Herdman new head coach

[youllneverwalkalone]

Certainly we still have work to do. But to come this far, given our current odds, we better qualify. (Or that Northumbrian Dwarf will be tossed to sea).

Seriously, I love Herdman. I have lots of short people in my own family -including my 7 and 9 year old daughters. (Well the nine year old is probably taller than him, but you get my point).

[narduch]

18 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

But I see he has never been asked why his game plans at the start of matches are not going well and we've been forced into catch-up. None of the sexist pricks who dissed his appointment have even mentioned this by the way, even on this board most ignore it. You can't complain about unfair crititicm, sexist or however motivated, and then ignore the fact that perfectly fair soccer criticism is something you are mostly exempt from in Canada. 

I think there was some criticism about the slow starts during the Gold Cup on this board. This continues to be an issue for the team.

You are totally correct that he has received little criticism from the media that covers this team.

He probably deserves some criticism for this roster selections too (notably not calling enough extra players for injury back up). It turned out ok last window but it was a big gamble. The Brym selection was a big WTF too. Selecting players that were never going to feature was kinda stupid as well.

Edited October 29, 2021 by narduch

[El Diego]

While I appreciate we only get Herdman's version of the story, and also that we don't have a counterfactual, but does anyone disagree that Herdman stopping fighting in camp and breaking up cliques is a bad thing? Because apparently he did that by explicitly rejecting the standard way of managing male players.

Diversity of experience leads to diversity of thought, which leads to new solutions.

[narduch]

4 minutes ago, El Diego said:

While I appreciate we only get Herdman's version of the story, and also that we don't have a counterfactual, but does anyone disagree that Herdman stopping fighting in camp and breaking up cliques is a bad thing? Because apparently he did that by explicitly rejecting the standard way of managing male players.

Diversity of experience leads to diversity of thought, which leads to new solutions.

I'm wondering if there is a bit of myth making on this story. It's being made out to be bigger deal than it really was.

[El Diego]

9 minutes ago, narduch said:

I'm wondering if there is a bit of myth making on this story. It's being made out to be bigger deal than it really was.

I think there probably is, it's tough to say how impactful things like this are even if you have the true story. But as nebulous as 'team building' and stuff can be, I do think Herdman's methods have been good and positively impacting team performance, whatever those methods are.

[Gian-Luca]

8 minutes ago, narduch said:

I'm wondering if there is a bit of myth making on this story. It's being made out to be bigger deal than it really was.

I'm going to go ahead and accuse Herdman of being racist because he keeps mentioning that the Scottish group went one way, the Spanish players went another way and the Eastern European players went another way after this fight. He never mentions the black players though, and I find this lack of representation on their behalf unacceptable, offensive and racially-motivated.

True, this accusation makes absolutely no sense, is completely ludicrous and totally without foundation, but that doesn't stop others from making the same ludicrous accusations about misogyny. And be warned, if anyone doesn't like this post, I'm going to accuse them of being racist towards Italians.

[Cheeta]

Fights and cliques.   I take all that with a very large rock of salt.  Nothing wrong with talking things up, he's not writing a lab report for NASA, but yeaaaah.  OK John, if you say so.

If player management is Herdman's strong point and he's bright enough to get the assistants he needs then that management team may be exactly what the doctor ordered and Herdman gets all of the credit for putting it together and making it work.  Good job.

It's going to be hard for him to get full credit in some parts of the soccer world because he's one lucky bugger.  Timing is everything and he has tools no other Canadian manager ever had or could have dreamed of having.   He'd better be a success.  Pretty sure most any other hire would be.

[dyslexic nam]

1 hour ago, Sal333 said:

You've given a partial meaning of misogyny. Here are the complete meanings:

Oxford languages: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

Merriam-Webster:  hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women

dictionary.com: 

1)hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women, manifested in various forms such as physical intimidation and abuse, sexual harassment and rape, social shunning and ostracism, etc.:the 

 

2)ingrained and institutionalized prejudice against women; sexism.

