I guess my thought on his actual soccer c.v. is…why?
Why bother with this guy? What in his past suggests he’s an anything but mediocre, or a good bet to improve on the last two years of Gio? And if he’s not…why bother?
I guess my thought on his actual soccer c.v. is…why?
Why bother with this guy? What in his past suggests he’s an anything but mediocre, or a good bet to improve on the last two years of Gio? And if he’s not…why bother?
This is the entire root of it for me. I know win percentage isn't everything, but in the last two years, Gio's win percentage was 32% each year. Neville's MLS WP is 38%. If he coaches to that level again, that's a marginal improvement at best - 13 wins on a season, v. 11 at 32%.
Now, would two more wins have been helpful last season? Sure. All else being unchanged that means the Timbers would have finished sixth instead of ninth. But this winter should be about more than marginal improvements; this off season was a unique opportunity to reshape who the Timbers are and how they operate, and instead of taking a chance on someone we may not be as familiar with, the way they took a chance on Gio (and despite how that ended, he did well for the first 3-4 years), they went for Phil Neville, the dictionary definition of "meh".
And that's just his soccering! I'm not even getting into his personality/past statements, which are...problematic for a team theoretically trying to change its image.
All in all, this is just...unambitious. And I want the Timbers to be ambitious.
I guess my thought on his actual soccer c.v. is…why?
Why bother with this guy? What in his past suggests he’s an anything but mediocre, or a good bet to improve on the last two years of Gio? And if he’s not…why bother?
This is the entire root of it for me. I know win percentage isn't everything, but in the last two years, Gio's win percentage was 32% each year. Neville's MLS WP is 38%. If he coaches to that level again, that's a marginal improvement at best - 13 wins on a season, v. 11 at 32%.
Now, would two more wins have been helpful last season? Sure. All else being unchanged that means the Timbers would have finished sixth instead of ninth. But this winter should be about more than marginal improvements; this off season was a unique opportunity to reshape who the Timbers are and how they operate, and instead of taking a chance on someone we may not be as familiar with, the way they took a chance on Gio (and despite how that ended, he did well for the first 3-4 years), they went for Phil Neville, the dictionary definition of "meh".
And that's just his soccering! I'm not even getting into his personality/past statements, which are...problematic for a team theoretically trying to change its image.
All in all, this is just...unambitious. And I want the Timbers to be ambitious.