Reading through the quotes from the presser, and this one from Rob stood out: ""I told the players that I wouldn't be here without them. They are my family. They have responded at every turn. I was very grateful for the response and it is a vindication for everybody at the club." -Gale"
I love that the players like him, and vice versa, bu…
Reading through the quotes from the presser, and this one from Rob stood out: ""I told the players that I wouldn't be here without them. They are my family. They have responded at every turn. I was very grateful for the response and it is a vindication for everybody at the club." -Gale"
I love that the players like him, and vice versa, but I also have concern with a coach considering his players family. Am I wrong here? I am literally one of the most sentimental mushy warm fuzzy people out there, and I absolutely respect that quality in other humans, but I do have concerns that it could leak into job duties if you're thinking of players like this. A whole lot of change has to be made with this roster, and sentimentality could be a killer when it comes to making hard decisions about players you're attached to. I love that he has that trust, but at the other end, I also hope that he can reel that back and be professional when hard decisions have to be made. Obv coaches aren't the ones constructing the roster (though I'd have the same reservations about KK's sentimentality affecting roster build), but he is creating lineups and the like, and communicating with KK about performance.
I have a similar concern (and I'm one of the _least_ "warm and fuzzy" people you'll ever meet...seriously). While given this sport's/league's/team's history, having a coach the players can completely _trust_ is critical, having one they _like_ isn't. Having one they think of as an actual friend is probably more of a negative than a positive. It would unquestionably be a negative below the pro level, but even for pros, there's a very necessary hierarchy of authority at work on a sports team.
But here's the thing: there's a lot of talk about how we should be "looking for a world class coach." Okay, that sounds great...but how many legitimately WORLD CLASS coaches are there in the women's game? Of those, how many are even _thinking_ of being on the market? I might argue that while it would certainly be possible to find someone on the market who could reasonably be predicted to be better than Gale, would they be truly "world class" better? The list of people with that kind of resumé is short, the number of those actually considering a new position is a small fraction of that number...and a lot of them would be ruled out for a number of reasons: they focus on the wrong sort of play for our roster and/or fanbase, are a bad fit with team culture, language barriers, and so forth.
I very much suspect that the "global search" wasn't turning up any obvious candidates. I agree with the sentiment that that might not be a reason to confirm Gale _now_ instead of waiting until the end of the season, but I don't think I agree with the FO critics who seem to be implying no such search was made. They just didn't find the right Canadian... (jk on that last bit!)
Nah, that’s just who he is and how he talks. I don’t think we should worry about the one truly positive attribute we *know for sure* he has. There’s nothing wrong with being a player’s coach as long as you get your message across and the players respond to it. His job also depends on making good decisions.
Yeah I guess I'm just sad and stressed lol. We gotta shed so many players and I don't wanna see little movement because they lack a tiny bit of competitive ruthlessness. Gotta be a functioning business also. Just hard when both KK and Rob seem to lean into that sentimentality a lot, and the vision is still murky....
Reading through the quotes from the presser, and this one from Rob stood out: ""I told the players that I wouldn't be here without them. They are my family. They have responded at every turn. I was very grateful for the response and it is a vindication for everybody at the club." -Gale"
I love that the players like him, and vice versa, but I also have concern with a coach considering his players family. Am I wrong here? I am literally one of the most sentimental mushy warm fuzzy people out there, and I absolutely respect that quality in other humans, but I do have concerns that it could leak into job duties if you're thinking of players like this. A whole lot of change has to be made with this roster, and sentimentality could be a killer when it comes to making hard decisions about players you're attached to. I love that he has that trust, but at the other end, I also hope that he can reel that back and be professional when hard decisions have to be made. Obv coaches aren't the ones constructing the roster (though I'd have the same reservations about KK's sentimentality affecting roster build), but he is creating lineups and the like, and communicating with KK about performance.
I have a similar concern (and I'm one of the _least_ "warm and fuzzy" people you'll ever meet...seriously). While given this sport's/league's/team's history, having a coach the players can completely _trust_ is critical, having one they _like_ isn't. Having one they think of as an actual friend is probably more of a negative than a positive. It would unquestionably be a negative below the pro level, but even for pros, there's a very necessary hierarchy of authority at work on a sports team.
But here's the thing: there's a lot of talk about how we should be "looking for a world class coach." Okay, that sounds great...but how many legitimately WORLD CLASS coaches are there in the women's game? Of those, how many are even _thinking_ of being on the market? I might argue that while it would certainly be possible to find someone on the market who could reasonably be predicted to be better than Gale, would they be truly "world class" better? The list of people with that kind of resumé is short, the number of those actually considering a new position is a small fraction of that number...and a lot of them would be ruled out for a number of reasons: they focus on the wrong sort of play for our roster and/or fanbase, are a bad fit with team culture, language barriers, and so forth.
I very much suspect that the "global search" wasn't turning up any obvious candidates. I agree with the sentiment that that might not be a reason to confirm Gale _now_ instead of waiting until the end of the season, but I don't think I agree with the FO critics who seem to be implying no such search was made. They just didn't find the right Canadian... (jk on that last bit!)
Nah, that’s just who he is and how he talks. I don’t think we should worry about the one truly positive attribute we *know for sure* he has. There’s nothing wrong with being a player’s coach as long as you get your message across and the players respond to it. His job also depends on making good decisions.
Yeah I guess I'm just sad and stressed lol. We gotta shed so many players and I don't wanna see little movement because they lack a tiny bit of competitive ruthlessness. Gotta be a functioning business also. Just hard when both KK and Rob seem to lean into that sentimentality a lot, and the vision is still murky....
I feel ya! I’m not feeling great about things, but a few good signings would do a world of good lol
Def still holding out for a Lauren James and Aitana Bonmati to the Thorns announcement lol...
I think we have more chance of getting a Bronny James announcement.
At positions of need: Lucy Bronze and Aoba Fujino. Make it happen! ;)
Also, here's the thread I mentioned. KK's responses are always just ???? to me. LOL about the GK situation:
https://twitter.com/SportsGuyJeremy/status/1814400484892950762
"We did a global search (Google), went across all continents (Canada & England), hired a 3rd party company (Monster.com)."
Joking obviously. ..
Not so obvious, though, that they did more than this.