 

You completely gloss over the second meaning: prejudice against.

It isn’t prejudice to note real differences.  Some have been pointed out to you.  
- Getting guys to camps and games means dealing with clubs that can literally be worth billions of dollars.  I suspect Herdman didn’t have to deal with the Bayerns (or even Lilles or Besiktas) of the world when heading the CWNT.  
- I suspect dealing with guys can be different - and I don’t say that as a positive.  I think there would be issues if ego, entitlement and aggression that would have been less present in the women’s team.  They seems like a group that has always been a team-first mentality (even before Herdman).  As noted, he himself was surprised by the level of inter squad aggression within our men’s team.   
- Tactically I suspect there are differences.  I am a fan of the women’s game and have always supported all of our teams.  But there are clear differences in skill sets and it seems very plausible to think that these differences might in turn lead to a difference in tactics.  
- In terms of luring dual nationals (and we have had a couple of big ones in the mix during Herdman’s time) it is a hugely different proposition to sign someone up for Canada’s world class women’s team vs what was historically  Canada’s middling CONCACAF men’s team    Given the importance of recruitment (and our obvious reliance on people who have multiple options) this seems like a big deal.

There may be others, but I think that is enough to show that most who expressed skepticism weren’t guilty is some wink-wink old boys club thinking.  

And to preempt the “where’s the actual proof” retort, I am not claiming to have much.  It is speculation.   But it is speculation based on some pretty reasonable thinking.  I think it takes some pretty ridiculous mental gymnastics to take all of those plausible lines of reasoning and dismiss all of them as misogyny, sexism, or prejudice.  
 

[Sal333]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I see it like this

1-Herdman backstabbed a fellow CSA employee to get the CMNT job. That, of course, is not sexism. It is more like a macho power play. It also contradicts what he claims to be a key principle of his team philosophy: we don't fight amongst ourselves. He out-alphaed our then alpha. See how the men's game is different?

 

Can you elaborate on this point. I wasn't aware he back-stabbed a fellow CSA employee.

[narduch]

1 minute ago, Sal333 said:

Can you elaborate on this point. I wasn't aware he back-stabbed a fellow CSA employee.

Uhhh. The guy that held the job before him.

[jonovision]

Most managers we could have hired for the job would have had experience in men's club football, but no national team experience.

Herdman had experience with coaching a national team in a non-footballing nation, but not with men's football.

IMO, the transition from the club game to national team managing is at least as large as going from coaching women to men. It's fine to have some reservations about his ability to make that transition, but I think some of us are forgetting how many people around here seemed to think it was basically disqualifying for the job that he didn't have experience coaching men.

[Free kick]

16 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

It isn’t prejudice to note real differences.  Some have been pointed out to you.  
- Getting guys to camps and games means dealing with clubs that can literally be worth billions of dollars.  I suspect Herdman didn’t have to deal with the Bayerns (or even Lilles or Besiktas) of the world when heading the CWNT.  
- I suspect dealing with guys can be different - and I don’t say that as a positive.  I think there would be issues if ego, entitlement and aggression that would have been less present in the women’s team.  They seems like a group that has always been a team-first mentality (even before Herdman).  As noted, he himself was surprised by the level of inter squad aggression within our men’s team.   
- Tactically I suspect there are differences.  I am a fan of the women’s game and have always supported all of our teams.  But there are clear differences in skill sets and it seems very plausible to think that these differences might in turn lead to a difference in tactics.  
- In terms of luring dual nationals (and we have had a couple of big ones in the mix during Herdman’s time) it is a hugely different proposition to sign someone up for Canada’s world class women’s team vs what was historically  Canada’s middling CONCACAF men’s team    Given the importance of recruitment (and our obvious reliance on people who have multiple options) this seems like a big deal.

There may be others, but I think that is enough to show that most who expressed skepticism weren’t guilty is some wink-wink old boys club thinking.  

