Herdman new head coach

[Obinna]

13 minutes ago, Ruffian said:

There would also be a good chance the team keeps on being horrible and he gets fired. To make TFC good again it is going to take a lot of work rebuilding the entire roster.

Agreed. Coaching is relatively low on the totem pole of issues. At the top is roster construction. It's horrendus. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

Again, who's waiting in the wings?

He has lots of flaws and a lot ot learn, still.  But there has been net progress.  "But it's the generation" I hear you say, but parts of the generation are with us and committed because of him.  

And from an outside looking in at least is TFC where you want to really get your real start in club football (no offence).  I look at someone like Ryan Nelsen. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[HochelagaFC]

The thing that could entice Herdman to TFC is thats he’s more of a builder and he’s great at changing the culture of teams he manages.

He did it with the CWNT and the CMNT. If you look at it that way I see why TFC would be interested in him cause Manning doesn’t have a clue how to do that. 

From a CMNT point of view, the problem is who replaces him? If the plan is to give Biello, Olivieri or Neville the job it’s gonna be a real downgrade and not good for us in the long run. If they go out and get a guy like Christensen from Panama I think we will be ok without Herdman.
 

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

24 minutes ago, HochelagaFC said:

The thing that could entice Herdman to TFC is thats he’s more of a builder and he’s great at changing the culture of teams he manages....

Easier to do with a national team when you can always stop calling up anyone who you perceive to be causing issues that way. If Bernadeschi and Insigne are the issue and can't be shifted off the roster until 2026...

[HochelagaFC]

5 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Easier to do with a national team when you can always stop calling up anyone who you perceive to be causing issues that way. If Bernadeschi and Insigne are the issue and can't be shifted off the roster until 2026...

Of course it’s harder but Herdman might think he’s up for that challenge.

[Free kick]

22 hours ago, An Observer said:

Nick Nurse did the Raptors and the Canadian Basketball Team at the same time and we probably play about the same as them these days

True.  But that didn't turn out well for the Canadian National Basketball team.   Nurse was managing his time to do both jobs and was sending his assistants to the FIBA events that conflicted with his duties as a Raptors coach.  Such as WCQ matches and the Fiba Americup.  No issues there. 

Problem is,  when Nurse got fired from the Raptors.   It turned out that coaching the Men's National team became untenable and he had to resign or was forced to resign from his Canada duties for reasons that are still not clear.  As a result,  six weeks before the World cup,  the Canada basketball had to scramble to hire a new coach.  So new coach comes in a month before the WC but how do you implement the systems and plays you want run in such a short time and without having time to hire your own assistant coaches.   You just cant/shouldn't replace a coach six weeks before the big event.   If things go south for Canada at the WC next week,  you can be certain that this issue of the coaching change will top the list of reasons for failure.  

Plus the MNT in soccer doesnt doesnt have the luxury of the kind of talent that the MNT in basketball has.   Many neutral observers around the world  (including in the US)  think that Canada's basketball team at WC has the best individual talent in the WC whole tournament.  So Canada basketball might be better able to weather this kind radical change,  the soccer MNT would not becasue it has no where the level of individual pedigree.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Free kick

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

9 minutes ago, HochelagaFC said:

Of course it’s harder but Herdman might think he’s up for that challenge.

Suspect that "informal talks" is code for quickly turned them down before it even got to the interview stage, but we'll see what happens. Does appear to imply that the CSA gave MLSE permission to sound him out about it though. Think it will be Carl Robinson because of the combination of being desperate enough to want a job that looks like a potential career ender right now with enough previous MLS experience to look a lot less risky to non-soccer people at MLSE than Bobby Smyrniotis does.

[Free kick]

12 hours ago, Vasi said:

True. But that is common in basketball. 

Does anyone know of any cases in football? 

True that is common in Basketball.  But from the examples I am aware of,  its mostly assistant coaches at the pro level who take on national team duties.  Cant think of any current Head coaches but i might be wrong

Jordi Fernandez -  current Canada MNT head coach and assistent coach Sacramento (NBA)

Sergio Scariolo - was head coach for Spain MNT while an assistant coach with the Raptors (NBA)

Pablo Prigioni - Current head coach of Argentina and an assistant with Minnesota (NBA) 

I am sure that there are several others.

