the rehiring process of former U.S. men’s national team head coach Gregg Berhalter following U.S. Soccer’s investigation into Berhalter after the 2022 World Cup.
Current USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino and USWNT head coach Emma Hayes were both hired during the Crocker-era, which will go down as arguable the biggest signings made by U.S. Soccer for those respective roles.
Hayes has helped the USWNT get back on track, winning the Gold Medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics and compete for the No. 1 ranking in the world. Pochettino has helped the USMNT pick up some key results in the build-up to their World Cup schedule this June, highlighted by victories over Uruguay, Paraguay, Japan, and Australia.
However, despite Crocker’s previous press conference comments about U.S. Soccer’s growth for the future, he is leaving the federation for a potential World Cup knockout stage opponent.
Saudi Arabia has garnered plenty of coverage over recent years given the large amounts of money that they have paid players and managers alike for moving to their Pro League. From Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to Riyad Mahrez and Sadio Mane, there has been zero shortage of international talent in the Pro League, and it doesn’t look to be stopping anytime soon.
In addition, Saudi Arabia will play host to the 2034 FIFA World Cup, bringing the international soccer community back to the Middle East for the second time in the last four editions (Qatar 2022). After already having World Cup preparation experience with U.S. Soccer, Crocker will now be tasked with doing the same for Saudi Arabia, who will want to grow into a contending nation by the time 2034 rolls around.
While there is some understanding to why Crocker would want a new long-term challenge, his departure is not a good look for him or U.S. Soccer at this moment in time, and one major question will continue to be asked; why?
Crocker has value to the Saudis because he has experience organizing a World Cup at the federation level, which will be very useful for 2034. It would not surprise me in the least if they picked up some key folks from WC 2030 right after that tournament ends.
Anyone wonder if he is scared of the political pressure of the WC? i.e. having to deal with an unpopular president. Especially if the team doesn’t do well…
jb,
It must be a slow news day in the world of soccer. Crocker’s move is small beer.
His contract was up at the end of the World Cup. Regardless of how the team did, Crocker was going to need a new contract either here or elsewhere.
The Saudi job sounds like a fantastic opportunity for Crocker or anyone really; why wouldn’t he take it? He’s probably going to make a ton more money as well.
The timing seems to “upset” all these money envious pundits. But if the Saudis really believe that Crocker is “the One”, then they shouldn’t wait; they should get him ASAP.
Why wait?
For the Saudis, if the USMNT does well then post World Cup Crocker’s price goes up.
For Crocker, if the USMNT team gets grouped and looks like shit, maybe the Saudis suddenly come to their senses and move on.
So both parties had reasons to want it done ASAP. And these things inevitably leak so better to get it out there and minimize the “scandal”
IV, you said that Crocker leaving before the WC is him getting the axe…idk about that, maybe, or, it’s him leaving while he still has clout before the WC happens. The Saudi thing was in place man, how could that be if he was axed? sure looks to me like he left tho I have no inside info, do you?
Tele—Curtis Pride is a great shout!!! He was phenomenal. Well done!
Nadar is from Manassas I think.
Tele57,
If you are not familiar with the area Manassas is DC.
crocker leaving before the world cup is him getting the axe. we didn’t like how the friendlies went. we don’t like the general direction of the team. and we’re not going to take the risk of firing the coach before the tournament. so he is encouraged to apply for other jobs in march (after the losses) then finds one in april. i don’t think he was coming back.
i think poch needs a miracle to avoid the same fate, which would likely be handled in similar fashion. unless he makes like the quarters or semis he probably goes. same thing, poor performance. we won’t do it before the tournament unless he gets destroyed in those 2 pre world cup friendlies. he will get his chance at a world cup, and if we don’t dominate, poch will “take a job as an EPL or la liga coach.”
i hope that we are starting to rethink the tactics. if you hire GB to play a way and it doesn’t work, then hire poch to improve on that same avenue, and it still doesn’t work, that should suffice. i don’t think we need to hire pep to further confirm it, it just doesn’t work for us.
people need to realize a whole generation of players has been wasted on this nonsense since 2019. the plug needs to get pulled on such unsuccessful experiments faster. you don’t burn 2/3 of players’ careers trying the wrong thing. if it doesn’t work, try something else. this bunch may be pushing 30 before we have them in a world cup playing some other way.
also, the folks lauding the move toward larger YNT ID camps are the same ones criticizing my suggestion we do the same with the adults. just saying.
my sense is we let ODP kind of dwindle in favor of scouting academy leagues. ODP there is more emphasis on ID of a broad pool of players who get regular camps, and then occasional team tournament events with a narrower selection. that was true on up to national teams. sometimes it was “pool,” sometimes it was “team.” more so than even the adults. particularly in the college era.
my sense is we shifted towards narrow selections for camps as the pools professionalized. we then paid crocker a salary to tell us go back to having more “pool” camps to scout more players.
people mock thunderdome but it’s how USMNT, USYNT, USSF, and ODP ran for decades. you put everyone in one place, you keep the ones who impress you. broad opportunity, reward performance, funnel down at the end. if you funnel down before the players actually prove themselves, you are working off reputations or assuming your initial scout was correct.
