Great piece, John, addressing a lot of the issues that are bouncing around in my head with Juan's choice to go to Houston. For all of the obvious structural reasons it is hard to get a handle on the relative stature of MLS vs. USL, whether on the field or in the minds of coaches and players. I might have thought that a top spot with a USL championship team that you have essentially built yourself might be more attractive than an assistant spot at all but the highest level MLS squads, at least for a year or two, but this suggests there is more of a gap between those two jobs than I hoped there would be (as a Rising/USL fan). Will we ever know how much of a money gap there was between the two options Juan faced? How much of a factor would that have been, vs. professional development alone. Incidentally, I'm wishing Juan all the best going forward, class act all the way. Rising were going to lose him eventually, I just hoped we would have him around for one more year to follow up on a fun ride.
Damn, great piece, John, really thought-provoking. I wonder how common a sporting director-type role is in the USL? And how much latitude organizations currently give a coach in choosing personnel knowing if that coach leaves and takes some of "his guys" with him in a year or two, a team's style and philosophy might go out the door with him. There's a lot of player movement and 1-year contracts as it is, so maybe it's not as big an issue, but it's still fascinating to me. Anyway, rad stuff, as always! And good luck to these young, ambitious coaches climbing the ladder.
I think it's moving in the direction of more control and year-over-year continuity. This offseason in particular has been full of guaranteed multi-year deals that were a major exception in the past. Sporting Director-wise, I don't think it's especially pervasive yet - I can think of Detroit moving that way this winter, but it's a slow process leaguewide.
Great piece, John, addressing a lot of the issues that are bouncing around in my head with Juan's choice to go to Houston. For all of the obvious structural reasons it is hard to get a handle on the relative stature of MLS vs. USL, whether on the field or in the minds of coaches and players. I might have thought that a top spot with a USL championship team that you have essentially built yourself might be more attractive than an assistant spot at all but the highest level MLS squads, at least for a year or two, but this suggests there is more of a gap between those two jobs than I hoped there would be (as a Rising/USL fan). Will we ever know how much of a money gap there was between the two options Juan faced? How much of a factor would that have been, vs. professional development alone. Incidentally, I'm wishing Juan all the best going forward, class act all the way. Rising were going to lose him eventually, I just hoped we would have him around for one more year to follow up on a fun ride.
Damn, great piece, John, really thought-provoking. I wonder how common a sporting director-type role is in the USL? And how much latitude organizations currently give a coach in choosing personnel knowing if that coach leaves and takes some of "his guys" with him in a year or two, a team's style and philosophy might go out the door with him. There's a lot of player movement and 1-year contracts as it is, so maybe it's not as big an issue, but it's still fascinating to me. Anyway, rad stuff, as always! And good luck to these young, ambitious coaches climbing the ladder.
I think it's moving in the direction of more control and year-over-year continuity. This offseason in particular has been full of guaranteed multi-year deals that were a major exception in the past. Sporting Director-wise, I don't think it's especially pervasive yet - I can think of Detroit moving that way this winter, but it's a slow process leaguewide.