Next CanMNT manager (Herdman to TFC)

[Obinna]

8 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I think a herdman/henry duo would be great. 

Let herdman motivate the guys and henry provide technical advice to our players. 

Henry at monaco was always a tough situation. poor club form, tons of injuries and its his first gig. It seems like the lack of emotional connection extended into his time with montreal. 

My hope is that hes learned a bunch of management skills as an assistant with belguim. Maybe he understands how different international management is to club. 

Henry just seems like a great guy to have as an assistant, but maybe not as the main guy. 

Well Herdman is definitely not leaving TFC for the national team anytime soon, and certainly not for an assistant role - unless you are suggesting that Henry be the assistant to Herdman, which I don't think would be of interest to Thierry even if it were possible. 

Henry won't be taking any CSA job as an assistant. 

Henry would use Canada as a means to sharpen his skills as a first team manager. It would make sense for him, I think. He probably has much to learn before he can be a top manager for a club, but an international appointment with Canada maybe gives him reps being "the boss" with less pressure or expectation.

[Obinna]

5 minutes ago, Shway said:

Henry has an arrogance to him (rightfully so) and I saw it on the touch line many times - not only at Montreal.

Its almost as if he has this sense that he can put some gear on today and show them how it's supposed to be done because it's "so simple"....(edit: exactly what @InglewoodJack was referring to)

If he's coming to the CSA at Herdman + prices, I would suggest that the CSA take a hard pass and reserve those funds for additional camps and friendlies.

We don't need someone who just wants a job because they have been successful to get one elsewhere to come in and demand a high salary, have zero pride for the country, and then subsequently have a built in excuse that there isn't enough camps/preparation.

I can see it already. 

If both sides are smart they'd get that out in the open before any offers are accepted. 

[Shway]

Also a question based on my previous post.

As a fan would you want a notorious coach at the expense of crippling the budget for other camps, programs, friendlies etc

or would you prefer an unproven coach at a half the cost and more friendlies than usual.

[Bigandy]

3 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Well Herdman is definitely not leaving TFC for the national team anytime soon, and certainly not for an assistant role - unless you are suggesting that Henry be the assistant to Herdman, which I don't think would be of interest to Thierry even if it were possible. 

Henry won't be taking any CSA job as an assistant. 

Henry would use Canada as a means to sharpen his skills as a first team manager. It would make sense for him, I think. He probably has much to learn before he can be a top manager for a club, but an international appointment with Canada maybe gives him reps being "the boss" with less pressure or expectation.

Oh 100% none of that happens. I was only speaking to the skill set of these guys in relation to international ball.  

[Bigandy]

1 minute ago, Shway said:

Also a question based on my previous post.

As a fan would you want a notorious coach at the expense of crippling the budget for other camps, programs, friendlies etc

or would you prefer an unproven coach at a half the cost and more friendlies than usual.

I'm not sure thats a realistic question. 

Lets say we get a proven coach thats within the realm of realism for CMNT. Thats probably a pedigree of around chris hughton or slightly better. That type of salary is likely between 500k-1m a year. 

At the top end, we pay a guy 1m a year and an unproven guy 500k. 

What can we buy with the 500k we saved?  Half of one camp poutine? 

Realistically 500k doesnt do anything of major substance for us. 

[Fresh Prince of MTL]

3 hours ago, prairiecanuck said:

So when I look at the money MTL spent on the team when Henry was coach they had the 19th highest payroll in the league.  When I look at the roster and compare it to other MLS teams, was it a team you expected to be a top team?  You can't make chicken salad out of Chicken Sh#t.

Henry who played with the top clubs of Europe and a top national team knows nothing about football.  He worked with some of the top managers in the game.  The team meetings to break down other teams.  He was part of it.  The tactics top managers used to break down other teams.  He was part of it.  Yet, some of you are convinced this man knows nothing about football.

Did he have trouble relating to players and make some mistakes as an inexperienced manager.  I'm sure he did.  You learn through failure.  Is there a big enough sample size to suggest he can't be a successful manager?  Not in my opinion.