Isn’t ODP still in effect though? Those kids are still being discovered in ODP and but are now being invited to Academies from being scouted in ODP. You also now have the US ID camps (which are free) that can further identify talent that might have slipped thru the cracks. Is US Soccer just picking kids from academies or are the best kids from ODP just accepting spots with MLS academies? If a parent was putting in the effort and investment to get them into ODP they’ll probably move them to MLS city if at all possible. Some will fall through the cracks but, Nngolo Konte got rejected by Clairefontaine and PSG so nobody is perfect.
just what i understood was ODP was no longer the scouting focus, it had shifted more to the academy leagues and ECNL. and that becomes more like random league scouting in disparate games as opposed to pool scouting of kids playing each other in one place.
and then when i see call sheets for the kids they tend to be tight lists like for a men’s US game these days, not 30+ kids to evaluate. same mentality as the men. you have been scouted. i know what i think. i am calling who i want for games. it’s arrogant. at about every level the teams are hit and miss. the selection is hardly impeccable. so call more kids where the age group coach and any senior team staff watching, see more faces.
i realize this offends some’s idea of merit but i am not anti-merit. i think it comes out better if we offer more opportunity and reward the ones who shine IN CAMP or AT FRIENDLIES. we seem to want to make snap decisions up front and our track record says we’re a mixed bag at doing that well.
i am not saying take scrubs or untested to world cups or U20 worlds. i am saying early on have big camps and try some people. give tests early. weed out scrubs via trials. let field play decide who sticks.
as it stands there are multiple senior team spots where after 4 years, it’s like, should he still be starting? i think that happens because we are in a rush to annoint certain people and put cart before horse on have they earned that sort of entitlement.
Poch called 69 different players to camps in the last 1 1/2 years. I think 64 or 65 saw action and just about all of those were capped in multiple games. You won’t find many federations in the world that capped that many in 18 months. The NT has not in the last 25 yrs ever called in more than 30 guys in a camp and if you look back thru roster reveals genuinely we called 23 or less. Even WC pre-camps were only 23-28.
———————-
You blame the problem on scouting but your real issue is the staffs are scouting for different attributes than what you value. Of course you don’t like player A that has 8 caps, you don’t want your Fullbacks to get forward. The Fed could call 100, u17s to one thunderdome, but they’d still get 95% the same roster because they are looking for the attributes they want not the attributes you want. You try to find all these conspiracies and excuses, but it mostly comes down to they want different attributes than you do.
If Crocker’s contract was up after WC it would not be unusual to allow him to entertain other offers. It might signal some difference of opinion between JT/Cindy and Crocker, but it might also just be insane money from the Saudis.
c’mon folks, be real, be honest. crocker wasn’t really hired to fix the women. when he was hired the story was he was going to come in here like england and saints, we were going to adopt some national style — done, though it doesn’t really work — and he would then police its usage down to U15. that was the england way idea.
i mean, you nitpick me for mixing up GMs, then we pretend like this guy was hired to fix women’s soccer and “did it.” bull. he hired hayes and got out of the way. the women didn’t adopt some crocker-dictated concept. the women didn’t go through every age group policing compliance with that style. his role wasn’t about that.
hayes did her side. crocker was the umpteenth leader brought in recently to try and regulate the men’s pipeline. klinsi had a go at trying the same empire building of the youth teams in his image. when ironically some of the better YNT ages don’t play the same way. when ironically neither crocker’s nor klinsi’s pet concepts worked (klinsi ended up empty bucket instead of spreading the field and pinging it around, due to horrific transition defense issues). when ironically we looked best playing 3421, which should have earned poch a house call from the formation police.
maybe it did — poch switched back. results switched back to bad, too.
no, he got allowed to walk after we got curbstomped this last window, and after a general struggle of a cycle under multiple coaches. and continues his descent from england to US to saudi.
but some of you were busy singing his praises……carry on…..his role with the women likely consists of hiring hayes and leaving her the heck alone……which is what we used to do with the women’s side since 1990-ish. hire a top candidate, let them cook.
New dumbest take from IV. We’ve regressed because we finished 3rd at the 1930 WC.
