Herdman new head coach

[Club Linesman]

He certainly wasn’t forced and most of the conjecture on here has him forcing his way into the position by threatening to leave. Herdman is putting on his big boy pants and will live or die with the results.  He seems pretty confident in his abilities.

[The Ref]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

I am pretty sure no one forced him to take the job.  He is a big boy - he can make his own decisions and live with the consequences. 

True enough, the thing is that he thinks he is all that and more.  He believes his own preaching.  Let us hope for the best.

[BrennanFan]

31 minutes ago, Club Linesman said:

He certainly wasn’t forced and most of the conjecture on here has him forcing his way into the position by threatening to leave. Herdman is putting on his big boy pants and will live or die with the results.  He seems pretty confident in his abilities.

Is he really confident though?  In his latest interview linked above, he said his first 2 months on the job were the worst 2 months of his life and that he'd never been attacked or had his confidence battered in public like that before. All without a ball being kicked! One wonders how he will handle the pressure and backlash if he has a poor Gold Cup?

Has the man even had one press conference since becoming the CMNT coach?

[Obinna]

14 minutes ago, BrennanFan said:

Is he really confident though?  In his latest interview linked above, he said his first 2 months on the job were the worst 2 months of his life and that he'd never been attacked or had his confidence battered in public like that before. All without a ball being kicked! One wonders how he will handle the pressure and backlash if he has a poor Gold Cup?

Has the man even had one press conference since becoming the CMNT coach?

I don't equate that statement to a lack of confidence.

On the contrary, the fact he addressed this, and in a positive way, demonstrates (to me) that he certainly believes in himself. An individual who lacked confidence wouldn't have enough guts to say the above publically. Instead, they'd be more likely to deflect the criticism, attack the critics, downplay the criticism, or hide from it entirely.

The criticism he received, which I fully admit I was amongst those dishing it out, was before a ball was kicked and that's the problem! 

I was extremely critical, before a ball was kicked, because I thought he absolutely did not have the credentials for this position. I thought his success with the women counted for little, I thought the players would not respect him, and I thought he'd be completely out of his depth. I won't even get into how pissed I was that Zambrano, a coach who had promising results, lost his job as a result over that shit show.

Fast forward 9 months (or however long it has been) and Herdman has seemingly brought the group together and the players have seemingly bought into his approach. He has gotten acceptable results, and yes the tests have been relatively easy, but there have been no failures yet, so what do I have to be upset about?

I am man enough to say that Herdman has proved me wrong so far.

I expected that multiple players would have retired from the national team out of protest. I never expected Cavallini, in particular, to come back. I definitely did not expect Tabla to choose us over the IC under Herdman. Didn't he say John Herdman's vision won him over or something like that? 

I see nothing but positivity coming from the group right now, and until that changes, I will also feel positive as a fan.

[BearcatSA]

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 1:14 PM, Obinna said:

I see nothing but positivity coming from the group right now, and until that changes, I will also feel positive as a fan.

We'll see how things go when adversity comes to the fore.  And I'm not picking on Herdman here:   that's my assessment of  any manager in any team sport.  How you sail the ship through stormy seas is the key to success.

As somewhat an aside (but not dissimilar) to this topic, I enjoyed re-reading the investigative article of the USNT failure to quality for the 2018 World Cup.  If you haven't read it, give it a look.  

Edited December 27, 2018 by BearcatSA

[Obinna]

28 minutes ago, BearcatSA said:

We'll see how things go when adversity comes to the fore.  And I'm not picking on Herdman here:   that's my assessment of  any manager in any team sport.  How you sail the ship through stormy seas is the key to success.

As somewhat an aside (but not dissimilar) to this topic, I enjoyed re-reading the investigative article of the USNT failure to quality for the 2018 World Cup.  If you haven't read it, give it a look.  

Thanks. Just gave it a quick look, but it's a long article, so perhaps I will read along further once I have more time.

Initial thoughts: The USA was bound to fail sooner or later in WCQ. It is good, or I would even say, necessary, for them to rethink everything now. I agree with the point made that Klinsman destroyed the culture of the team. That said, when reading these kind of things, I always find myself reverting back to the first sentence in this paragraph.

The USA are not unbeatable, though you'd never guess it when you read about how Landon Donovan and others reacted to the loss. I mean, in a sense I don't blame them for expecting to qualify for every tournament, but I don't know, as an outsider it looks like they really overestimate themselves and underestimate their rivals, so I have a hard time sympathizing with them. Perhaps that's just the Canadian fan in me though

Edited December 27, 2018 by Obinna

[Kent]

10 hours ago, Obinna said:

Thanks. Just gave it a quick look, but it's a long article, so perhaps I will read along further once I have more time.

Initial thoughts: The USA was bound to fail sooner or later in WCQ. It is good, or I would even say, necessary, for them to rethink everything now. I agree with the point made that Klinsman destroyed the culture of the team. That said, when reading these kind of things, I always find myself reverting back to the first sentence in this paragraph.

The USA are not unbeatable, though you'd never guess it when you read about how Landon Donovan and others reacted to the loss. I mean, in a sense I don't blame them for expecting to qualify for every tournament, but I don't know, as an outsider it looks like they really overestimate themselves and underestimate their rivals, so I have a hard time sympathizing with them. Perhaps that's just the Canadian fan in me though

Maybe they would have a more accurate measuring stick and be better able to react to their shortcomings if the regional championship wasn’t always on home soil.

Just saying.

[jpg75]

11 hours ago, BearcatSA said:

As somewhat an aside (but not dissimilar) to this topic, I enjoyed re-reading the investigative article of the USNT failure to quality for the 2018 World Cup.  If you haven't read it, give it a look.  