We see Davies at times trying to do too much when he's on the ball.  Like it or not, when the critic of a top players game is coming from Henry vs Biello it's going to go be received differently by the player based off of reputation and respect.

I'm not sure if Henry is the man for the job or not, but I'm not going to summarily dismiss his candidacy because of his time with the Impact. 

I know Montreal was not a title contender, but a good coach will bring his team together better than the sum of its parts. That's what Herdman was able to do with us during WCQ, especially our defensive game. Nancy turned that Montreal team into a top 3 finish in the entire league with the 15th highest salary. I agree the sample size is small but his stubbornness to make changes in his tactics and in his lineups makes me think his coaching style would not translate well to the international game.

If we truly want to compete with the big nations in the Copa America and World Cup, we will be the equivalent of CF Montreal to the big spending LA Teams, Seattle, Atlanta, etc. We don't have the quality of superstar talent depth of top 20 nations so we need a coach who will get the most out of our guys as a unit

[Obinna]

15 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I'm not sure thats a realistic question. 

Lets say we get a proven coach thats within the realm of realism for CMNT. Thats probably a pedigree of around chris hughton or slightly better. That type of salary is likely between 500k-1m a year. 

At the top end, we pay a guy 1m a year and an unproven guy 500k. 

What can we buy with the 500k we saved?  Half of one camp poutine? 

Realistically 500k doesnt do anything of major substance for us. 

I tend to agree with this. We need more camps desperately, but I am not sure how much saving on a coach buys us. It's like building 100k extra homes to help solve the housing crisis, sure it helps but it doesn't fundamentally fix the issue. 

[InglewoodJack]

10 minutes ago, Obinna said:

This is a very legitimate concern, but a big part of me thinks it's a worthwhile tradeoff. I am okay with relying on our best 3 or 4 players and under utilizing our subs if Henry is getting the most out of the star players. The make up of our team is such that we only have a couple of elite players anyways and elite players win games. Our depth players may be in great form or developing nicely, but there's still a massive drop off from David to Bair, or Davies to Schaffleburg.

In an ideal world I would much perfer a balanced team, but we cannot build a team we are stuck with the players we have, by and large. We cannot go out and buy players. So for this team, the idea of Henry in theory could possibly work. It could also be a disaster, but again show me what other options there are. I like the Bobby idea still, but it's not an obvious slam dunk either. Maybe an Henry/Bobby tandem would be interesting, but would he leave Forge for an assistant role? And Henry may just perfer his own support staff. 

For me it's not even about using younger/depth players to develop them, but more the reality of who we have at our disposal. Davies is world class, but some games he's just spinning his tired in the mud, doing a lot of nothing. Larin and David can and have faded in games- I would hope that if that happens again at the next world cup that we have a manager with the trust in his backup MLS or Championship level striker to come in and make something happen. We need to get tangible production off the bench whether it's Theo Bair or Liam Millar or Shaffelburg or Mathieu Choniere, so on. We didn't always agree with Herdman's tactics, but he gave everyone who deserved it a shot and we were much better off for it.

That's not even to mention situations with guys like Bombito, or to a lesser extent Kone who Herdman sees something beyond the stat sheet and game footage and gives them a shot to crack the squad. I think Kone is a big enough talent to get identified by an eye like Henry's, but we're going to always have these guys who have high potential to become just really solid MLS players (Bombito, Shaff, so on), and if our coach doesn't rate that potential, he's going to go into games thinking we have 5 guys who can actually play ball and the rest are all just glorified waterboys.

The way that Henry's France U-21 striker Mathys Tel is being deployed at Bayern is how most of our bench guys will be used. Give the guy a chance and he'll make good stuff happen, but Bayern has the best striker in the world, how dare they rest him when the team is down 2-0 to Leverkeusen late and he hasn't done much all game! Not that Tel's club situation is Henry's fault or problem, but the idea of leaving talent on the bench because the starter is your best player is a challenge that Canada's coach will have to fight against.

