2020 Olympic Games, August 2018, Featured, U.S. soccer, USMNT

This is the first in a two-part Series on where US Men’s Soccer is, ten months after Couva. This piece focuses on the Federation’s progress or in some instances, lack of progress, off the field.

Neil W. Blackmon

With the World Cup in the rearview, the US Men’s National Team can finally turn the page on the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and begin a new cycle when they congregate stateside next month.

The Americans will come out of the gate flying with two challenging friendlies, against Brazil in New Jersey September 7th and a September 11th tilt against archrival Mexico in Nashville.

How much US Soccer has already moved on from the sadness and shock of the failure finalized in Couva last autumn is a matter of perspective, and in truth, a matter of framing.

In many ways, it’s a two-sided tale of encouraging progress against stasis.

On the one hand, a new generation of American players have injected the program with a much-needed jolt of energy- and talent- that have given fans a dose of welcome optimism.

On the other hand, US Soccer has done little since the qualification failure to address a series of uncomfortable questions the federation must answer from a long-term standpoint.

Even as the US are encouraged by what’s happened on the field with young players since Couva, there are systemic questions not being answered off it.

These questions run the gamut, from what to do with the closed professional pyramid and how to navigate the legal minefield of myriad lawsuits presently in the courts to more systemic questions; about academy structure and development initiatives, pay-for-play, how to make the game more accessible in underserved communities, and whether, in the rush to create a technocratic, efficient structure that best facilitates economic growth, US Soccer forgot its mission to cultivate a philosophical approach to development and grow the game.

Carlos Cordeiro was elected the new federation President in the spring, following a heated, lengthy, often ugly election campaign that exposed just how fractured the US Soccer community was (and is) in the aftermath of the program’s largest failure in the modern era. During the campaign, Cordeiro played the part of the consummate pragmatist. He emphasized a willingness to listen and fashion organic coalitions as the federation moves forward, but it’s hard to know how serious that was given his role as Gulati’s number two for several years.

If Cordeiro’s regime is too similar to that of the technocratic Gulati, he’ll be tremendous for the game’s bottom line but potentially catastrophic in his continual deferral to top-down approaches to development that often snuff out the cultivation of soccer cultures that facilitate change.

That Cordeiro helped salvage a dying “United 2026” World Cup bid in his first months in office, stitching together political coalitions at a time of perpetual political gridlock, was wonderful, and an encouraging moment for a federation that badly needed a good news cycle. That kids will have the same chance I did as a southern kid growing up in college football country- to see the World Cup and the off-field culture of a World Cup in person and fall in love with a marvelous game- is invaluable and will forever be part of Cordeiro’s legacy.

There have also been warning signs.

That Cordeiro wants to diminish the power of the federation presidency sounds appealing in principle. Yet in removing certain powers and delegating even more to the US Soccer board and the newly-created “General Manager” position, as opposed to a deferral to local communities who know their unique soccer cultures best, Cordeiro strikes a blow that seems to portend poorly for the Cordeiro-as-change-agent crowd.

Still, the federation faces heady questions, and while some have shamed the federation and suggested, with a modicum of justice, that they’ve ducked the hard questions since last October, there’s certainly a fair counter-argument that the answers aren’t easy, and prudence demands a cautious approach that takes time to take inventory and investigate the best paths forward.

Early returns are inconclusive, if not altogether puzzling.

In June, the US hired a General Manager, Earnie Stewart, who will, presumably, be front and center in the American rebuild. Stewart officially took office as GM on August 1st.

On paper, Stewart has as accomplished a resume as any figure in US Soccer. He was an outstanding player, has a deep understanding of the US professional leagues where he has worked as an executive, and has extensive experience in both the youth and senior levels of Europe.

But without a genuine description of what his job is, it’s difficult to assess whether the hire is excellent or simply the appointment of an individual with an impressive soccer resume.

According to US Soccer, the new GM position encompasses the following duties:

1) Leading the search and hiring process for the Head Coach;

2) Creating the environment—both day-to-day and long-term—for the Head Coach and the Men’s National Team to succeed;

3) Ensuring that U.S. Soccer’s Style of Play, Team Tactical Principles, and Key Qualities are being implemented within the Men’s National Team;

4) Creating a player profile for each position on the field based on the Style of Play, Team Tactical Principles, and Key Qualities;

5) Working with the Head Coach to create positional depth charts based on the player profile, accounting for player’s current and potential ability to compete at the highest levels in the world;

6) Evaluating and monitoring players coming up through the Youth National Team programs and ensuring that the best talent is identified and cultivated; and,

7) Communicating and working with the Sport Development Departments to drive technical alignment and integration, including Coaching Education, Player Development, High Performance, Talent Identification and Youth National Teams.