For those tl;dr guys out there, it's all Klinsmann's fault. 

 

[BearcatSA]

21 minutes ago, jpg75 said:

For those tl;dr guys out there, it's all Klinsmann's fault. 

Sure, he takes a fair bit of the blame, but there was also some accountability/systemic issue stuff around Gulati's leadership and role.  And then the inevitable second guessing about Bruce Arena's personnel decisions in the final two games of the Hex adds to the pot.  Interestingly enough, the authors don't truly throw any of the players under the bus (maybe the German citizen ones, like Timmy Chandler).  But for me, it's a worthwhile read because it reminds me of how guys can deteriorate to becoming "me" guys when adversity arises:  the description of Geoff Cameron supposedly bitching about not playing while the team was comfortably winning one of their qualifiers and it looked like Arena was successfully salvaging the WCQ campaign resonated with me because of the ghosts of failed CMNT WCQ campaigns past. 

 

[jpg75]

^ I was being simplistic on purpose. They did spread the blame around, but the bulk of the article shat on Klinsmann.

[BearcatSA]

10 hours ago, jpg75 said:

^ I was being simplistic on purpose. They did spread the blame around, but the bulk of the article shat on Klinsmann.

You gave the tl;dr version, whereas I've attempted the Reader's Digest edition.

 

[BearcatSA]

In drawing parallels to the Klinsmann story, I think Herdman's make or break with this team come the Gold Cup is his relationship with his most important players or, without beating around the bush, Davies.  How Bayern use Davies and his success there may change the dynamic of how the player himself views his own role with our NT, and Herdman will need to work effectively with this.  I mean, for example, could you imagine if Davies was used at Bayern in the Robben/Ribery attacking role with impactful results but he's still used here as a LWB/LB because it's the best fit Herdman sees as for he wants to do with our NT?

[dbailey62]

14 minutes ago, BearcatSA said:

In drawing parallels to the Klinsmann story, I think Herdman's make or break with this team come the Gold Cup is his relationship with his most important players or, without beating around the bush, Davies.  How Bayern use Davies and his success there may change the dynamic of how the player himself views his own role with our NT, and Herdman will need to work effectively with this.  I mean, for example, could you imagine if Davies was used at Bayern in the Robben/Ribery attacking role with impactful results but he's still used here as a LWB/LB because it's the best fit Herdman sees as for he wants to do with our NT?

No I can't imagine that. If Davies is rocking at Bayern, Herdman will want to take advantage of that. He's not an idiot. He'll do whatever gives Canada the best chance to win!

[BearcatSA]

1 minute ago, dbailey62 said:

No I can't imagine that. If Davies is rocking at Bayern, Herdman will want to take advantage of that. He's not an idiot. He'll do whatever gives Canada the best chance to win!

That's the million dollar statement right there, a statement which has been uttered by all football managers since the beginning.  The key is in the definition of "whatever."

[red card]

Herdman at Ont soccer summit: if not you, then who? 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

5 hours ago, red card said:

Herdman at Ont soccer summit: if not you, then who? 

 

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

Herdman has been studying Talmud, which is what I was hoping he was doing these long winter months with no matches. 

[Grizzly]

I think I need to bond with Macksam and Herdman taking some very hallucinogenic red pills and listening to hours of Jordan Peterson lectures that don't make sense but nevertheless make a lot more sense than this while we are all living in a van down by the river!

[dyslexic nam]

5 hours ago, Grizzly said:

I think I need to bond with Macksam and Herdman taking some very hallucinogenic red pills and listening to hours of Jordan Peterson lectures that don't make sense but nevertheless make a lot more sense than this while we are all living in a van down by the river!

Yeah, living in a van down by the river is more Marie Kondo than Jordan Peterson. 

[jpg75]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

Yeah, living in a van down by the river is more Marie Kondo than Jordan Peterson. 

GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!!

Edited March 3, 2019 by jpg75

[Gian-Luca]

15 hours ago, red card said:

Herdman at Ont soccer summit: if not you, then who? 

 

And that was the highlight of the talk which they felt was worth isolating for this video clip?

[The Ref]

Still nothing more than a preacher.

[Joe MacCarthy]

On 12/21/2018 at 4:28 PM, The Ref said:

True enough, the thing is that he thinks he is all that and more.  He believes his own preaching.

No, you think that.  He is as confident as any sane person would want a national coach to be.

[BearcatSA]

1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

And that was the highlight of the talk which they felt was worth isolating for this video clip?

I thought he was selling a time share in Nuevo Vallarta.  In fact, I'm going there in a few weeks' time and I am anticipating getting this same spiel at the resort where I am staying.

If not you, then who . . . are we going to be getting some more matches against (besides French Guinea)?  How about a friendly or two against some higher echelon opponents?  I want to "change the conversation" (a favourite TED talk phrase).

Talk is cheap.  Do well at the Gold Cup and I'll consider joining "The Herd."  Until then, colour me skeptical.

[dbailey62]

4 hours ago, BearcatSA said:

I thought he was selling a time share in Nuevo Vallarta.  In fact, I'm going there in a few weeks' time and I am anticipating getting this same spiel at the resort where I am staying.

If not you, then who . . . are we going to be getting some more matches against (besides French Guinea)?  How about a friendly or two against some higher echelon opponents?  I want to "change the conversation" (a favourite TED talk phrase).

Talk is cheap.  Do well at the Gold Cup and I'll consider joining "The Herd."  Until then, colour me skeptical.

Bucerias is probably cheaper!

[BearcatSA]

9 minutes ago, dbailey62 said:

Bucerias is probably cheaper!

it is, for sure!