I don't think a Bobby/Henry tandem would work though. Thierry Henry has so much more pedigree but Bobby has so much more coaching experience. You'd be asking a get it out the mud coach who's clawed from the depths of Canadian soccer to cede power and control to a coach who earned it on name only, and on the reverse, you're asking one of the greatest players of all time to respect and integrate the tactics of a coach who has never coached above the Canadian domestic level. Just don't think it's a good duo on face value.

As for "who else could it be"- we didn't consider Henry until the rumor dropped, so it could be anybody. I mean, who knows- next week it might be Joachim Low flirting with the job. That would be awesome.

[Obinna]

5 minutes ago, Fresh Prince of MTL said:

If we truly want to compete with the big nations in the Copa America and World Cup, we will be the equivalent of CF Montreal to the big spending LA Teams, Seattle, Atlanta, etc. We don't have the quality of superstar talent depth of top 20 nations so we need a coach who will get the most out of our guys as a unit

Henry wouldn't likely be joining ahead of the Copa, so we can forget about that one. It's going to be Biello until the fall at earliest, I expect.

And if we do hire Henry in the fall, we possibly have NL early round games to ease him into it. Nothing has been confirmed in terms of schedule or format, nor have we dropped out of the top for of CONCACAF, but both seem in the realm of possibility. I would actually welcome the extra games because it forces us to play, making the lack of budget for friendly games less of a factor.

[Bigandy]

4 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I tend to agree with this. We need more camps desperately, but I am not sure how much saving on a coach buys us. It's like building 100k extra homes to help solve the housing crisis, sure it helps but it doesn't fundamentally fix the issue. 

To further this discussion, we need like 10 more camps a year if you include youth camps. lets say thats 8million we need to pay for these. Saving 500k is less than 10% of what we need for camps. 

Now lets say we hire a inexperienced coach (which henry is IMO) for cheap and we fail to qualify for a top tournament. Now we lose out on millions. 

Cheap coach 
Pros: We save a small amount of money
cons: We risk our performance and therefore top performance bonus payments

Experienced coach
Pros: good performance is more likely and therefore better performance bonus payments. 
Cons: we spend a bit more. 


I know which option I pick from both a performance and financial perspective.
 

[Kadenge]

19 minutes ago, Shway said:

Also a question based on my previous post.

As a fan would you want a notorious coach at the expense of crippling the budget for other camps, programs, friendlies etc

or would you prefer an unproven coach at a half the cost and more friendlies than usual.

those are 2 extreme options. I don't think we have to choose either. 

[Bigandy]

7 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

For me it's not even about using younger/depth players to develop them, but more the reality of who we have at our disposal. Davies is world class, but some games he's just spinning his tired in the mud, doing a lot of nothing. Larin and David can and have faded in games- I would hope that if that happens again at the next world cup that we have a manager with the trust in his backup MLS or Championship level striker to come in and make something happen. We need to get tangible production off the bench whether it's Theo Bair or Liam Millar or Shaffelburg or Mathieu Choniere, so on. We didn't always agree with Herdman's tactics, but he gave everyone who deserved it a shot and we were much better off for it.

That's not even to mention situations with guys like Bombito, or to a lesser extent Kone who Herdman sees something beyond the stat sheet and game footage and gives them a shot to crack the squad. I think Kone is a big enough talent to get identified by an eye like Henry's, but we're going to always have these guys who have high potential to become just really solid MLS players (Bombito, Shaff, so on), and if our coach doesn't rate that potential, he's going to go into games thinking we have 5 guys who can actually play ball and the rest are all just glorified waterboys.

The way that Henry's France U-21 striker Mathys Tel is being deployed at Bayern is how most of our bench guys will be used. Give the guy a chance and he'll make good stuff happen, but Bayern has the best striker in the world, how dare they rest him when the team is down 2-0 to Leverkeusen late and he hasn't done much all game! Not that Tel's club situation is Henry's fault or problem, but the idea of leaving talent on the bench because the starter is your best player is a challenge that Canada's coach will have to fight against.