And to preempt the “where’s the actual proof” retort, I am not claiming to have much.  It is speculation.   But it is speculation based on some pretty reasonable thinking.  I think it takes some pretty ridiculous mental gymnastics to take all of those plausible lines of reasoning and dismiss all of them as misogyny, sexism, or prejudice.  
 

yes.  Having questions about the hire is not the same  as criticizing the hire.    The differences are subtle and you have to get inside people heads with respect to what they meant.  As for me, i never criticized the hire,  but i had some questions about it.   i re read my posts in the first 10 pages and i wouldn't change a thing.  this is based on what we knew at the time.  

Edited October 29, 2021 by Free kick

[frmr]

2 hours ago, gator said:

Sorry but I have a problem with statement and in fact with anyone who agrees with this, are we not entitled to our opinions on here and is there not supposed to be some respect among posters? Let's just kill debate because my opinion is right and everyone who disagrees is "a fucking moron", really? I hate to inform you people but managerial debates are the norm in every club and country in the football world and every other sport for that matter, I also do not like at all the labels put on anyone who dares question Herdman in any way! I personally was skepitical of the hire but have got on board and think he is doing well and as I have said before the book isn't written yet, when and if we qualify I am willing to give JH even more credit but in the meantime why would I bother participating in a debate or shaming session where if I have a dissenting view I am labelled many things that I am not and called a "fucking moron" which is endorsed by some respected members of this board?

The sentence of substance followed that sentence. If you don't think hiring Herdman was the right choice, it's because you're choosing not to look at the bigger picture, (or yes at the risk of offending someone, you're possibly just not very clued in when it comes to how football in the modern age works). Canada Soccer didn't just need a good manager who is a wily tactician, the entire program needed rebuilding and modernizing from the ground up. I find it interesting that the same posters on this board are so quick to point how incompetent Canada Soccer is and how broken the entire program has been for the past however many decades, also fail to acknowledge how instrumental Herdman has been in putting in the work to fix those exact fundamental problems. I appreciate the fact that the program is opaque to a certain degree and we can't really know everything he is doing behind the scenes, but it's pretty obvious that all of those things that he talks about in terms of building a national identity, building a brotherhood, building pipelines, connecting the pipelines, changing the program forever; those aren't just buzzwords, he is literally and tangibly doing those things. I'm always amazed at how people say he's a salesman and uses all of these buzzwords. I've always found that he shoots from the hip and speaks quite literally about what he's doing with the program. We've heard directly from the players' mouths, we're hearing from his own mouth some of the things he's doing in MLS academies by taking over for two weeks and having U15 get a feel for the national program. He's literally modernizing our national program and turning it from a fucking laughing stock and embarrassment, to one that is now flying up the rankings and is now gathering international interest (eg: Athletic podcast)

And yes, the talent coming through plays a part in the success, that's obvious, but it's only a part. Look only as far as Man Utd to see what a team with talented players but a failed manager looks like. Again, those people unwilling to give credit to Herdman and say it's only the players that he has, sorry, but that's not how football works. No, he is not perfect as a tactician, but he is good and at times has been very good. Yes, he has made mistakes, as any manager will, that's perfectly fair to say and understandable. And yes, he deserves some criticism, which he gets in absolute spades on this forum. But I stand by my opinion, that people who don't see that he was the right hire (and thus making any questions regarding the circumstances around his basically moot) are not seeing the big picture or just don't have the ability to appreciate the full scope of what he's doing. Even after Herdman leaves, we will still be feeling the effects, because he's laid the groundworks for what a successful program looks like. It's like what Klopp has done in Liverpool. FSG don't have the money to compete with the rest of the top 4, yet they've built a modern scouting system, advanced analytics systems, connected the youth program with the senior program by building a super-modern all-teams training facility in Kirkby, and now Liverpool is set up to continue challenging with a fraction of the budget, well after he's gone. They've basically setup a moneyball club. "the Reds have got no money, but we'll still win the league". That's what Herdman is doing here, he's rebuilding the program in a modern way so it will be set up to continue to thrive and sustain itself. Everyone here bashes Canada Soccer, but the folks there know a hell of a lot more about the program that the armchair fans here know. They saw what he did with the women's program, they knew intimately what sorts of things he was implementing, they also intimately knew how much of a disaster the men's program was, and so they pulled the trigger. That's why I don't give a fuck about the circumstances about the hiring and if everyone could just let go of their little mental cages they've backed themselves into, they wouldn't either. Because it was obviously the hire that the program needed and so they did what they needed to do. Can anyone honestly sit here with a straight face and say the program would be better off right now if Zambrano was still the manger?