[Free kick]

On balance, I think that coaching a national team while holding down a coaching job at a professional level is more doable in soccer than in other sports.   That's because there is a firm international calendar in soccer that other sports don't have.  

But its can still be problematic,  as in the case of Nick nurse

Edited August 15, 2023 by Free kick

[InglewoodJack]

16 hours ago, An Observer said:

Nick Nurse did the Raptors and the Canadian Basketball Team at the same time and we probably play about the same as them these days

International game is less important in basketball of course, but recruitment is a lot easier too- invite every single Canadian NBA player, and round out the roster with whoever your best players in NCAA and Euroleague are and host a couple practice sessions, then a handful of games, and that's it. Herdman needs to work with a way bigger pool of players, has way bigger expectations and has a lot more work to do with Canada than Nurse had with the national team. When we were eliminated from Olympic qualifiers to Czechia, Nurse kinda just went "well, not much time to practice, we weren't ready! Oh well". If we suffered a similar loss, Herdman's job would likely be on the line.

[Free kick]

1 hour ago, InglewoodJack said:

International game is less important in basketball of course, but recruitment is a lot easier too- invite every single Canadian NBA player, and round out the roster with whoever your best players in NCAA and Euroleague are and host a couple practice sessions, then a handful of games, and that's it. Herdman needs to work with a way bigger pool of players, has way bigger expectations and has a lot more work to do with Canada than Nurse had with the national team. When we were eliminated from Olympic qualifiers to Czechia, Nurse kinda just went "well, not much time to practice, we weren't ready! Oh well". If we suffered a similar loss, Herdman's job would likely be on the line.

Regarding the bolded part.  Is this really true?   Canada Basketball head coaches have a TON of more talent depth to deal with and also having to make much much more difficult cuts to their squad.  There are 25-30 Canadian players in the NBA and that's more than double the country with next highest, Australia.   Plus of that group,  there are several names that appear as all-stars and on all-NBA teams.   Unlike, say Australia,  who (with 10 players) keep yapping on talking their loaded squad even though many of their nba players sit at the end of bench or dont dress.  We also have as many as 141 players in Div 1 NCAA. more than any other country by a country mile.  

Regarding the pool for our MNT soccer team,  I have seen several posts taking about this or that player being part of the pool.  And, not to get into spat,  I have stayed mum while seriously questioning almost everyone of those names as whether you can call that depth or whether many of these name should even be part of the pool.  My definition of depth:   If we were to remove our top five players from the MNT,  how much of a regression would we see?  I say its a big regression.   Enough to mean (for example) contenting for a GOLD cup titles as opposed to not getting out of the group stage in a Gold cup tournament.   We have a depth problem on our MNT and this has become apparent to me since the WC.   Some people tend to regard depth as anyone who makes its onto a squad on almost any pro team.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Free kick

[archer21]

19 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Regarding the bolded part.  Is this really true?   Canada Basketball head coaches have a TON of more talent depth to deal with and also having to make much much more difficult cuts to their squad.  There are 25-30 Canadian players in the NBA and that's more than double the country with next highest, Australia.   Plus of that group,  there are several names that appear as all-stars and on all-NBA teams.   Unlike, say Australia,  who (with 10 players) keeps talking their loaded squad even though many of their nba players sit at the end of bench or dont dress.  We also have as many as 141 players in Div 1 NCAA. more than any other country by a country mile.  

Regarding the pool for our MNT soccer team,  I have seen several posts taking about this or that player being part of the pool.  And, not to get into spat,  I have stayed mum while seriously questioning almost everyone of those names as whether you can call that depth or whether many of these name should even be part of the pool.  My definition of depth:   If we were to remove our top five players from the MNT,  how much of a regression would we see?  I say its a big regression.   Enough to mean (for example) contenting for a GOLD cup titles as opposed to not getting out of the group stage in a Gold cup tournament.   We have a depth problem on our MNT and this has become apparent to me since the WC.   Some people tend to regard depth as anyone who makes its onto a squad on almost any pro team.

If I’m not mistaken, the post you’re replying to was just saying that it’s easier to select the squad in basketball because you just invite all the NBA guys. Which is basically all they need to do. Many will say no, you take all the guys who accept, then fill in with a few extras. He wasn’t saying CMNT has more depth, that’s obviously not correct. Our basketball team is much more talented than our soccer team, I think that’s pretty clear.