-there was no qualification, if you signed up you were in.
-Only 4 European countries entered because travel took too long and their players would miss too much time.
-The global economy was starting to feel the effects of the Great Depression and some countries could not afford to send teams.
-only 13 teams attended in total. 4 of the 8 quarterfinalist from the 1928 Olympics did not attend. (Egypt missed its ship.) Only Uruguay made the quarterfinals of ‘24 Olympics and played in 1930 WC. It was not the best teams in the world.
-The US lost 6-1 to Argentina in the semi, who lost to Uruguay 4-2. Argentina beat Mexico that tournament 6-3 so by your transitive property of soccer we were 2g worse than Mexico. And since the GC team only lost by 1g, we’ve progressed 1g in 96 years. Yeah progress.
well, your dumb take is worse. that’s like saying signing up for plano labor day or dallas cup, is the same as winning it. did you actually play?
we were not progressed straight to the semis in 1930. we had to win our way there against quite recognizable teams. the belgians who just curbstomped us. the paraguay team who we will play this summer. it’s not like we matched up with american samoa.
we won our group, we made the semis, and yeah, lost to argentina. you then lose the plot right there. you don’t seem to get when that happens in the first world cup — 20 years before england plays in one — you don’t get to pretend you’re the soccer world baby forever.
what instead happened was when the markets tanked in 1929, ASL blew up, then US soccer blew up, and then it took us decades to find the plot again. we weren’t out of soccer that time period. you can look it up. we tried and tried and tried to qualify. we didn’t make it until 1989 mexico is banned and then 1994 we host.
that is not “soccer is a baby.” we came close in the interim from 1954-1986. sometimes as close as a game away.
that is this country needs to sit down and think about why we get more “push” at some times than others. like for some reason people brag on the 1950 england win without admitting what it says for not being back for another 40 years. you then don’t get to pretend you’re curacao or something. it’s more like we’re a good team that forgets what the heck it’s doing for decades.
i am bored with when this doesn’t win we get to act like soccer is curling or something. i think that has been abused the last decade as development struggled and the tactics quit working. i am supposed to think it’s ok to lose to the same belgian team that we beat in the first world cup, “because they have history.” or “they are a good team.” not the first world cup we played in.
we keep going to england for soccer lessons. memory serves in world cups we have 1 win and 2 ties. they did win a world cup, but that was 60 years ago.
i think y’all do this a horrible disservice. we have been a knockout round world team for 100 years, not yesterday. the talent level is second tier globally, top 10-20. we have good infrastructure. for a while we had good organization and tough team defense. the two things we don’t produce are top technical players — which the snobs chattered about creating before they turned into fans of teaching kids to pass sideways (and too early to commit anyone) like it’s 1980 — and we have lost the plot on tactics.
3/4ths of the world didn’t participate. It was 100 yrs ago it means nothing to the team today. You’re using Belgium today and assuming they were good in 1930, they also missed most of the WCs from the 40s thru the 70s. Paraguay has one quarterfinal appearance ever.
-Uruguay’s winning formation was a 2-3-5 (no I didn’t reverse that, 2 Defenders 3 MF 5 Forwards). This formation lost prominence late in the decade by Austria’s 3-2-2-3, which lost out to Hungary’s 2-3-2-3 (with perhaps the first false 9) in the post WWII era. Not until the late 1950s would we recognize anything like modern football when Inter Milan introduced Catenaccio.
——————————
From 1930-1979 overall record
22-68-14 w-l-t, please don’t act like we were some sort of world power. We beat Mexico in 1934 and didn’t beat them again until 1980. Average score 4-1, GD 101-20.
you can spin it all you want. what i see when i look at the history is more like ADHD than some new baby that emerged in either 1989 or 2018. we had a top league in the 1920s. we lost interest and lost the plot. briefly reemerged 1950. lost the plot. re–emerged 1990. got better, got the plot. peak teams in 2002 and 2010. development cratered in 2010ish. lost the tactical plot. found talented players in 2018. still haven’t found the tactical plot.
it’s less excusable if you see how our competitiveness ebbs and flows. that in that first world cup we beat belgium, and now want to excuse losing because they are big time and we are babies.
sorry, bull. we have talent. our coaching is some mix of crap and unable to focus when it finds something that works. i think it’s we now hire system coaches who don’t fit the talent, cannot adjust, and want to revert back to their home base even if they find workable tactics on an experimental period.
i assume that’s something like what 1950-1990 were, minus as much talent. less organized. more excuses.
i think this is good enough right now it qualifies on its own. you could hire some crap MLS manager and it probably finishes 3rd in the region or so. like it did in 2022.
does that make this tactical detour really defensible? not if you know the history. not if you see where this has been better, been a team that could beat germany, holland, etc.
history didn’t start in 2017 or even in 1989. to me this team has more of a concentration problem. we should be looking more for answers for our specific needs as opposed to acting like we know nothing and have barely been playing the sport, and owe them everything.