But if some of you guys would rather cling to concerns about the circumstances of how he was hired, then fine, fill your boots. If you'd rather harp on the fact that he thinks the reaction to his hiring was sexist, then cool, you post about that until your keyboard breaks. It's all good. Personally, I'm going to continue to share my opinion, which is that shit doesn't matter at all anymore and that if someone can't see the forest for the trees with Herdman, then (and let me put this lightly and politely) they are slightly intellectually challenged in the matters of management of modern international football.

Edited October 29, 2021 by frmr

[Joe MacCarthy]

Good thing Herdman isn't here to see the cliques going this way and that way, he'd go ballistic.

[Sal333]

4 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

It isn’t prejudice to note real differences.  Some have been pointed out to you.  
- Getting guys to camps and games means dealing with clubs that can literally be worth billions of dollars.  I suspect Herdman didn’t have to deal with the Bayerns (or even Lilles or Besiktas) of the world when heading the CWNT.  
- I suspect dealing with guys can be different - and I don’t say that as a positive.  I think there would be issues if ego, entitlement and aggression that would have been less present in the women’s team.  They seems like a group that has always been a team-first mentality (even before Herdman).  As noted, he himself was surprised by the level of inter squad aggression within our men’s team.   
- Tactically I suspect there are differences.  I am a fan of the women’s game and have always supported all of our teams.  But there are clear differences in skill sets and it seems very plausible to think that these differences might in turn lead to a difference in tactics.  
- In terms of luring dual nationals (and we have had a couple of big ones in the mix during Herdman’s time) it is a hugely different proposition to sign someone up for Canada’s world class women’s team vs what was historically  Canada’s middling CONCACAF men’s team    Given the importance of recruitment (and our obvious reliance on people who have multiple options) this seems like a big deal.

There may be others, but I think that is enough to show that most who expressed skepticism weren’t guilty is some wink-wink old boys club thinking.  

And to preempt the “where’s the actual proof” retort, I am not claiming to have much.  It is speculation.   But it is speculation based on some pretty reasonable thinking.  I think it takes some pretty ridiculous mental gymnastics to take all of those plausible lines of reasoning and dismiss all of them as misogyny, sexism, or prejudice.  
 

- there is a club and country dichotomy in the women side also. But I'll go along with your premise. After hearing him speak what made you think he can't negotiate with the big clubs out there? Before he moved to the men's side I had more confidence in Herdman speaking to the big wigs overseas than a Zambrano, Benito or Hart. Have we been refused any player by the big European clubs?

-there was infighting in the men's team because it was permitted by previous coaches not because it was a men's team. If your point had any validity then Herdman would have been incapable of eradicating the in-fighting. There was in-fighting on the team because no thought of putting a stop to it. It had nothing to do with men being more aggressive. There is no in-fighting now. Does that mean this team is less aggressive? And if you think so, Panama, Mexico and El Salvador don't believe you.

-tactics are tactics if a team can't execute them it doesn't matter the gender of the team. What you are basically saying is the women's game is not as skillful as the men's. I agree with you but how does that diminish the quality of the tactics used?

- as for the dual national question. The complaint many on this board have is that Herdman is a salesman, well wouldn't that help bring in the dual-nationals. Also, what dual-nationals has he lost? And don't tell me Tomori. That guy was a Canadian like Ted Cruz was a Canadian. In fact he convinced Akinola and Eustaquio to join the program.

