Zambrano out!

[BCM]

15 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

It is not a problem of a person coaching both men and women. I heard an interview last week with Pochettino, Spurs coach, where he explained he got his experience and licencing with the Espanyol women's team, as an assistant, and learnt a lot, then was hired to coach the men. But he'd been a player with them for years when active, he's an Espanyol man. Of course you can transition, that is not the problem.

Herdman has not played any decent level of professional men's soccer. He has never coached a men's professional team. He has no experience and is drawing from an invalid source, the CWNT. He was hired without due process. His hiring set back a properly handled hiring process for a colleague, who he seems to have undermined from inside. Thos are all marks against him. 

The simple fact is, if John Herdman had coached Wilmington for a year, or Berwick Rangers in Scotland, or some 2nd division team in Denmark, anything, the reaction here would be softer and we'd be looking at his men's pro team results, though probably we'd still be critical. 

There's two separate and equally important criticisms raised:

(1) process. Even if we hired Sir Alex Ferguson, it's clear that process/transparency was lacking. This was not handled well (despite those who defend this with rumours of well known "whispers" and "worst kept secret" - not one so-called journalist reported anything of this apparently well-known discontent).

By the way, the lawyer in me also questions the legality of Herdman's hiring. I am pretty sure all government jobs have to be advertised, and distinctly recall the last advertisement. I suppose it is not a hiring, but internal rotation for both Herdman and the new WNT coach, in which case they may be able to skirt the law.

(2) Qualifications. I am firmly in the camp that Herdman is not qualified or equipped for this position. If he hires extremely competent assistants with deep knowledge of the men's game, both within Canada and CONCACAF, then it will go some way in alleviating my concern with his ability to make this a success.

[Moldy9]

9 hours ago, matty said:

OMG Moldy wins that feud lol

Mic drop ??⤵️

[Grizzly]

4 hours ago, matty said:

God this reminds me of what a shame it is the csa didn't go crazy af and hire Villas-Boas. High profile. Good track recors. Speaks fluent English. Has coached in concacaf. He was perfect in everyway

Perfect in every way except the salary he would have demanded would be way above the CSA budget.

[matthew]

I can probably only muddy the air, but as far as I know this has almost nothing to do with Herdman. I would like to tell you some of the things I heard about behind the scenes issues, but unless someone was willing to talk on the record, I'm not going to repeat rumours I can't verify. At this point it is up to the CSA to justify this. Because from the outside it is utterly mystifying.

But as Sandor and Schaad have said, this wasn't out of the blue. There have been serious concerns for months apparently. Are those concerns justified? I have no idea. I would love to ask a lot of people some questions about this, but I doubt anyone will get the chance. This isn't a retroactive smear campaign to justify hiring Herdman, this has been building. No matter the truth in what was done, wasn't done, promised and or not promised, this is squarely on the CSA in my book. If you have buyer's remorse that quickly, you didn't do your due diligence in the first place. There was no real rush to hire the next manager. If they hired the wrong man that's on them. If they don't communicate what their issues are (and at this point they can't even say they fired him) then that is another failing on their part.

I liked Octavio. He was good when I interviewed him and dealt with him. I was cautiously optimistic about the results. I was hoping he had survived the storm. I'm curious to see how he does in his next job and in his next step.

And above all I hope the CSA can and does justify their decision.

cheers, matthew

 

 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Willing to believe there could have been genuine issues with Zambrano but hiring Herdman is consistent with the CSA old boys network feeling threatened and getting somebody in they were comfortable with that wouldn't rock the boat. The type of soccer the CWNT has tended to play over the years is not the way to win in Tegicugalpa to reach the hex when the bags of urine start flying. Think the core CMNT fan base has to find a way to let the CSA know that this is not acceptable given there is still time for another hire before the next World Cup cycle.

[Bertuzzi44]

Frankly, the CSA is guilty until proven innocent in my books. I'm willing to hear their reasoning, but I'm not optimistic. As I sit here, my instinct tells me this is classic CSA bull$#it.