I don't think a Bobby/Henry tandem would work though. Thierry Henry has so much more pedigree but Bobby has so much more coaching experience. You'd be asking a get it out the mud coach who's clawed from the depths of Canadian soccer to cede power and control to a coach who earned it on name only, and on the reverse, you're asking one of the greatest players of all time to respect and integrate the tactics of a coach who has never coached above the Canadian domestic level. Just don't think it's a good duo on face value.

As for "who else could it be"- we didn't consider Henry until the rumor dropped, so it could be anybody. I mean, who knows- next week it might be Joachim Low flirting with the job. That would be awesome.

Im not sure I fully agree. 

Ugbo, millar, crepeau, cornelius, nelson, corbeanu, shaf, piette and brym could all make a case that they deserve a bigger shot with the National team. 

I would say that herdman used the same main guys throughout WCQ. 

I would also say that we never dropped our top stars for an MLS guy to play. We never dropped both larin and david for cav when we needed a goal, or buchanan for shaf/nelson or even millar really. 

The truth is that we are a team of 5-10 guys that can actually play and the rest are glorified waterboys. Against concacaf the waterboys have value but at the WC level we cant just say that david cant get past van dijk so lets put on JRR or staq is losing the midfield to camavinga lets sub on choiniere. Sometimes the opposition is better and putting on inferior guys is not the solution. 

The jamaica game is the perfect example. We take off larin for JRR and staq for MAK and you could tell that the fresh legs were a drastic drop in quality. 

[Obinna]

24 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

For me it's not even about using younger/depth players to develop them, but more the reality of who we have at our disposal. Davies is world class, but some games he's just spinning his tired in the mud, doing a lot of nothing. Larin and David can and have faded in games- I would hope that if that happens again at the next world cup that we have a manager with the trust in his backup MLS or Championship level striker to come in and make something happen. We need to get tangible production off the bench whether it's Theo Bair or Liam Millar or Shaffelburg or Mathieu Choniere, so on. We didn't always agree with Herdman's tactics, but he gave everyone who deserved it a shot and we were much better off for it.

That's not even to mention situations with guys like Bombito, or to a lesser extent Kone who Herdman sees something beyond the stat sheet and game footage and gives them a shot to crack the squad. I think Kone is a big enough talent to get identified by an eye like Henry's, but we're going to always have these guys who have high potential to become just really solid MLS players (Bombito, Shaff, so on), and if our coach doesn't rate that potential, he's going to go into games thinking we have 5 guys who can actually play ball and the rest are all just glorified waterboys.

I get the logic here but at the same time I question how much these guys matter.

Now don't get me wrong, I want this team to have depth, and everyone is important blah blah blah, but I think our ceiling is only so high with some of these depth players if we are being realistic. It's not like the USA where you can basically interchange Balogun, Pepi and Sargent...or Musah, McKennie, De La Torre, Cardoso, or Adams. Not a big gap between the stars and the reserves. 

Buchanan to Liam Millar is one example of similar closeness between star and reserve, as we could expect Millar to provide some of what Tajon gives us, but aside from that it's hard to see our MLS guys like Schaffleburg coming in and being nearly affective as Davies, or Bair for David. 

[costarg]

26 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

To further this discussion, we need like 10 more camps a year if you include youth camps. lets say thats 8million we need to pay for these. Saving 500k is less than 10% of what we need for camps. 

Now lets say we hire a inexperienced coach (which henry is IMO) for cheap and we fail to qualify for a top tournament. Now we lose out on millions. 

Cheap coach 
Pros: We save a small amount of money
cons: We risk our performance and therefore top performance bonus payments

Experienced coach
Pros: good performance is more likely and therefore better performance bonus payments. 
Cons: we spend a bit more. 


I know which option I pick from both a performance and financial perspective.
 

100%.  
 