Soccer died in America somewhere in The Depression and WWII. There was basically no professional league from the 30s to 1968. It died again in 1984. Belgium had a pretty straight run with soccer being its most popular sport. The Belgian Pro League has been in place since 1895 minus 3 yrs during WWII. MLS has been around since 1996, can’t imagine why it produces better players.
————————
Your whole philosophy is based around Bora’s influence on US Soccer. You might not realize that, but that’s where those defend at all costs and be athletic come from. Bora as a manager won 1 Liga Mx title, and 2 Gold Cups, in 32 yrs of managing not the winning manager you claim to want. You complain about trying to take English or Dutch ideas while blindly following Serbian ideas.
JR: dude, on alternating tuesdays you hold up atletico and johnny. atleti basically plays the way i like to play. as does atlanta with musah. as does inter. as do morocco and japan. quit pretending i am a fan of some dated theory.
my tactics actually thwart this nonsense you want to keep trying. i let your possession obsessives risk too many bodies forward. i trap your mids. i win balls. i outlet it wide and catch you too high up.
we need to dwell in reality on what the pool offers. we don’t have ajax’s or barca’s academies teaching the correct style and emphasizing skill in tight spaces. we don’t have pep’s UAE checkbook where we can buy players to fit a style. what we have is a team that scores set pieces on headers, or knocks balls in when you play a cross into the box to feet. or occasionally knocks in a shot top of the box. i have yet to see us do some barca-style 20 pass build where the keepers and backs toy with teams and their defense breaks down and we pass teams to death. never.
personally i am not a fan of giving NT tactics much time at all. it’s not pro. they only have limited player access. they can’t change who their pool fundamentally is, their attributes, their native skill level showing up. the best teams work within what the pool offers. you generally don’t hear positive stories of coaches forcing teams to change themselves.
and we are on year, what, 8 of this? it’s done. if we have any sense in our heads at all.
there are other ways of playing soccer. doesn’t even have to be my counter idea. portugal was very direct and generally concerned with positive, forward passing. turn and look for a triangle forward. we could be more of a pressing team a la klopp. we could trap teams in the midfield. we could hit balls over the top. we could even play how we were last fall.
anything. just not this default crap. it’s so over. it’s 20 years old tactics everyone sees coming, which have never worked for us. never. at some point be a man and give up.
you want even blunter? since f*cking when has US soccer been about sideways passing and soft zone defense. this doesn’t fit the pool. this doesn’t fit temperament. the fans don’t seem excited like at least this is pretty if no results.
i am at a loss how we got stuck here other than someone “C suite” decreed it so. which sounds kind of like how the dynamo decided to become a naive attacking team and has been in the playoffs like 2-3 times since 2017. you can fight your pool and payroll or you can play within what you have on hand. most NT i have heard of try and maximize the pool, not turn NT windows into rewiring seminars. if your team is tall lunks, you play lunk soccer. if your team is athletes, you play fast and physical. you only play like spain 2010 if you have their kids.
heck, 2026 spain gets down the wings with speed, they don’t even try to be 2010 spain. not sure why we latch on harder than they do.
IV: you don’t need highly skilled players to play possession. You need smart players that are willing to move without the ball and be brave in possession. Wilfred Nancy won an MLS Cup and Leagues Cup with a midfield of Aiden Morris, Darlington Nage, and Sean Zawadzki. Nagbe is pretty good at maintaining possession but he’s no Iniesta, Morris will never be confused with Edgar Davids, and Sean Zawadzki is a long way from Busquets.
———————-
You have me confused with Bizzy or 2tone not a Johnny or Athleti guy. Johnny is always hurt but never injured. Simeone has become much more possession positive, unless he’s playing RM or Barca then he grabs the security blanket. Athletico is 4th in the league in possession after being 8th-10th from 2020-23. It’s not surprising that 3 of the 4 top league champs also lead their league in possession (Arsenal is 4th). 3 of the 4 semifinalists for CL have positive possession with PSG leading all with 66% possession only AM was under 50% with 49.4, which was above 50% until parking the bus on Tuesday. Perhaps surprisingly to you the top 6 in chances created in the EPL are also top 6 in possession, 4 of those teams are also the top 4 in xG against so possession teams do not universally give up easy chances at the other end.