Also, talk about not putting Herdman in a position to succeed. Many will think he was either gifted the position without due diligence, threatened to leave and demanded the position (i.e. d!ck move), or worse yet, is utterly not qualified. Players who liked OZ might tune Herdman out if they think either of the previous two points were true!

Also - as most would probably agree - results and on-field performances were looking up. Isn't that what it's all about? As long as the results were coming along OZ could have lived in a dumpster in the Vancouver's downtown eastside, communicated soley via fax and lived off the hearts of puppies for all I care.

 

 

 

 

[mpg_29]

Just stumbled upon the headline on Google News...couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing.

In my mind there are no clear reasons about this coming from the CSA because any direction they go in makes them look like complete incompetent amateurs.  If it's about Zambrano being so shit/not up to the job then it looks like they can't hire the right people. If Herdman forced their hand it looks like they caved and fired a non-interim coach after 10 months.  If it was always the plan to put Herdman in the MNT role at some point why not have an actual transition plan instead of whatever the hell this was? If it's about Herdman being about to shape the entire structure of the boys program why hire him as MNT coach instead of making him head technical director? 

[Cheeta]

7 hours ago, jonovision said:

To be fair, the MNT manager won't be coaching many players who are paid grotesque amounts of money to play soccer either.

True, but the worst paid of them is making a hell of a lot more money than any player on the WNT. 

It's also true that every player he's going to want to coach will be in that marketplace where successful players are paid grotesque amounts of money.  The same marketplace which will be providing every single player he's going to be coaching against. 

It isn't a game any more. 

[Gian-Luca]

Just woke up to this news.........say it ain’t so.......

[BuzzAndSting]

6 hours ago, The Beaver said:

Maybe so. But maybe they didn't leak it.

Who else would have?

[BuzzAndSting]

5 hours ago, BrennanFan said:

The plot thickens...

 

Who is this? I’ve tried to find out and she seems like a random.

[Initial B]

I woke up to this news. I don't have enough facepalm emoticons to express my disgust at this turn of events. It's Holger Osieck all over again, but this time with the CSA board members with the knives instead of the CMNT players.

All those years of governance restructuring and we're back to the same old way of doing things. I think I despair for the future of Canadian Soccer.

[mpg_29]

These may have been already posted but interesting:

[BigMo]

So shameless spinning from people in the media supposedly “in the know”. Claims that Zambranos tenure were a “disaster” cannot be substantiated at all by what we’ve seen on the pitch. I even saw someone claim it’s good this happened before it was “too late”. Too late for what? To miss the Hex again? There’s clearly a huge gap between the perceptions of the governing structure of soccer in this country of themselves, and the reality of the national team.

I have absolutely zero confidence that Herdman will deliver. Can someone name a single equivalent anywhere in the world, where a national team was being managed by someone with zero playing experience and zero coaching experience at any level on the men’s side? Truly amateur hour and an embarassment. 

 

[jpg75]

8 hours ago, BuzzAndSting said:

No one said FCE or SFD were mad, but it’s telling that the MNT coach doesn’t even take the time to call Marc Dos Santos and inquire about any players. They weren’t known commodities to OZ, he never saw them play.

OZ was an assistant in KC a few years back so he would have seen most of the SF guys when they were in MLS.

[jonovision]

33 minutes ago, BigMo said:

So shameless spinning from people in the media supposedly “in the know”. Claims that Zambranos tenure were a “disaster” cannot be substantiated at all by what we’ve seen on the pitch. I even saw someone claim it’s good this happened before it was “too late”. Too late for what? To miss the Hex again? There’s clearly a huge gap between the perceptions of the governing structure of soccer in this country of themselves, and the reality of the national team.

I have absolutely zero confidence that Herdman will deliver. Can someone name a single equivalent anywhere in the world, where a national team was being managed by someone with zero playing experience and zero coaching experience at any level on the men’s side? Truly amateur hour and an embarassment. 

 

There are plenty of managers who have success in their first managing job, some of whom get that first job with a national team program. Many of them were players, but in my opinion, coaching women is better preparation for coaching men then playing with men.