Problem with Henry is he is most likely an expensive and inexperienced coach. Worst of both worlds and not a good solution to our problem.

[El Hombre]

46 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

What can we buy with the 500k we saved?  Half of one camp poutine? 

 

16 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

To further this discussion, we need like 10 more camps a year if you include youth camps. lets say thats 8million we need to pay for these.

So are you saying that Camp Poutine costs $1M and youth camps cost between $600K and $800K?  Those numbers seem really high.  They are expensive but the numbers you are throwing out are about 3 or 4 times what I was expecting.

You also mention that we need 10 camps a year when right now we have 0.  I would take an "inexperienced" coach if it guaranteed two camps a year (which would fall in that $500K range by my reckoning).

Finally, your list of pros and cons is incomplete.  For my money, I want a head coach that has a deep understanding (or at least an appreciation of) the Canadian soccer landscape and our region.  For all of Henry's experience, I would be he has no idea how to prepare for an away date at San Pedro Sula.

For my money, a candidate like Smyrniotis who understands Canadian soccer, who comes with a lower price tag, who is hungry to succeed, and who has shown to have a decent footballing mind is an ideal candidate for us, particularly over someone who has ridden name recognition into some pretty sweet situations and done nothing with them.  And if we can guarantee some camps out of that to boot?  Even better.

[InglewoodJack]

14 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

Im not sure I fully agree. 

Ugbo, millar, crepeau, cornelius, nelson, corbeanu, shaf, piette and brym could all make a case that they deserve a bigger shot with the National team. 

I would say that herdman used the same main guys throughout WCQ. 

I would also say that we never dropped our top stars for an MLS guy to play. We never dropped both larin and david for cav when we needed a goal, or buchanan for shaf/nelson or even millar really. 

The truth is that we are a team of 5-10 guys that can actually play and the rest are glorified waterboys. Against concacaf the waterboys have value but at the WC level we cant just say that david cant get past van dijk so lets put on JRR or staq is losing the midfield to camavinga lets sub on choiniere. Sometimes the opposition is better and putting on inferior guys is not the solution. 

The jamaica game is the perfect example. We take off larin for JRR and staq for MAK and you could tell that the fresh legs were a drastic drop in quality. 

To the bolded, this is exactly the point though. You need 14-16 guys on the pitch to win a game. Some of those guys are going to have to be players playing at a relatively low level, and some of those water boys are gonna have to actually contribute to us winning for us to actually win games. No, if we're up against VVD and David isn't making it happen, we're probably SOL, but against Japan? Against the US? teams better than us but just below the top top teams? At some point you just gotta try *something* and I don't know if Henry would. Not even talking about 1000 IQ moves like playing Choniere at the world cup or thinking that JRR has that special something to score the biggest goals, but just generally trusting your depth guys- is that something Henry could do?

IIRC the Jamaica subs were even dumber. It was MAK for Kone, Hoilett and Osorio for Tajon and Larin which is insane, then Biello randomly realizes he has no more offense on the field so scrambles and puts Liam Millar and JRR in at like '85 and '89 or something. I look at the bench for that game and I don't even know what Henry does differently- who on that bench does he trust to go and make something happen? Maybe Osorio, he's known internationally. Maybe it's Millar because he has top level skills, or maybe Ali Ahmed impresses in training camp. But that Jamaica game under Henry to me would be the last 20 minutes of the game with Davies dribbling into 5 guys, getting disposessed, running after the ball, rinse and repeat.

 

[Ally McCoist]

 

[InglewoodJack]

22 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I get the logic here but at the same time I question how much these guys matter.

Now don't get me wrong, I want this team to have depth, and everyone is important blah blah blah, but I think our ceiling is only so high with some of these depth players if we are being realistic. It's not like the USA where you can basically interchange Balogun, Pepi and Sargent...or Musah, McKennie, De La Torre, Cardoso, or Adams. Not a big gap between the stars and the reserves. 