WHOA. I’VE GOT QUESTIONS AND YOU SHOULD TOO.

Outside of #1 and #3, these are either wildly broad or incredibly vague and often both.

Further, there are all manner of potential conflicts of interest here. What happens when the GM’s duty of “evaluating and monitoring players coming up…” collides with the head coach’s? Who makes the final call? What about a similar situation, except with the technical director? Does the technical director control “style of play” duties or does the GM? What is the head coach’s role in that job? How much of Earnie Stewart’s role is administrative, which would seem to be less catered to his strengths, and how much is about soccer and on-field initiatives, play and development- his strengths? How much time should the GM devote to what appear to be youth-driven initiatives and duties (2, 6 and 7) as opposed to senior team duties (1-5)? When they overlap, how does cooperation work?

A second puzzling decision, redeemed somewhat through the benefit of hindsight was the retention of Dave Sarachan as interim coach.

The logic was simple, I suppose.

The United States Soccer Federation needed a coach that was already on the payroll to handle the team until a long-term answer at head-coach could be found, either be a hiring committee, Earnie Stewart, Carlos Cordeiro or, in truth, all of the above.

Instead of asking someone already on the payroll but not affiliated with the coaching staff that orchestrated the largest failure in US Soccer history last autumn, the US opted for Bruce Arena’s number two, Dave Sarachan.

John Hackworth was available. Jill Ellis was available. Tab Ramos was available. All on the payroll. All would have answered the bell, save perhaps Ellis, who was busy not losing any games, but talk about a missed opportunity!

Initially, the sense and perhaps the intent was Sarachan would just be around to navigate a November friendly in Portugal, and at most, a traditionally domestic-based January camp that rarely has any long-term player pool influence.

Instead, Sarachan’s been extended on multiple occasions, and will coach the side through at least the autumn friendlies.

Unless you’re LSU football, you don’t traditionally fire a head coach you’ve deemed a failure and hire his chief lieutenant, but here US Soccer is in August of 2018.

Sarachan is, in fairness, a consummate professional and he certainly fits the role of a low-risk interim hire who can guide the US through a difficult but ultimately relatively impact-free era serviceably.

He’s done that too, and more, leading the US to a respectable record of 2 wins, 3 draws and only one defeat in six matches in charge and more critically, giving senior team debuts to 18 American players, including 10 who are eligible to represent the United States at the 2020 Olympic Games.

Sarachan has admirably acknowledged his primary role is to have the temerity to play kids, and in doing it, he’s rightfully earned the respect of fans and players alike, including 18-year-old PSG starlet Timothy Weah, who has endorsed Sarachan for the full-time job, which, barring a miracle, he won’t (and shouldn’t) get.

Yet when the US tied eventual World Cup Champion France in Lyon in June in the final French World Cup tune-up, Weah’s suggestion, for a moment, didn’t seem ridiculous. More critically, Sarachan’s success, albeit in friendlies where the US had zero risk, points to a more fascinating debate, raised by Rob Usry at Stars and Stripes FC this week: perhaps there should be a long-term role for Sarachan with US Soccer, as coach of the U23 team, moving forward? After all, he has spent a year cultivating relationships with the core of the team he’d take to the Olympics. It would seem foolhardy for the US to start that process over now. Plus, if Weah wants to play for Sarachan, Tokyo seems like an ideal place for him to do that.

In the end, the encouraging results of the young Americans on-the-field has served as a pleasant distraction from the lingering and unanswered systemic questions off it.

As the US approach a series of cash-grab big-name friendlies this autumn, these questions won’t go away, and indeed, will be accompanied by other pressing ones, like why (outside of Jurgen Klinsmann’s buyout) it costs a family of four 600 dollars to see US Soccer play a friendly. Empty stands that price out families won’t do much to help a federation already losing an inclusion battle, and in dire need of goodwill after a seismic, generational failure.

On the field, however, these are just the types of games the US needs, challenges that build cohesion and test a young and talented team. As a result, like the perpetual dilemma of the soccer fan who enjoys the constantly improving quality and culture of MLS but loathes its insularity and questions its economic sustainability, we are left to dwell in the paradox, and that’s something that simply won’t change overnight.

It’s not what people want to hear, but it is probably a fair portrayal of where the US is off the field ten months after bottoming out in Trinidad.

At least, however, as a new cycle begins, there’s the light of tomorrow visible in the lingering darkness.

It’s always darkest before the dawn.

Neil W. Blackmon is Co-Founder of The Yanks Are Coming. Follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon. A member of the North American Soccer Reporters, he’s covered the game in the United States for a decade.