[InglewoodJack]

9 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Regarding the bolded part.  Is this really true?   Canada Basketball head coaches have a TON of more talent depth to deal with and also having to make much much more difficult cuts to their squad.  There are 25-30 Canadian players in the NBA and that's more than double the country with next highest, Australia.   Plus of that group,  there are several names that appear as all-stars and on all-NBA teams.   Unlike, say Australia,  who (with 10 players) keeps talking their loaded squad even though many of their nba players sit at the end of bench or dont dress.  We also have as many as 141 players in Div 1 NCAA. more than any other country by a country mile.  

Regarding the pool for our MNT soccer team,  I have seen several posts taking about this or that player being part of the pool.  And, not to get into spat,  I have stayed mum while seriously questioning almost everyone of those names as whether you can call that depth or whether many of these name should even be part of the pool.  My definition of depth:   If we were to remove our top five players from the MNT,  how much of a regression would we see?  I say its a big regression.   Enough to mean (for example) contenting for a GOLD cup titles as opposed to not getting out of the group stage in a Gold cup tournament.   We have a depth problem on our MNT and this has become apparent to me since the WC.   Some people tend to regard depth as anyone who makes its onto a squad on almost any pro team.

Yeah- the biggest difference here, other than less importance on the international game in basketball is the fact that soccer doesn't have a single hyper-dominant league like the NBA. As for those 30 or so Canadians in the league, every single one is invited and the roster is trimmed when several players (Wiggins, Mathurin, etc.) reject the call up, and their spots are then given to some national team mainstays in Europe (the Chubb twins, etc.). Australia is probably a tougher team to scout for because they have to fill their roster with a lot of domestic players, and having a relatively good domestic league means they need to make sure to take the right guys.

For Herdman and his staff, his squad is spread across a dozen leagues and the pool below them is spread even more broadly, and there's also the issue of dual national recruitment that basketball doesn't have, generally. Herdman has to familiarize himself with the quality of the Serbian league to go and try to get Mitrovic to commit, then he has to turn around and evaluate Liam Millar's form in Switzerland, and then shift over to guys in the Championship, players in Poland, so on, so forth. Not to mention, our soccer team calls players in a lot earlier- our staff is aware of Dieu-Michel Merci who is playing for the B team of a small club in Portugal, they're aware of Koleosho's tenuous ties to Canada, so on. It's a lot of info to consider whereas for basketball, you can run down the NBA stat sheet on ESPN and sort for Canadians and that's half your roster.

That said, I think it comes down to international competition not being all that important in basketball vs. soccer. You can't have year long camps and international windows and all of that- you're basically asking NBA players to volunteer on their free time to come and play for their country. It's a smaller commitment. No one gets fired if Canada shows poorly at a tournament, and even if they get fired, that won't affect their club career at all. RJ Barrett plays like an all-NBA player for Canada but that doesn't affect the type of contract or team he could sign with either, for example.

Watching the baseball world cup reignited my hope that other sports take the international game as serious as they do with soccer.

[InglewoodJack]

Just now, archer21 said:

If I’m not mistaken, the post you’re replying to was just saying that it’s easier to select the squad in basketball because you just invite all the NBA guys. Which is basically all they need to do. Many will say no, you take all the guys who accept, then fill in with a few extras. He wasn’t saying CMNT has more depth, that’s obviously not correct. Our basketball team is much more talented than our soccer team, I think that’s pretty clear.

Yeah, exactly. Call up Murray, Barrett, SGA, Wiggins, Brooks, Powell, Olynyk, Dort, Brandon Clarke, Chris Boucher, Benn Mathurin, Alexander-Walker, and round out the roster with whoever is hot in NCAA or Europe. Not much harder than that.

[El Diego]

It's not so much identifying the top 15 Canadian basketball players that's the issue -- it's getting them to commit to tournaments and multi-year initiatives. Canada Soccer has had this issue as well, of course, but as others have mentioned international soccer is regarded as a top tier thing whereas international basketball is not (at least, not in the same way)

[FreddyCanuck]

2 hours ago, HochelagaFC said:

The thing that could entice Herdman to TFC is thats he’s more of a builder and he’s great at changing the culture of teams he manages.