Buchanan to Liam Millar is one example of similar closeness between star and reserve, as we could expect Millar to provide some of what Tajon gives us, but aside from that it's hard to see our MLS guys like Schaffleburg coming in and being nearly affective as Davies, or Bair for David. 

The sad thing is that those bench guys do matter though. We can't just play 9 guys 90 minutes and make two subs a game and be sustainably successful. We need a coach who thinks he can get some value out of his depth or else we're cooked.

That said, not directing this at anyone in particular, but it's funny how much we've been talking about Theo Bair deserving a call up to the NT and how in from he is, but then when I suggest that we need a coach who will actually trust Bair to play him when necessary, it's like, wait a second, he's actually not that good and if David and Larin can't do it then we're done for. We've all seen our best players fade in games, and we know that we need a backup plan for when that happens. We need a coach who would be ready to execute that backup plan too.

[Obinna]

12 minutes ago, El Hombre said:

 

So are you saying that Camp Poutine costs $1M and youth camps cost between $600K and $800K?  Those numbers seem really high.  They are expensive but the numbers you are throwing out are about 3 or 4 times what I was expecting.

You also mention that we need 10 camps a year when right now we have 0.  I would take an "inexperienced" coach if it guaranteed two camps a year (which would fall in that $500K range by my reckoning).

Finally, your list of pros and cons is incomplete.  For my money, I want a head coach that has a deep understanding (or at least an appreciation of) the Canadian soccer landscape and our region.  For all of Henry's experience, I would be he has no idea how to prepare for an away date at San Pedro Sula.

For my money, a candidate like Smyrniotis who understands Canadian soccer, who comes with a lower price tag, who is hungry to succeed, and who has shown to have a decent footballing mind is an ideal candidate for us, particularly over someone who has ridden name recognition into some pretty sweet situations and done nothing with them.  And if we can guarantee some camps out of that to boot?  Even better.

I like the idea of a Smyrniotis hire and the way you lay it out makes him seem like the clear choice if our other option is Henry. At the same time, the idea of Henry coaching Canada is pretty attractive. Sure, he's yet to have a successful stint, but then again if he did he wouldn't be linked to the likes of Canada, he'd be managing in a top 5 league somewhere I think. The optimist in me wants to believe it could be one of those where it's the right fit and things click for both Canada and Henry. At the same time, there are some damn good reasons why Bobby could be the better choice, as you've stated. 

One thing which cannot be debated however is the name recognition and attention he'd bring to the program. Indeed, he's been living off his name and that can only go on for so long, but I think for the casual fan there'd be excitment, and this program can definitely benefit from some renewed interest and excitement. That should go into the PRO category if we are keeping score. 

[Obinna]

8 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

The sad thing is that those bench guys do matter though. We can't just play 9 guys 90 minutes and make two subs a game and be sustainably successful. We need a coach who thinks he can get some value out of his depth or else we're cooked.

That said, not directing this at anyone in particular, but it's funny how much we've been talking about Theo Bair deserving a call up to the NT and how in from he is, but then when I suggest that we need a coach who will actually trust Bair to play him when necessary, it's like, wait a second, he's actually not that good and if David and Larin can't do it then we're done for. We've all seen our best players fade in games, and we know that we need a backup plan for when that happens. We need a coach who would be ready to execute that backup plan too.

I agree with the bolded part for sure. Thierry likely comes in after Copa America, takes the reigns later in 2024 and then basically has a year and a half to prepare this team for the World Cup. That's a short term outlook and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.

In retrospect, it was great to see Herdman come in and grow with the team and complete a cycle, but when he was hired there was some general concern whether we were giving him too long a contract. So, while I agree it likely wouldn't be sustainable over multiple cycles, it could be a good fit for the remainder of this cycle, which is well underway. 

A short term contract could be in the best interest of both Henry and Canada. It gives him a small project to get back into coaching and potentially build his stock by taking one of the host nations a step further than they've been, be it advancement, a win, or hell even a draw. The bar for success is pretty low for Canada. And then on Canada's side, we are hosting so being able to point to Henry and build some buzz in that way around the team as the WC approaches could be a great thing and maybe help drive things forward, especially if the results are good.

