Duze Article about Hargreaves and CDN Soccer

[CanadasBest]

http://www.theprovince.com/Sports/only+trophy+Everton+minds/1504969/story.html

This was from yesterday's Province. Must have been a slow week to drag up something that really hasn't been passionately debated in a few years.

Although I agree with change needs to be made. I think we've all been saying that for years. I love how he says that: "We've since fired one coach after another".

Unless I'm mistaken no coach has been fired since Lenarduzzi with the exception of his good buddy Dale Mitchell. Lenarduzzi, Yallop and Holger resigned, and we had a couple of temporary managers. A little resentment here perhaps?

Who was the last coach fired before Mitchell?? Have we ever technically fired any coaches?

"...THE REAL PROBLEM

One player who would make a huge difference for Manchester United right now is injured midfielder Owen Hargreaves. The Calgary native, meanwhile, continues to get blasted by Canadian soccer fans, who still deeply resent his decision to play for England instead of Canada.

I would have loved to have seen Hargreaves in Canada's red and white, but I also appreciate why he made his choice. The problem isn't players like Hargreaves, the problem is with how soccer is structured and governed in this country, resulting in a national team program that is not an attractive option for our best and most ambitious players.

It was a dozen years ago that I was national team coach, and really nothing is different. We've since fired one coach after another, but the underlying system is the same, and that's what needs to change. We will never get anywhere as long as we continue to blame coaches and disenfranchised players like Hargreaves, when the problems run much deeper."

[Richard]

Say it like it is Bob.

[redhat]

Oh crap this topic again.

As much as Lenarduzzi is entitled to his opinion, we as fans can blame anyone

as we please as Canada has not made the significant strides in this country.

As much as the CSA structure has immense problems, the facts are coaches like

Lenarduzzi have failed in their duties. After making the hex in 1997, did we not

fail miserably (even falling last) under him? Did he not champion his friend

Mitchell as head coach of the MNT? Were we not out-coached as well as outclassed

on the field? Are we going to keep blaming the CSA's sleeping accommodations

for our losses? We are supporters, we pay our tickets, we praise, and criticize

as we see fit.

[ag futbol]

quote:Originally posted by redhat

Oh crap this topic again.

As much as Lenarduzzi is entitled to his opinion, we as fans can blame anyone

as we please as Canada has not made the significant strides in this country.

I agree in the same sense.

Is the lack of accountability and organizational structure the main problem? yes.

But if you want to coach or play at the national team level, you better be ready to take some heat regardless of what kind of backup the association gives you.

[Richard]

"Canada has not made the significant strides in this country"

I think that was Lenarduzzi's point was it not?

He is as entitled to express his opinion as the rest of us, in fact the more high profile people like him who do and are quoted in the mainstream media the better.

[Grizzly]

quote:We will never get anywhere as long as we continue to blame coaches and disenfranchised players like Hargreaves, when the problems run much deeper.

We will never get anywhere as long as the people who are responsible for our failures refuse to take responsibility and that includes poor coaches like Lenarduzzi and traitorous players like Hargreaves as much as the CSA.

[redhat]

quote:Originally posted by Richard

"Canada has not made the significant strides in this country"

I think that was Lenarduzzi's point was it not?

He is as entitled to express his opinion as the rest of us, in fact the more high profile people like him who do and are quoted in the mainstream media the better.

Yes, however he was critical of us fans who are detractors of

OH. Imagine criticizing paying supporters of your team -- what's

wrong with that picture? Address the problem, rather than being

critical of the people who pay their tickets (plane fare, hotel,

match tickets, etc) and support and put up with this nonesense.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by Richard

"Canada has not made the significant strides in this country"

I think that was Lenarduzzi's point was it not?

He is as entitled to express his opinion as the rest of us, in fact the more high profile people like him who do and are quoted in the mainstream media the better.

No I think his point was me and my buddies Frank and Dale are not responsible for the mess we made in coaching the team.

[Grizzly]

Bob is just stating what is absolutely obvious to everyone that the CSA is doing a piss poor job. However, it rubs me wrong to hear someone call the CSA piss poor when he was also a piss poor coach for the same organization.

[Vic]

Funny you use his first name like you are a friend of his. But if you were ever actually in a room with him you would be sitting in the corner in the 3 seconds it took to learn you don't have 1/100th the soccer intelligence he does.

But please, go ahead. Continue to insult him and call him responsible for everything and piss poor another three times like you're the man and he's the village idiot.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by Vic

Funny you use his first name like you are a friend of his. But if you were ever actually in a room with him you would be sitting in the corner in the 3 seconds it took to learn you don't have 1/100th the soccer intelligence he does.

But please, go ahead. Continue to insult him and call him responsible for everything and piss poor another three times like you're the man and he's the village idiot.