———————
There’s no perfect style if there was everyone would play it. Your memory of our greatness is fairly cloudy though from 1998-2006 we gave up 1.9 GA in the group stage a many of those in the first 25 minutes.
i think wedding the NT pipeline to a formation is foolish and crocker’s fool’s errand. those sorts of things are passing fashions, and also teams tend to evolve a response to your tactics. our tactics were trendy like 20 years ago. teams figured out exploits.
what america has are athletes with some size. play to strengths. reflect reality. the idea of us skill-playing teams to death doesn’t fit the pool. doesn’t even fit the age group kids coming up, either.
if you want to change national style they were working at the wrong end of careers. you don’t try and change 25 year olds. you approach the 5 year olds different. and with our decentralized development, you would really need some sort of central pipeline where the best kids are being pushed in a spanish/dutch/brazilian direction. you can’t just come in at the end when 30+ MLS teams have each taught their kids different, plus traditional clubs and colleges, then pretend you have high skilled kids ready to play some “pass em to death” national style aged 25. particularly if they are actually athletes who are a tad sloppy.
nah, i think we have regressed since roughly 2017 because this veered “fashion” and away from “winning games.” if you want more kids who can dribble and pass people to death, go fix that in elementary school leagues. you’re working wrong end of the car to fix the engine.
i personally think crocker badly failed the men this way. the coaching hires have been poor. the tactics are ineffective. tough defense is having to be taught to adults. we’ve lost our advantage as a pragmatic results oriented team. i think this was more competitive 2000-2010 than now. but then, you can look back in history and see this was a semi team in 1930 (the first world cup). this was a quarter team in 2002. there is an odd thing where we periodically act like we adopted a foreign child that knows nothing of soccer. or lately get caught up in mimicking mediocre aspects of europe. i don’t get mimicking long time straggler spain or the bridesmaid dutch. or the one time winners (twice tied) england).
mimic winners — argentina, france, italy, brazil, germany. winners emphasize both sides of the ball. winners emphasize chances over toying with opponents. or the dutch would have a half dozen titles by now.
personally i’d say mimic the french on organization — i think we need a clairefontaine for the best kids — and mimic the germans and italians for style. athletic, technically adept but not flash, industrious on defense. get the ball in the box to feet.
-Crocker did not wed the NT to a formation. The federation had also already made the decision to move towards a possession style system before Crocker was even hired.
-most MLS teams and most of the clubs our players play on in Europe try to out possess their opponents. Our pros are playing this style every week. It changes from year to year and manager to manager but all have experience with possession style far more than they have with bunker and bomb or your second option sit at the half line.
-The idea we’re just a bunch of athletic Americans is outdated, offensive, and lazy.
-“Pragmatic” doesn’t win competitions. No one wins tournaments with this approach. You’d have to go back to Greece 2004 for that. You can win a one off like the US vs Spain in 2009, but it couldn’t even win a second time in the final against Brazil. Saudi Arabia upset Argentina but then lost to Poland and Mexico because absorbing pressure for that long over the course of the tournament is not sustainable. If you want to win a World Cup or even Copa America you have to have more of or at least close to equal of the ball to last.
-you can’t start with 5 year olds because the lower levels follow the top. If the national team is sitting in and hitting long balls down the sideline, the U9 coaches aren’t going to teach their kids to pass in triangles. They’re going to say hitting long and let the fast kid chase it down.
-We don’t have players who can play your defensive style either. Even Richards is prone to a bonehead mistake or two a game, the rest of the CB pool is prone to multiple a game, and there is no Golden Goose that’s gone uncapped, hanging out in the Polish 5th division. The FB pool is full of wingers that transitioned to FBs because they couldn’t finish. The DMs with exception of Adams were mostly 8s that couldn’t make the final pass or CBs that made too many mistakes. The GKers are not Howard, Friedel, or Keller which is the true reason for your “we used to….” because nearly all those positive results were related to one of those three standing on their heads. Those evaluations are based on their professional careers not just on caps, so yes I know Justin Glad is not the answer because I’ve seen him play 50 times.
-8 countries have won the WC!