[Free kick]

1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

I'm going to go ahead and accuse Herdman of being racist because he keeps mentioning that the Scottish group went one way, the Spanish players went another way and the Eastern European players went another way after this fight. He never mentions the black players though, and I find this lack of representation on their behalf unacceptable, offensive and racially-motivated.

 

i think what he meant here is that there was a schism based on where the players pursue their profession.  In other words the European based players versus the MLS player.   I could sense that there is such schism just from reading between the lines and i believe that Osorio's exclusion from the 2018 qualifying squad is one example of a mindset rooted in in bias and folklore that somehow a north American based player is just not up to it.   And the reverse being that MLS players feeling that certain European player are being over rated just because they are in Europe.   I have to give him credit for how he took this on.   l like the players he has called up.  ok except for maybe one example

 

 i didn't sense at all when i heard that comment that it was anything related to ethnicity

Edited October 29, 2021 by Free kick

[Sal333]

19 minutes ago, narduch said:

Uhhh. The guy that held the job before him.

Yeah, I know he meant that. I was asking for proof that he back-stabbed him.

[frmr]

3 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

Yeah, I know he meant that. I was asking for proof that he back-stabbed him.

There is no proof. Nobody here knows exactly what happened. It's just four-year-old speculation.

[Joe MacCarthy]

1 minute ago, Sal333 said:

Yeah, I know he meant that. I was asking for proof that he back-stabbed him.

I have no reason to not believe what Herdman said in the interview.  I got a job offer and went to the CSA and said if you want me to stay here's what I want.  And that included a plan for reinventing the whole program.  I cannot see Zambrano having that amount of detailed information or being afforded the time to acquire it, so he was front stabbed as it were.

[Cheeta]

Front stabbed is about right.   

"I want his job or I'm leaving."

LOL.  I'm actually good with that.

[Sal333]

1 minute ago, Joe MacCarthy said:

I have no reason to not believe what Herdman said in the interview.  I got a job offer and went to the CSA and said if you want me to stay here's what I want.  And that included a plan for reinventing the whole program.  I cannot see Zambrano having that amount of detailed information or being afforded the time to acquire it, so he was front stabbed as it were.

But he didn't back-stab! If you go into a job interview and they ask you what are you gonna do for us and you tell them does that mean you back-stabbed the person who is presently doing the job and not doing it as well as you will?

 

[Joe MacCarthy]

Now I'm wondering if Zambrano got a cash payoff to hit the bricks.  Have to say he stayed classy about it so hopefully he got some cash for his trouble.

[frmr]

8 minutes ago, Joe MacCarthy said:

I have no reason to not believe what Herdman said in the interview.  I got a job offer and went to the CSA and said if you want me to stay here's what I want.  And that included a plan for reinventing the whole program.  I cannot see Zambrano having that amount of detailed information or being afforded the time to acquire it, so he was front stabbed as it were.

Exactly, a better candidate came in and got the job. It's happened millions of times, in every industry all over the world. I've really tried to understand the special brand of obsession on this forum with this routine business decision, but I can't. If Herdman did that and then completely shit the bed, then sure, that is certainly a topic for discussion, but so far he's come as advertised, so... I really don't understand the problem. From my estimation, it seems like a business decision that paid off. Nothing more, nothing less.

Edited October 29, 2021 by frmr

[narduch]

1 minute ago, Joe MacCarthy said:

Now I'm wondering if Zambrano got a cash payoff to hit the bricks.  Have to say he stayed classy about it so hopefully he got some cash for his trouble.

Lol did he stay classy?

[Joe MacCarthy]

2 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

But he didn't back-stab! If you go into a job interview and they ask you what are you gonna do for us and you tell them does that mean you back-stabbed the person who is presently doing the job and not doing it as well as you will?

No, I agree.  It's like these forums, some people will do some snivelly behind the back things and others will punch you in the face.  That's the game of life.