Where do I claim to be a soccer genius? I have not proposed that I should be national team coach. I happen to remember his reign as head coach and it was a time full of selecting players not on merit but on the relationship they had with him as well as poor tactics. Would anyone really be happy to see him back as head coach? Do you since you think he is such a great soccer mind? I respect Lenarduzzi for what he did as a player but as a coach he was a disaster. Additionally I think he has had a lot of influence with the CSA over the last decades so it is rather unpalatable to hear him criticize the same organization and politics that he has been involved in. And then he tops it off by saying it is ok for Hargreaves to jump ship which is not the mentatity anyone who is involved in Canadian soccer should have let along a former national team coach. It is similar to the criticism of Mitchell from DeRo and Brennan when they both played like crap in WCQ. When you do a good job you earn the right to criticize and when you don't you should look in the mirror.

[masster]

Lenarduzzi has always been a Hargreaves sympathsizer. I guess he hasn't changed his tune.

[Start fan in exile]

Seems like the issue is not whether or nor Lenarduzzi is a good coach - the jist of his point would appear to be that with the CSA running things they way they are Guus Hiddink could not make a difference to the Canadian NT.

Is it a vailid point? Well, from the outside looking in it seems like the CSA is not very interested and/or competent in building a strong national team and as long as that is the case it does not really matter who the coach is - any success will be fleeting and the rot will continue.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

Ask Radzinski about Lenarduzzi. He won't tell the truth because he has put it behind him, to his credit, but the way Radz and other young players were treated under the Lenarduzzi regime was not professional.

I can honestly say Lenarduzzi was the first footballer I admired, he was the darling of the Caps in the 70s and early 80s. But I think his problem is that he thinks he is Beckenbauer or Cruyff, someone who has this aura of authority and global soccer knowledge, who understands the inside outs. And I don't think that is the reality at all.

[Vic]

I'm not the biggest fan of his Western politics, but I sure respect the guy. When it comes to how to build and develop talent, franchises, the game, etc - he is in a league of his own. He's the guy who should be running the CSA.

[Regs]

Not so sure he should be running the CSA but definitely he should be the media relations guy.

No one better at that job in the country.

[youllneverwalkalone]

Mr. Lenarduzzi can claim a fair bit of silverware in his time at Whitecaps/86ers, but I'm still unconvinced about his illustrious football mind. The exact same could be said for DeSantis. Is he a football genius too? I don't think either guy really knows what they're doing in management, either from a football perspective or in terms of marketing the product on the pitch. Both men seem to have eternal loyalty from their chairmen, almost inexpliably so. I wonder if this will change under the Nash/Mallett MLS group? I would argue yes and, with all due respect to the 2 USL titles, I really believe that Niendorf is the main guy who knows what he's doing in terms of football management and building a successful club. I'm not saying he's going to be the coach or that Teitur is doing a bad job, just that he should be retained and Bobby should be made a figurehead at most and, judging from this article, told to shut his mouth in the meantime.

[BearcatSA]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Where do I claim to be a soccer genius? I have not proposed that I should be national team coach. I happen to remember his reign as head coach and it was a time full of selecting players not on merit but on the relationship they had with him as well as poor tactics. Would anyone really be happy to see him back as head coach? Do you since you think he is such a great soccer mind? I respect Lenarduzzi for what he did as a player but as a coach he was a disaster. Additionally I think he has had a lot of influence with the CSA over the last decades so it is rather unpalatable to hear him criticize the same organization and politics that he has been involved in. And then he tops it off by saying it is ok for Hargreaves to jump ship which is not the mentatity anyone who is involved in Canadian soccer should have let along a former national team coach. It is similar to the criticism of Mitchell from DeRo and Brennan when they both played like crap in WCQ. When you do a good job you earn the right to criticize and when you don't you should look in the mirror.

I thought the campaign for WC 98 was poor, with his selection of out of form, over the hill, or "never were" players severely compounding the situation, so no argument there. But that has as much to do with his persisting with the same players who took us to second behind Mexico in the final group for WC 94, so I'm not willing to completely disregard his tenure as MNT manager. But I understand and support your latter points, particularly the one I have highlighted.

[Ian Kennett]

If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem!

Owen H. chose to abandon Canada and play for another country. In doing so he weakened the Canadian team and undermined the potential for success at WCQ. This type of decision is clearly part of the problem, and Owen should have been, and was, roundly criticized.

Other players such as Dani Fernandes, regardless of the stupidity of the moment of the CSA and affiliated coaches, also abandoned Canada, further weakening our squad.

Part of the solution is that Peter Montopoli, and CONCACAF, certainly including a US petition as the USSF has recently lost high profile players to other countries, must STRONGLY petition FIFA to change the rules so that players born and bred in one country cannot on the strength of their parents' or grandparennts' heritage abandon the country of their birth to play for another country.

The one exception to this is for players such as JDG2 who, despite our angst at his decision, at least followed all of the rules of his adopted soccer country by legally obtaining citizenship and/or a passport from that country on his own and without the influence of parents or grandparents. Marc Bircham, on the strength of a grandparent's heritage should not have been allowed to play for Canada.

Now to Tam Nsaliwa. He is caught squarely in no man's land. FIFA must state that he can play for Canada simply because he is cap tied to Canada and cannot play for any other country, OR they must release him to play for Germany if called. The latter is bizarre, the former fair and just. FIFA must not depend on international citizenship bureaucracy to solve Tam's situation. Peter Montopoli must pursue this as well.