Risky for sure, but sometimes there's no reward without risk. If it doesn't work out both parties go their seperate ways post-tournament. Not sure this is my preferred scenario yet, but just laying out the case for it. 

[Obinna]

24 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

We need a coach who thinks he can get some value out of his depth or else we're cooked.

What matters is that we win games. IF we win games by Davies or David bailing us out, then it is what it is. Wales seemed to lean on Gareth Bale and it was fine for them. Henry doesn't guarentee Davies or David reach a new level for Canada, but they are both entering their prime and Henry in theory could help draw that out of them. So could a number of coaches I suppose, but out of the candidates mentioned it's easy for me to imagine him commanding respect from these guys, at minimum. That foundation is important on a shorter timeline than what Herdman was given. 

Edited February 21 by Obinna

[Bigandy]

40 minutes ago, El Hombre said:

 

So are you saying that Camp Poutine costs $1M and youth camps cost between $600K and $800K?  Those numbers seem really high.  They are expensive but the numbers you are throwing out are about 3 or 4 times what I was expecting.

You also mention that we need 10 camps a year when right now we have 0.  I would take an "inexperienced" coach if it guaranteed two camps a year (which would fall in that $500K range by my reckoning).

Finally, your list of pros and cons is incomplete.  For my money, I want a head coach that has a deep understanding (or at least an appreciation of) the Canadian soccer landscape and our region.  For all of Henry's experience, I would be he has no idea how to prepare for an away date at San Pedro Sula.

For my money, a candidate like Smyrniotis who understands Canadian soccer, who comes with a lower price tag, who is hungry to succeed, and who has shown to have a decent footballing mind is an ideal candidate for us, particularly over someone who has ridden name recognition into some pretty sweet situations and done nothing with them.  And if we can guarantee some camps out of that to boot?  Even better.

I think that it was discussed during the heritage meetings that hosting a camp costs 1million. Then theres also the fee we pay other teams to come play us. For youth camps, I just threw up a number somewhere in between. Even if you call it 375k for the youth teams, then 8 youth camps and 2 sr camps is 5million. The savings of a coach is 500k or 10% of the 5million we need. 

Right now we have more than 0 camps. Our u20s are literally having one now. We will have another in march for T and T. etc. I certainly think its wishful thinking that getting a cheap coach saves enough money for one camp, let alone 2. 

My list of pros and cons is only related to the pay scale of a coach and what it likely mean. For example, getting a lower end pay scale coach can result in a coach with or without concacaf experience. It would be impossible to determine which category to put concacaf experience in using my metrics of pros and cons (unless we specifically name names). 

Now if we are talking about the pros and cons of what we want out of a coach, then I 100% agree with everything your saying about regional experience. 

About bobby specifically

Pros: He is likely to get 400k salary which is 300k less than herdman.
-canadian
-knows some of the players
-understands canadian landscape
-experience in concacaf
-has potential

cons: 300k doesnt afford us any additional camps. 
- zero experience with world class talent
-extremely limited experience in concacaf
-zero international experience
-zero evidence he can succeed at a higher level than CPL 

Bobby would be an incredible risk to gamble on. Im not entirely opposed but if we are talking about players, no one in the CPL is currently at CMNT level. CPL players are far from being starters and even further from becoming team leaders.

To hand the controls over to a man whos biggest accomplishment is coaching a team with players who are several rungs below our squad is a massive ask IMO. I think bobby needs to move up to at least an MLS level and prove himself there before I want to take on the risk. 

[Bigandy]

1 hour ago, InglewoodJack said:

To the bolded, this is exactly the point though. You need 14-16 guys on the pitch to win a game. Some of those guys are going to have to be players playing at a relatively low level, and some of those water boys are gonna have to actually contribute to us winning for us to actually win games. No, if we're up against VVD and David isn't making it happen, we're probably SOL, but against Japan? Against the US? teams better than us but just below the top top teams? At some point you just gotta try *something* and I don't know if Henry would. Not even talking about 1000 IQ moves like playing Choniere at the world cup or thinking that JRR has that special something to score the biggest goals, but just generally trusting your depth guys- is that something Henry could do?

