Oh, I dunno, how about that PTFC is a dumpster fire of an organization right now, with an owner trying to sell half the club to get out from under a multi-year sexual harassment scandal involving a former coach? Or a roster that combines chronically injured older players with under-performing DPs? I just don't see how Gio made this pictu…
Oh, I dunno, how about that PTFC is a dumpster fire of an organization right now, with an owner trying to sell half the club to get out from under a multi-year sexual harassment scandal involving a former coach? Or a roster that combines chronically injured older players with under-performing DPs? I just don't see how Gio made this picture worse at all but I see a lot of ways in which having a class act made things better. And for the people out there who think 1) Marsch; 2) Klinsmann (????); or 3) an unnamed college coach waiting in the wings who is about to be named are going to make things better, as I said, get ready for a revolving door of coaches, few if any of whom will have Gio's personal abilities to hold things together. It's going to be crazy town.
"I just don't see how Gio made this picture worse at all"
It is literally a coach's job to make the disparate parts of a roster, whatever that roster looks like, work together to play to the best of their abilities. Gio, over the last 2+ seasons, couldn't do that.
It can definitely be argued that the pieces he had to work with aren't the best in the game, but that's not what cost Gio his job - the problem is that Gio couldn't make a cohesive unit out of what he had. Which, again, was his job.
"few if any of whom will have Gio's personal abilities to hold things together"
Ask Santiago Moreno, Dario Zuparic, or Aljaz Ivacic how well Gio was able to "hold things together". Something tells me you won't get the answer you think you will.
I also find it quite interesting, this American pro sports understanding, that the GM is playing fantasy sports with the owner's money and just going out and buying a bunch of maybe cohesive players, maybe not. That the coach's only role is to somehow take all of those pieces and make a successful team out of them.
While there is a kernel of truth tho this (perhaps even stronger in bygone eras) in MLB and the NBA, modern teams intimately involve coaching in decisions over who to bring in and who to trade. Every single player on this roster right now, except Diego Chara and Asprilla were new in the Gio era. I can promise you that if Chara and Asprilla were felt to the problem, Gio would have talked GW or NG into moving them out over the last 6 years.
By 2019/20 this was the team Gio wanted, otherwise players would not have been brought in or re-signed.
If the players brought in and re-signed under your tenure in don't have chemistry or are creating off field problems -- that is fully on you, coach. If you can solve that - great, good job. If you can't, well you are not going to keep the job for very long, deservedly so.
Yeah, for sure the coach has input, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise, that was poor phrasing on my part. The GM ultimately says yay or nay, but the coach has varying degrees of input; soccer also arguably has far more managerial input to roster decisions than most sports (tangentially: baseball managers have virtually no input these days, it's almost all the GM, and that also includes picking game-day rosters).
But whoever brings in the players, it's on the coach to make those players work as a unit. Even when there's injuries, international call-ups, or suspensions, the manager's literal job is to make a team a team. That's not his only role, but it is a very important one. Gio couldn't do that.
We'll see, I suppose, but I don't see anyway this roster could have been held together given 1) constant injuries; 2) pieces that don't work; and 3) lots and lots of off the field drama. The rumor throughout Gio's time (and before him Porter's time) is that the FO calls the personnel shots, and expects the coaches to clean it up. The reason Gio is walking rather than MP or NG is that, well, he's the one who could be fired. I think Gio has shown a good record of taking a mediocre hand and getting the best out of it, up until the last year, which has been a shit show for all of the reasons I mentioned. The more I think about it, though, the more it seems to me that Gio has gotten the better end of this bargain. Meanwhile, we're going to get either a moonshine selling BS'er or an MLS 1.0 retread who will talk about playing a 4-3-3 as if saying on cue that you're going to play "attractive, attacking soccer" can do anything to make that actually happen IRL.
Oh, I dunno, how about that PTFC is a dumpster fire of an organization right now, with an owner trying to sell half the club to get out from under a multi-year sexual harassment scandal involving a former coach? Or a roster that combines chronically injured older players with under-performing DPs? I just don't see how Gio made this picture worse at all but I see a lot of ways in which having a class act made things better. And for the people out there who think 1) Marsch; 2) Klinsmann (????); or 3) an unnamed college coach waiting in the wings who is about to be named are going to make things better, as I said, get ready for a revolving door of coaches, few if any of whom will have Gio's personal abilities to hold things together. It's going to be crazy town.
This was Gio's roster
*points at name*
"I just don't see how Gio made this picture worse at all"
It is literally a coach's job to make the disparate parts of a roster, whatever that roster looks like, work together to play to the best of their abilities. Gio, over the last 2+ seasons, couldn't do that.
It can definitely be argued that the pieces he had to work with aren't the best in the game, but that's not what cost Gio his job - the problem is that Gio couldn't make a cohesive unit out of what he had. Which, again, was his job.
"few if any of whom will have Gio's personal abilities to hold things together"
Ask Santiago Moreno, Dario Zuparic, or Aljaz Ivacic how well Gio was able to "hold things together". Something tells me you won't get the answer you think you will.
I also find it quite interesting, this American pro sports understanding, that the GM is playing fantasy sports with the owner's money and just going out and buying a bunch of maybe cohesive players, maybe not. That the coach's only role is to somehow take all of those pieces and make a successful team out of them.
While there is a kernel of truth tho this (perhaps even stronger in bygone eras) in MLB and the NBA, modern teams intimately involve coaching in decisions over who to bring in and who to trade. Every single player on this roster right now, except Diego Chara and Asprilla were new in the Gio era. I can promise you that if Chara and Asprilla were felt to the problem, Gio would have talked GW or NG into moving them out over the last 6 years.
By 2019/20 this was the team Gio wanted, otherwise players would not have been brought in or re-signed.
If the players brought in and re-signed under your tenure in don't have chemistry or are creating off field problems -- that is fully on you, coach. If you can solve that - great, good job. If you can't, well you are not going to keep the job for very long, deservedly so.
Yeah, for sure the coach has input, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise, that was poor phrasing on my part. The GM ultimately says yay or nay, but the coach has varying degrees of input; soccer also arguably has far more managerial input to roster decisions than most sports (tangentially: baseball managers have virtually no input these days, it's almost all the GM, and that also includes picking game-day rosters).
But whoever brings in the players, it's on the coach to make those players work as a unit. Even when there's injuries, international call-ups, or suspensions, the manager's literal job is to make a team a team. That's not his only role, but it is a very important one. Gio couldn't do that.
We'll see, I suppose, but I don't see anyway this roster could have been held together given 1) constant injuries; 2) pieces that don't work; and 3) lots and lots of off the field drama. The rumor throughout Gio's time (and before him Porter's time) is that the FO calls the personnel shots, and expects the coaches to clean it up. The reason Gio is walking rather than MP or NG is that, well, he's the one who could be fired. I think Gio has shown a good record of taking a mediocre hand and getting the best out of it, up until the last year, which has been a shit show for all of the reasons I mentioned. The more I think about it, though, the more it seems to me that Gio has gotten the better end of this bargain. Meanwhile, we're going to get either a moonshine selling BS'er or an MLS 1.0 retread who will talk about playing a 4-3-3 as if saying on cue that you're going to play "attractive, attacking soccer" can do anything to make that actually happen IRL.
Gio's only good games were when Blanco was putting the team on his shoulders lol