[Ruud]

6 hours ago, BrennanFan said:

The plot thickens...

 

But this simply suggests a problem in CSA leadership;  it has little or nothing to do with coaching MNT, selecting players and thinking about strategy.  Why not just remove him from his other roles as national director etc.  (assuming he had them)

I have no problem if Herdman takes over with u-17s and u-20 and leads a restructuring of our youth structures, if that's where the failing is....

[youllneverwalkalone]

I like Oz a lot, although he strikes me to be an Ecudorian Herdman: speaks well, lots of charisma, may have technical deficiencies as he never played the game at a high level.

The one thing I always felt during the Herdman WNT era is that they were managed far more professionally than the men: more matches, more media, more fans, etc. If Herdman had anything to do with this then he will help. 

 

[Futballer]

44 minutes ago, BigMo said:

So shameless spinning from people in the media supposedly “in the know”. Claims that Zambranos tenure were a “disaster” cannot be substantiated at all by what we’ve seen on the pitch. I even saw someone claim it’s good this happened before it was “too late”. Too late for what? To miss the Hex again? There’s clearly a huge gap between the perceptions of the governing structure of soccer in this country of themselves, and the reality of the national team.

I have absolutely zero confidence that Herdman will deliver. Can someone name a single equivalent anywhere in the world, where a national team was being managed by someone with zero playing experience and zero coaching experience at any level on the men’s side? Truly amateur hour and an embarassment. 

 

Bigmoe,

Just heard about the change of our MNT coach to John Heardman. This is a move  no one saw coming!! 2nd  the appointment of John maybe a  good one as this  coach gave opportunities to unknown local players like Kadesha Buchanan and she is now one of the best Female defenders in the world, the key thing  to all this is he found the talent locally here in Canada and made them elite  international  players, he has the same choices with the mens teams, as there are so many more talented players playing locally in Canada that, has not gotten their chance to prove themselves that john may give them the opportunity to prove themselves against  our 1st team  players who are not  up to par.

[Ruud]

Where is Jason De Vos!

[Admin]

4 minutes ago, Ruud said:

Where is Jason De Vos!

[soccerlife]

9 hours ago, jonovision said:

The Sandor article posted above, lots of stuff on twitter from Peter Schaad and others. Zambrano being disorganized, not communicating with players and teams, issues with budgets, etc. More than one have said that some of Zambrano's failings are of the type that can't be reported. I'm not sure what that means but I'll defer to those who are having these conversations with people in the know.

This. If they let out everything, how can they hire a good quality coach in the future. I say let’s trust the CSA a bit more this time. Granted the way it happened is shocking. Also choice of replacement coach. Just holding my breath and hoping this works. 

[Futballer]

2 minutes ago, soccerlife said:

This. If they let out everything, how can they hire a good quality coach in the future. I say let’s trust the CSA a bit more this time. Granted the way it happened is shocking. Also choice of replacement coach. Just holding my breath and hoping this works. 

Finally the Canadian Soccer  Association is applying a cutting edge type style management  to  the men`s National Team program:  Way to go CSA: You notice the system is broken so get it fix immediately !!!! 

[Ruud]

6 minutes ago, soccerlife said:

This. If they let out everything, how can they hire a good quality coach in the future. I say let’s trust the CSA a bit more this time. Granted the way it happened is shocking. Also choice of replacement coach. Just holding my breath and hoping this works. 

Sorry but reporters need to do their jobs and not say things like:  I can't really say what happened, or why there were so many grumblings....

Zambrano is judged on one thing - results on the pitch - not how neat or organized his desk was...

If players were going to revolt, that's another thing...but again, these reporters have told us nothing.

[gator]

2 minutes ago, Futballer said:

Finally the Canadian Soccer  Association is applying a cutting edge type style management  to  the men`s National Team program:  Way to go CSA: You notice the system is broken so get it fix immediately !!!! 

Judging by what has come down and the way it happened I would say the CSA is broken and needs to be fixed, I hate to use the term but "drain the swamp"!