He did it with the CWNT and the CMNT. If you look at it that way I see why TFC would be interested in him cause Manning doesn’t have a clue how to do that. 

From a CMNT point of view, the problem is who replaces him? If the plan is to give Biello, Olivieri or Neville the job it’s gonna be a real downgrade and not good for us in the long run. If they go out and get a guy like Christensen from Panama I think we will be ok without Herdman.
 

 

Can't see the CSA being able to afford Phil Neville. Even if the money was to his liking, would he be enticed? He was on the inside for a month after all...

[mpg_29]

2 hours ago, HochelagaFC said:

The thing that could entice Herdman to TFC is thats he’s more of a builder and he’s great at changing the culture of teams he manages.

He did it with the CWNT and the CMNT. If you look at it that way I see why TFC would be interested in him cause Manning doesn’t have a clue how to do that. 

From a CMNT point of view, the problem is who replaces him? If the plan is to give Biello, Olivieri or Neville the job it’s gonna be a real downgrade and not good for us in the long run. If they go out and get a guy like Christensen from Panama I think we will be ok without Herdman.
 

 

Right but in this sense...Herdman would almost be better in the president role.... not as the coach.

What good is bringing in Herdman in if the structural issues remain?

Edited August 15, 2023 by mpg_29

[Free kick]

54 minutes ago, archer21 said:

If I’m not mistaken, the post you’re replying to was just saying that it’s easier to select the squad in basketball because you just invite all the NBA guys. Which is basically all they need to do. Many will say no, you take all the guys who accept, then fill in with a few extras. He wasn’t saying CMNT has more depth, that’s obviously not correct. Our basketball team is much more talented than our soccer team, I think that’s pretty clear.

Fair enough,  yes.   I interpreted the words: "Herdman needs..."   to mean that that is what he currently has rather than the intended meaning to say:  that that should be the optimal state"

 

EDIT>;  Regarding the quote:  " it’s easier to select the squad in basketball because you just invite all the NBA guys. Which is basically all they need to do".  There have been NBA players who have been terrible (one in particular) playing under FIBA rules and playing for the MNT in Basketball.   Its not just about looking at just the NBA players.   There are two or three Euro based Cnd basketball players who will make the squad ahead of NBA players.   The MNT basketball coach has to make 3 cuts before next week, I its a very tough call over who to cut.    There will be an NBA player cut,  I'm fairly certain of that.  And I am certain that there will be Euro players on the squad.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Free kick

[HochelagaFC]

3 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Right but in this sense...Herdman would almost be better in the president role.... not as the coach.

What good is bringing in Herdman in if the structural issues remain?

Maybe a GM/HC dual rôle like Bob Bradley had? 

[InglewoodJack]

4 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Fair enough,  yes.   I interpreted the words: "Herdman needs..."   to mean that that is what he currently has rather than the intended meaning to say:  that that should be optimal state"

By "he needs to work with a larger pool" I meant more that he has more players to consider and those players play in many more leagues. The 45th best Canadian soccer player has a decent chance of making our national team, whereas the 45th best basketball player from Canada has zero shot.

[mpg_29]

Just now, HochelagaFC said:

Maybe a GM/HC dual rôle like Bob Bradley had? 

Genuine question: Who is making the roster selection in TFC's case? Who is deciding on DP's etc?

[Obinna]

3 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Genuine question: Who is making the roster selection in TFC's case? Who is deciding on DP's etc?

Are you looking for a noun or an adjective, because I have quite a few adjectives which come to mind....

[VinceA]

Who would even replace Herdman. This job must not be very enticing right now.

Realistically It would be someone like Wheeldon jr or Smyrniotis who would be willing to come in. I can't even think of a big time Canadian coach right now. Maybe Marcina?

[Atlantic]

Alen Marcina (San Antonio)

Frank Yallop (Monterrey Bay)

Kevin McKenna (Assistant @ FC Köln)

Michael Kim (Assistant @ South Korea NT)

Outside of Marcina I’m not fond of making any of those guys the coach of the CanMNT. I wouldn’t mind going rouge and getting a younger coach from Europe but we are broke so that’s likely off the table 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

10 minutes ago, Atlantic said:

I wouldn’t mind going rouge and getting a younger coach from Europe but we are broke so that’s likely off the table 

Cheeky bid for Nagelsmann?

He seemed to like Davies😉