IIRC the Jamaica subs were even dumber. It was MAK for Kone, Hoilett and Osorio for Tajon and Larin which is insane, then Biello randomly realizes he has no more offense on the field so scrambles and puts Liam Millar and JRR in at like '85 and '89 or something. I look at the bench for that game and I don't even know what Henry does differently- who on that bench does he trust to go and make something happen? Maybe Osorio, he's known internationally. Maybe it's Millar because he has top level skills, or maybe Ali Ahmed impresses in training camp. But that Jamaica game under Henry to me would be the last 20 minutes of the game with Davies dribbling into 5 guys, getting disposessed, running after the ball, rinse and repeat.

 

I see what youre saying. I think the better example over choinierre or JRR is - would Henry trust millar when its not quite working for buchanan? 

I am strongly against "try something". I like when a coach "makes a change". Taking buchanan off for millar with no change makes little difference imo and its hope and pray. Putting millar on to cut inside because we know the full back and cb leave a gap, is a proper sub. taking david off for larin because the CB's are weak aerially etc etc. The issue is we just dont have enough high quality options with varying skill sets to make many changes. 

I 100% see what youre saying vs jamaica and henry. My hope is that he would be smart enough to tell our guys to calm down and win back the midfield. As a former barca guy, its hard to see henry be content with davies just running the ball but I could for sure see it happening. 

 

[Bison44]

Ieeeee, if you dont think Bobby S has much of a resume for a coach, what do you think of Henry's???  I see Henry as a guy who parlayed his success into coaching gigs and he failed both times.  Sometimes the former players can step right in, some times they cant.  Has Henry showed any potential to be a good manager???  Any knowledge about running a program in CONCACAF, dealing with CDN issues etc???  This just seems like such a fan boy stretch to want him to come and take over our program before he has shown much aptitude.  

[Obinna]

9 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Ieeeee, if you dont think Bobby S has much of a resume for a coach, what do you think of Henry's???  I see Henry as a guy who parlayed his success into coaching gigs and he failed both times.  Sometimes the former players can step right in, some times they cant.  Has Henry showed any potential to be a good manager???  Any knowledge about running a program in CONCACAF, dealing with CDN issues etc???  This just seems like such a fan boy stretch to want him to come and take over our program before he has shown much aptitude.  

A lot of reasons for concern when it comes to Henry, no doubt. 

I was curious so I dug up the following:

Henry

As of 20 November 2023

Team	From	To	Record
			M	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Win %	Ref.
Monaco	13 October 2018	24 January 2019	20	4	5	11	15	36	−21	20.00	[224][225][226][227]
Montreal Impact	14 November 2019	25 February 2021	29	9	4	16	38	50	−12	31.03	[228]
France U21	21 August 2023	present	6	4	0	2	19	7	+12	66.67	[229]
Total			55	17	9	29	72	93	−21	30.91

 

Biello

As of 21 November 2023

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				M	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	Win %	Ref.
Montreal Impact		August 30, 2015[17]	October 23, 2017	94	37	35	22	147	146	+1	39.36	[10][13]
Canada		September 20, 2023[18]	present	3	1	2	0	5	8	−3	33.33
Total				97	38	37	22	152	154	−2	39.18

 

Bobby Smyrniotis

As of 31 December 2023

 

Coach	Nation	Tenure	Record
			G	W	D	L	Win %
Bobby Smyrniotis	Canada	October 1, 2018 – present	160	81	36	43	50.63

 

 

Good to be able to quantify how they stack up against each other in terms of managerial experience as we talk about it. 

The big thing which stands out is the winning percentage of Bobby relative to the other two and that's not even considering his Sigma experience, for what that's worth.

He's also the only one with no International Football experience.