As a guy who’s been exploring and writing about coaching a lot lately, I found I had a deep visceral response to last week’s news that the ever-controversial Carolina Morace had resigned as coach of Canada’s women’s national soccer team.
“She can’t do that.”
Not in the sense that it wasn’t physically possible for her to scribble the words “I quit” on the back of a Gatorade requisition form and mail it off to Metcalfe Street.
I mean something more along the lines of “It’s not her decision to make.”
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Yeah, yeah, captain falls on the sword, all of that honourific hoo-hah. Her team flat bombed at the World Cup, and the proper, dignified, responsible thing to do is step away.
But hold the phone, kids! Morace set off convulsive chaos within Canadian soccer last year when she got fed up with the bureaucrats, and announced she would be leaving the team after the World Cup. Her players threatened to boycott games to support her. The entire upheaval got leveraged into a newer, clearer, better way for our gals to actually get paid – and know how much – for putting on the red and playing for us all.
And now, in the wake of a flat-out terrible tournament (although they did almost tie Germany in the opening game, let’s not all forget at once), Carolina Morace gets to walk anyway.
I would have much preferred she cool her jets, and let the CSA decide how much more Morace-ball they actually wanted to play. They went out of their way to keep her content. It should now be up to them whether she stays on.
An ugly message was left behind after Canada lost to Germany, France and Nigeria at the World Cup: that our gals aren’t good enough, because they weren’t developed properly as kids, and until Canada learns to do that, no coach of any stature will ever make us great.
Doesn’t Morace’s slow walk into the sunset strongly reinforce that indictment? I’m not saying for a second it isn’t true – just that there might be some very real blame on the coach’s side, as well.
Cults of personality are far from rare in international soccer. You hire the name, and the name runs the game. Out goes the flame; off walks the name. Nothing new here.
But I’d still like to have seen how the CSA was going to handle this. The last time a Canadian national team finished dead last at a World Cup was the U-20 boys in 2007. The CSA – with tragic consequence – followed through with a previous promise to promote their coach – dale Mitchell – to the men’s national team. The players were in open revolt before their doomed WC qualifying run was even over. Tomasz Radzinski even wore a “Sack the CSA” t-shirt after the final game.
The CSA has evolved a lot since then. They’d have been within their rights, I think, to fire Morace outright. Or, they could have held her to her contract, let her build on what she’d already done, and refocus the team for the upcoming Olympic qualifiers.
No, they couldn’t keep her from quitting. I just don’t think she had the right.
Soccer can be so infuriating at times. It’s such a low-scoring game, so upsets are always possible. And yet, real quality seems to rise, even in a short, upset-opportunity-filled format like the World Cup. Had Canada equalized against the Germans, who knows how the France game might have gone? I suspect they still get waxed anyway, but no one will ever know.
And how much is the coach? How much is the players? Again, no one will ever know.
If the CSA wanted Morace gone, they should have sacked her before she resigned. If they didn’t want to do that, they should have found a way to make her stay and finish the job.
The only thing we’re really left with now is a bunch of players who have no idea what to do next, and an aching empty feeling of what in the blue-eyed name of hell was that all about?
Onward!
P>S>>> The Canadian coaching investigation series will be continuing soon. New interviews are being arranged – OSA and CSA prominently among them. More in a bit!