-Clairefontaine Academy is only for Parisian area players. They only stay there until 16 when they then go back to their clubs. There are 12 other regional training centers. The French National team uses it as their training center, but they best twenty-two 13 yr olds don’t train there just the best 22 13-15 yr olds from Paris. Very few players that played at Clairefontaine Academy ever play for the NT.
re “athletic” you are missing my point. it’s not that this is some sloppy TnT side that is all raw goods and sloppy on the ball. it’s that on the balance this is more “mbappe” and less “messi.” we are skilled. just not messi skilled. you understand the difference, right?
or are you going to bs me? you already forget mckennie’s sloppy giveaway last window for a goal? he isn’t dominic oduro. but we’re relying on him to dribble and pass in tight CAM spaces — and he can’t do it.
what he can do, is get down the field quick and crash a box for a cross. or score a header. “athletic.” get it? not that hard to grasp.
once you realize that, it’s stupid to frame your tactics as trying to be a messi barca team. when we do find a technical player like reyna, they get benched for lack of effort or club form. or luna can’t make the lineup ahead of a double 6. is this about passing or is it about defense? which to me says we are just confused AF.
talk all the smack you want. you’re missing it. it’s a semi-skilled but athletic team trying to play like ajax or barcelona. we don’t possess that well. we don’t hit accurate crosses in. we don’t finish well outside of set pieces. and you’re still pimping passing soccer and acting like i called us some panama low skill team.
i am simply saying, there are teams that lean on skill for goals. and those who rely more on height and speed. when we get goals it’s headers and transition plays. not some sneaky pass. at least not without reyna. not that hard to get.
your argument re crocker is chicken and egg. his calling card was the english way thing. whether the brass said here is the formation, enforce it, or he came in and said this is the formation, i will enforce it. 6 in one hand. half dozen in the other.
you’re missing my point we set up an enforcement apparatus for a malfunctioning machine. the tactics don’t work and part of his job was to go down to U15 and up to senior and make sure no one got clever.
repeating myself, the irony is, when this is actually fun to watch is reyna attacking the middle and feeding balls through. or varas’ team heating long outlets over the top. or when either the senior or U20 teams recently tried to get behind defenses.
when we sit back and play around the perimeter — which he was there to enforce — weak sauce. you want to give him a medal for the women, fine, but that was hire hayes and get out of the way. he was hired to ramrod the men in a particular style. that style sucked. the results are labored. maybe consider his job failed. or he did his job and we suffered for it. neither of which i would nitpick or celebrate, even in limited fashion.
i don’t get why you’re defending this. 20-30 years ago the women winning again is water is wet. and the men were more competitive than this.
c’mon.
re FFF, it’s weird to act like centralizing all the talent from the metropole of paris is somehow a limited, provincial act. be like saying england isn’t accomplishing anything by calling up all the best kids in london or manchester. really. c’mon. quit nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking.
they have a set of those camps. they call the best kids in. they funnel them to the top. they alternate training as YNT with their clubs. it’s a much smaller country so it means you can hop a train regularly to do this. a lot of top kids have played a lot together as they progress.
anelka, henry, and mbappe all came through clairefontaine.
you seem eager to go out of your way to critique how a world class team does their thing. nah, we should mimic england, decentralize, emphasize asset rights, let each club develop players, pray it turns out well at the end. when’s the last time they won a world cup? 66?
our fans watch too much EPL.
side point on the atlanta development center, but at the senior level that choice seems to commit us to playing key friendlies indoors on roll out sod at the NFL stadium. we have lost every game we have played at the falcons’ stadium (panama in copa america, last 2 friendlies). i am not sure how hard the team wants to play on roll out sod that doesn’t play naturally in terms of speed and bounce.
i get the idea california is seen as not such a central (with europe) travel hub, but for key tournaments we have weeks to gather and prepare, milder weather would be better, and they can play on natural grass.
similarly, i know we didn’t have to qualify this time, but for NL and previous qualifying we seem to have forgotten homefield advantage.
i feel like the cash nexus and fanboyism have kind of taken over. the notions of “this would be a smart training venue looking to the summer” or “this is what works with our player pool” have seemed diminished in consideration. why is a team ticketed for west coast group games, set up a camp east coast? why are we playing friendlies there?
or am i the only one noticing our camp friendlies before the tournament are NC and chicago to play west coast? odd. if so, go train in california someplace. why is the host “traveling” cross country to their group games?? common sense is lacking.
Arthur Blank paid for it. That’s why it’s in Atlanta.
yeah, and we haven’t won a game in atlanta this decade, and don’t seem to like the sod-on-mercedes field at all. i think the grass complex might be good for kids. here is a center where the kids can train and then play friendlies against age groups.
i think it’s a lousy choice for the senior team, as mercedes is a lousy NT game venue. and zero home team advantage.
saying it’s there because someone paid for it to be, kind of makes my point for me. we do things for money. we don’t think about, is this good climate for summer training. for games on the cooler west coast. etc.
IV: I don’t think the NT will play there much. They had great crowds for those two friendlies, over 60,000. They played there this time because they are getting the grass ready for WC. A regular October friendly they’ll train in Atlanta and fly to Nashville or Orlando for games. It sounds like some windows they may not even use it at all.