Cheers!

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by Vic

I'm not the biggest fan of his Western politics, but I sure respect the guy. When it comes to how to build and develop talent, franchises, the game, etc - he is in a league of his own. He's the guy who should be running the CSA.

I have nothing personal against Lenarduzzi and in fact lived in Vancouver as a boy when he was a star with the Whitecaps and was a fan. He should be given credit for the good things he has done in Canadian soccer and I would say the overall balance in his account is positive. He was a good player both for the Caps and the national team and has done mostly a good job for the Whitecaps. If he wants to take credit for this I have no problem with that. Indeed he has been inducted into the Canadian and even the US soccer hall of fame and I think he is fully deserving of this.

However, he was a poor head coach and it is my impression that he had a fair bit of influence in the CSA's decision to hire two other poor head coaches who were friends of his and also influence on many other poor decisions by the CSA. Since the CSA is dysfunctional maybe it is beneficial for as many soccer figures as possible to comment about this publicly. Yet to me it lacks credibility when the person making this criticism says the coaches shouldn't be blamed when he was a poor coach himself and had a hand in hiring other poor coaches. It also lacks credibility when he criticizes the mistakes of an organization while he in part influenced them in making some of these mistakes.

In addition to not accepting responsibility just like Yallop and Mitchell, I also have to wonder about his motivation and whether it is completely altruistic. It looks like the CSA has decided to halt the run of old boy, BC-based coaches and go in another direction. Indeed as much as I am critical of the CSA I have the impression that they are starting to come around to the idea of hiring a better qualified, more experienced coach who is an outsider to the typical Canadian soccer politics. It just seems to me pretty suspicious that Lenarduzzi who I don't recall being particularly critical of the CSA before all of a sudden picks this time to criticize them, ie. the precise moment when his influence on the coach to be hired will probably not be very high. It is very possible that this is a public message to the current CSA powers that the Duze is not happy with his current position of influence. Indeed it seems to me once again the type of political power play that has hurt soccer in this country for so long.

[masster]

quote:Originally posted by Ian Kennett

Part of the solution is that Peter Montopoli, and CONCACAF, certainly including a US petition as the USSF has recently lost high profile players to other countries, must STRONGLY petition FIFA to change the rules so that players born and bred in one country cannot on the strength of their parents' or grandparennts' heritage abandon the country of their birth to play for another country.

But then we would have lost Hume and Radzinski, among other.

[Peter S]

^^ I agree that the case of Hargreaves and JoDG is frustrating, but surely a country such a Canada gains more than it loses from the mobility of citizenship in the modern world? The problem is that when we pick players who were born abroad, often their country of birth isn't complaining, and the fact they made a choice seems reasonable; whereas, when we lose someone like Hargreaves to England, it hurts, because it seems that glory is more important than national pride to that person. We're in a catch-22: once our team is better, people will chose to play for it; until people chose to play for it, it's hard to improve.

As for the Americans, surely they will benefit enormously over the coming years from players who were born elsewhere in the world, but who come to live in the US, perhaps from a young age? Wasn't their 1994 squad in fact built around many players not born in the US (Wegerle, Dooley - he had an American parent, I think, Hugo Perez, Tab Ramos, Frank Klopas)?

In fact, the same is true for our 1986 World Cup Squad:

Born outside out of Canada (11): Leetieri, Valentine, Gray, Segota, Vrablic, Samuel, James, Ion, Norman, Miller, Habermann,

Born in Canada (11): Lenarduzzi, Wilson, Ragan, Moore (although he grew up in Ireland), Bridge, Sweeney, Pakos, Mitchell, Lowery, De Luca, Dolan

Edit - I actually see that Ian Kellet's comment above is actually quite nuanced with regards to a distinction between 'born and bred' versus 'parents/grandparent connections'; my examples above only look at who was born where, and whether being open to players born abraod helps Canada in the whole, which I think it does.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by masster

But then we would have lost Hume and Radzinski, among other.

No Ian is not proposing that players who are born in a country be ineligible to play for another country that they were raised in. He is stating players whose only connection to a country is a passport received through parental ties and who have not lived in said country should not be allowed to play for it. In other words there would be a minimum residency period for players to live in a country before they are allowed to play for it.

[Ian Kennett]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

No Ian is not proposing that players who are born in a country be ineligible to play for another country that they were raised in. He is stating players whose only connection to a country is a passport received through parental ties and who have not lived in said country should not be allowed to play for it. In other words there would be a minimum residency period for players to live in a country before they are allowed to play for it.

Exactly so, Grizzly, as my JDG2 example shows. He followed all of the required legal Dutch steps to become eligible to play for Holland, his adopted soccer country, and thus paid his dues over time as it were; whereas, Hargreaves merely used his father's English heritage as a ticket to play for England. He did nothing to earn the right. Radzinski and Hume became Canadian citizens after moving to Canada at an early age and thus also earned the right to play for Canada. The FIFA rule needs to prohibit "flags of convenience" such as what were used by Hargreaves and Fernandes.

Cheers!