We are still in Round 1 of the MLS Cup Playoffs, folks! Best-of-3 formats in soccer can take some time. Kudos to RSL and Dallas for forcing Game 3s… I’m writing this before match time last night, so tell me if Atlanta or Nashville are also extending their playoffs.
NJ/NY Gotham FC’s Juan Carlos Amorós Named 2023 NWSL Coach of the Year (NWSL): The NWSL has reached the season-long awards part of their year, and Gotham’s head coach nabs Coach of the Year before he sets up his team against the Reign for the championship this weekend.
NWSL Announces Winners of 2023 Mastercard Best XI Awards (NWSL): Also announced recently was the 2023 Best XI. Sam Staab take a bow. Honorable mention to Trinity Rodman and Ashley Hatch.
Phil Neville brings “unfinished business” into Portland Timbers opportunity (MLS): In case you missed it, Phil Neville will not be the head coach of D.C. United.
The USWNT are hiring a serial winner in Emma Hayes – a coach with unfinished business in the U.S. (The Athletic): While this isn’t finalized yet, I think we can be certain that Emma Hayes will indeed be the next manager for the USWNT.
Lastly, I’ll just leave this tidbit here…
Get kicking in the comments!
The player who gained access was Matt Miazga: https://theathletic.com/5040843/2023/11/07/matt-miazga-referees-locker-room-mls/
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/38843179/mls-investigating-miazga-entering-refs-locker-room
What a dumb move on his part–just stupid.
MLS should really hammer him for this. It is inexcusable.
He’s already suspended for the semifinal because he picked up 3 yellows last night. 1 for arguing with the ref on a disallowed goal, the 2nd came after scoring his spot kick in the pk shootout, the 3rd came for clashing with Coronel (RBNY goalie).
3 yellows? That’s not even a thing.
I think hiring Emma Hayes is a savvy move. She’s not only a good coach but she realizes that the US Women face a lot more issues than just a different formation and better in-game adjustments. She’s written about the poor performance of the youth teams, the lack of creativity and ability to solve problems in-game, and the over-reliance on colleges for talent.
Glad we didn’t hire Neville. I hope that we don’t hire Armas. Now, let’s talk about who we might hire. Speculation was that DCU was narrowing in on a GM who was assisting (GM) at either Nashville or Orlando. I think that if that’s who we do hire, it increases the likelihood that we hire an assistant from their previous team (ala Albright and Noonan). I’m not saying that’s a lock, only that a new GM is likely to hire someone they feel is “simpatico” in terms of working relationship and vision. So if Ally McKay of Nashville gets hired, here are the assistants for Nashville: Steve Guppy (yep–that Guppy), Kosuke Kimora. As for Orlando, Oscar Pareja’s contract is up at the end of this season. I’d gladly take Pareja as a coach.
And that’s great news about Staab and also well deserved. For a team that played so much direct/long-ball soccer, Staab’s rate of successful passes is astounding.
If we are hiring Mackay from Nashville, they just got eliminated last night. We’d be free to make that move. I’m sure he’d be fine, but he’s third on my personal want list. Which of course means diddly.
Charlotte FC fired their head coach Christian Lattanzio despite making the playoffs for the first time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/2023/11/08/charlotte-fc-fires-christian-lattanzio/ba84b5b2-7e44-11ee-b5cc-66c30a3bbb91_story.html
Looks like the only person dumber than Miazga in MLS is Portland
He’s got a lot more competition than that honestly, especially with Kai Wagner thinking it’s a good time to use a racial slur.
I see what you’re saying, I was mentally excluding racial abuse from the “dumb” category due to its reprehensible nature, but then harassing refs off the field is a sort of unforgivable, I suppose.
Anyone hiring Phil Neville as head coach of an MLS club, that’s just plain dumb, though
Yeah what really gets me about that hire is that a lot of Portland’s issues under Savarese could be attributed to their lack of tactical sophistication…and they’ve just brought someone in who probably has even less of a clue. Even Colorado is sifting through better candidates.
Now the question is who is DCU sifting through for both GM and Head Coach?