Kudos for the work he did with the women. But it’s been a bit of a debacle on the mens side if we are honest. Flubbing the GB hiring and firing was the 1st sign that things were not great in my opinion. Dude was mediocre at Southampton prior to the US gig. The timing is bad—and for me really says everything in terms of his commitment to us. I think it’s good that he won’t be a part of us moving forward.
Courey,
” The timing is bad—and for me really says everything in terms of his commitment to us.”
Commitment?
I didn’t think Crocker was married to the USSF.
Don’t know what you do for a living but if someone offered you the equivalent opportunity to do, YET AGAIN, a once in a lifetime thing in preparing a home country for a home 2034 World Cup, with twice the amount of time to prepare and probably at least twice the money, you wouldn’t take it?
This gives Crocker a chance to make up, at least for his own peace of mind, for the fuck up in retaining Gregg and letting him piss away Copa and thus hamstringing the next guy.
The timing is weird and it is an odd look but then again, as far as the World Cup goes Crocker’s work for the USSF was done, probably some time ago. He has an able crew of subordinates to handle whatever remains and the odds are he probably delegated those duties to them anyway.
Honestly, when was the last time you or anyone on SBI even thought about the guy?
My guess is the Saudis concluded this deal before the World Cup because if the USMNT do really well Crocker would be in an even stronger negotiating position than he was. That is a backhanded compliment to the USMNT’s prospects.
Given that, it was likely to leak at some point so, in my view this just cuts out all the noise and the BS that was likely to result and lets everyone get on with their lives.
” I think it’s good that he won’t be a part of us moving forward.”
This doesn’t help anything one way or another. The USSF is better but it is still a Clown car amateur shit show.
presumably, his contract ran through the world cup, which makes this tampering, and likely a violation of a noncompete, unless we waived it.
the interesting question is whether letting him leave before the tournament is a disguised dismissal. like, yeah, you suck, go ahead and interview and take any offers you like, don’t let the door hit you in the butt.
we send that message that this didn’t really work, meanwhile trolls on here want to quote women’s achievements by a top 4 global team that should have been achieving more like finalists, or age group plateauing.
not to get sexist but i think we all know the men were the big project and like multiple coaches later (caretakers, GB again, poch mediocrity) this feels maybe as good as last time, maybe worse. i thought this picked up some traction in like 2021 gold cup, some tournaments like that. it’s now kind of like the 3rd best team in the region again. that can’t beat panama consistently and thus is at risk of slipping further like 2018.
is that movement at all? obvious answer. no. talent level exploded since then. product on the field didn’t. we wandered down a pointless rabbit hole. this gets fixed when we exit the fartaround machine. i thought mimicking euro-everything was supposed to fix our problems at an elite level, not supplicate us to freaking canada regionally and have us lose to every good team that comes by.
you wanna know why canada is better than us? they play actual team defense. and they get down those wings in a hurry. they create chances as opposed to possession.
when we have any aggression whatsoever to match theirs, we start beating them. our talent is superior. but this got way too passive. we don’t mark their stars out of games — or anyone’s, really — and we prefer farting around the back or off in the corner to taking people on, getting to the endline, and creating chances.
elite soccer has a variety of approaches. i don’t get why a sloppy but athletic team known for defense goes with soft defense and passing. and turns into a crossing team without a mcbride to finish any of it (in the run of play — we get richards forward for kicks).
IV,
“presumably, his contract ran through the world cup, which makes this tampering, and likely a violation of a noncompete, unless we waived it.”
Crocker’s contract ran through the end of the WC.
FIFA does not have specific “anti-tampering” or “poaching” rules that prevent one national federation from hiring an executive from another.
You don’t know, in any case, if the Saudi’s asked the USSF for permission to approach Crocker. Do you?
You also don’t know if the USSF asked the Saudi’s for some kind of compensation or settlement. If they did then obviously, it got settled.
In fact you, like Lalas and the rest of us, don’t know anything about the dirty details of this move.
Crocker held an important position but you’re using this event as a excuse to ejaculate all your many and varied objections about all things US soccer related. That is giving Crocker credit for way more influence than he actually had.
As for Canada being better, as far as I’m concerned , if they are , so what?
I’m happy to let our annual regional tournaments settle that question, if anyone gives a shit.
The World Cup performance of both teams will factor in somewhat but since they will be facing different opposition it becomes another of those stupid indirect comparison things.
Unless we meet them somewhere in the knockout rounds, like the quarters or the semis. If it is the semis I’d be happy to get that far.
Leaving the country for whom you were the lead, months prior to the World Cup—-shows lack of commitment in a big way to me.
V: your argument is lame and non-curious. i get “we don’t know.” but you don’t seem to want to actually know. you seem more interesting in using what we do or don’t know to nitpick people or be skeptical than to build up anything.
you can sue someone for breaking a noncompete. and it doesn’t make a ton of sense for a happy employer to let a leading figure disappear right before a world cup.
but are we happy. but did we sign off on him interviewing elsewhere.
and then what would that reflect in terms of what does the very top of USSF think of how well he did his job.
y’all love to nitpick me. but you implicitly defend “this” which is indefensible. or you’re nitpicking my curiosity when you should be curious too. this is not working right now. the firing should prompt thoughts on are we going to keep operating the same way, as executives, as the org chart, as a team on the field.
IV,
“V: your argument is lame and non-curious. i get “we don’t know.” but you don’t seem to want to actually know. you seem more interesting in using what we do or don’t know to nitpick people or be skeptical than to build up anything.”
Yeah? When you firm up your curiousity with lies then what you have is bullshit. What have you done to find out what the truth of the matter is?
You’ve consistently clouded whatever valid issues are actually there be explored with your non-factual, non-sensical unhinged “throw shit on the wall and see what sticks” method of debating a point.
“you can sue someone for breaking a noncompete. and it doesn’t make a ton of sense for a happy employer to let a leading figure disappear right before a world cup. but are we happy. but did we sign off on him interviewing elsewhere. and then what would that reflect in terms of what does the very top of USSF think of how well he did his job.”
Crocker did not work for you. His employer,the USSF, have they sued the Saudis? If not why not? Have they made any objection to this? Not to my knowledge. Has Crocker broken any FIFA regs? Not to my knowledge.
Do you have any credible indication other than your gut feeling that the USSF was about to fire Crocker? You claim to be an expert on a topic that you have no knowledge of.
My take is they are “happy” with this.
Your take is they fired Crocker.
I have no way to prove my take but neither do you.
“y’all love to nitpick me. but you implicitly defend “this” which is indefensible. or you’re nitpicking my curiosity when you should be curious too. this is not working right now. the firing should prompt thoughts on are we going to keep operating the same way, as executives, as the org chart, as a team on the field.”
That’s a load of horse manure. You have no proof that Crocker was fired. Even if the USSF was unhappy they had no need to fire Crocker since his contract was up at the end of the WC and then they could just not re-hire him. Firing is often more expensive and troublesome than just letting their contract expire. At this point there is little left for Crocker to do that could not easily be delegated to others.
If you have an issue with how the USSF does their business that’s one thing. They’ve done a lot wrong over the years.
But to make shit up to make that argument that’s just childish and self- defeating.
US soccer will be fine. Onyewu is the guy, and should have been the guy to begin with.
2tone,
What makes you say that about Gooch?
Because he is from Olney.
Tele57,
Did Gooch play for the Olney Rangers?
He’s probably the best player to come out of Maryland
My Maryland associated player list:
Kyle Beckerman (Crofton):
Donovan Pines (Clarksville):
Zack Steffen (Coatesville, PA / University of Maryland
Eryk Williamson (Alexandria, VA / University of Maryland
Clarence Goodson, Graham Zusi, A.J. DeLaGarza, and Omar
Gonzalez: U of Maryland
Alex Freeman (Baltimore born but grew up in Ft. Lauderdale)
Kenny Cooper Jr. (Baltimore): A prolific MLS striker with several
USMNT caps. Kenny Sr. coached the Blast.
Desmond Armstrong: Ellicott City.
Gedion Zelalem: Olney Rangers
There is also Dante Washington also. I think there are a few others that may come to mind. When Dante retired, he showed up at Jessup the next week and I played against him. I will keep pondering …
Tele57,
Dante was born in Baltimore, but he was one of those Oakland Mills guys.
I missed Santino Quaranta, Arch Bishop Curley whose career highlight might have been when he entered the 2009 Gold Cup Final as a substitute in the 65th minute, replacing the immortal Logan Pause, the Chicago Fire legend. The USMNT were humiliated losing the final 5–0 to Mexico at Giants Stadium. A B team was sent because our A team played in the Confederations Cup.
Bruce Murray, Curtis Pride (although he traded his cleats for a baseball bat), Daryl Gee. If you want to include DC since MD donated the land, Shaka Hislop from Howard University. I can’t think of anyone else. Adu was from MD and was great for US youth teams so maybe him too.
Wasn’t Freddy Adu from Maryland too?
Sorry Tele57 missed your last comment.
Tele57 and JR
Adu was born in Ghana but moved to the DC area as a kid. He lived in Rockvile and Potomac, MD.
Andy Najar- A DC legend. He chose Honduras over the U.S. in 2011. He had multiple stints with D.C. United (most recently through 2023)