Nick Cushing Named Interim Head Coach (July '22) / Head Coach (November '22)
- Thread starter Kjbert
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Jurgen Klopp will be available in June. Feel like it's the obvious move, yanno?
if we're doin that.. so will xavi. he likes playing the kids and we got tons of them!
Xavi or someone similar would be great. I think we got an advantage in recruiting players when Viera was here. A number of the better players we signed during Vieira's time mentioned that they wanted to come play for us because PV was here. It's probably not a massive factor but every little bit helps in a league structured around parity like MLS.
If only there were a former NYCFC player who is looking for a coaching job...
If only there were a former NYCFC player who is looking for a coaching job...
I wonder what his feelings towards the fanbase are and if that would impact his willingness to consider it. If I recall correctly he always seemed annoyed about the animosity he got from the fanbase for how things went down. To me it always came off like he didn't understand why anyone was up upset and seemed annoyed that he wasn't received with adoration.
He never understood it. I think his view was that he didn't drive any of the decisions and he just did what his employer(s) asked him to do so how could anyone blame him? He was very accommodating.
He seems utterly bewildered as to why anyone would hold it against him that he, NYCFC and Man City misled the public from the beginning about who he signed with. I think athletes and coaches are so used to being forgiven for lying about their future plans (PV: "I'm not interviewing for a new job midseason") that they didn't think fans would care that in this case they straight up lied about what already happened on an ongoing basis for months.
If only there were a former NYCFC player who is looking for a coaching job...
You know ... it's not the craziest idea I've ever heard.
But everyone's right that I would be surprised if he wanted to come back here.
I always got the sense that he felt unappreciated. I thought he played well for us when healthy, and I am not holding a grudge (against anyone) for what happened in 2015. Lots of water under the bridge.
He interviewed for the Charlotte job, so he'd certainly return to the league. I'd be fine with having him.
He interviewed for the Charlotte job, so he'd certainly return to the league. I'd be fine with having him.
Yes. And then when he finally got here, he was oft hurt yet almost daily posted touristy pictures of him and his family taking in New York. Other players do that, but there was no self awareness or sensitivity by him under the circumstances. It was so bad I think the club felt the need to create that recovery video. And don’t get me started on the infamous incident with one our favorite posters! I don’t think his hiring would go over well here. Nor do I think he would do a good job.
I was a big fan of his as a player, and despite it all it was amazing to see him play for us in person, but to be honest he's not had an incredibly good record as a head coach in England.
I think this brief clip might be very telling. While maybe Nick is just speaking self-interestedly, I think he's talking the company line. We have a very young team. His phrase is it's going to take a lot of hard work to become a mature winning team. What I hear is it is going to take time. I think the club wants Nick to teach and develop these players more than win immediately. I don't think the patience for losing is infinite, but it's likely the club will accept not-so-great results for a while longer than fans want.
I also know the consensus is Nick hasn't developed any younger players in 1.5 years. But I still interpret the clip this way.
The team may accept being 6th-8th in the conference, but they won't accept being out of the playoffs. If we're 1-5-0 coming into that homestand and we don't pick up wins, he's in trouble.
Not-so-great results is one thing, but I don't think they're going to accept awful results. This team is better than 1-3-0, and the results are going to need to start coming.
Exactly what I was afraid of:
“It reinforces the process. And that is the most important part, when you’re on a journey, you take the knocks, you have to go through the process. Where are we in the process? I think we're further than people think," -Nick Cushing
A lot could be said about “the process”.
Even knowing that the NBA’s Sixers “process” is not the same as NYC FC’s process, I believe there is a similar mindset.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee of a championship because you punt being truly competitive for a period of time and in the process, you piss off fans and risk demoralization among players.
I hope Nick is correct cause for f•#$ sake I have season tickets… but I think the distance this team has to go to being a top team in the league is much greater than he thinks.
“It reinforces the process. And that is the most important part, when you’re on a journey, you take the knocks, you have to go through the process. Where are we in the process? I think we're further than people think," -Nick Cushing
A lot could be said about “the process”.
Even knowing that the NBA’s Sixers “process” is not the same as NYC FC’s process, I believe there is a similar mindset.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee of a championship because you punt being truly competitive for a period of time and in the process, you piss off fans and risk demoralization among players.
I hope Nick is correct cause for f•#$ sake I have season tickets… but I think the distance this team has to go to being a top team in the league is much greater than he thinks.
No doubt. But I think yesterday put us back on track, or at least almost. (Squandering those three points against Portland was, shall we say, suboptimal.)
Anyway, I hit this on the pregame subreddit yesterday (yes, that was me LOL), but to summarize: I think the plan going in was to end April at 3W-3D-4L and 12 points, then repeat what we did down the stretch last season and average about 1.8 PPG the rest of the way.
That would put us at 55 points, right where Philadelphia and the Revs were last year: somewhere around fourth or fifth in the East. Project out from there, and we're challenging for the MLS Cup in 2025 and 2026 and (hopefully) going into our new stadium in 2027 with at least one more star above the crest.
If we do a little worse than 12 points through the first 10 games, that's alright. But it can only be a little worse; say, 10 points. If we fall short of that and then the team stumbles through the rest of the first half, look out.
I think this is spot on. From the recent discussions on the forums, I think we have a wide spectrum of opinion as to what kind of project this is and where CFGs priorities lie but I think everyone agrees it is a longer-term project based on how they built the roster. I think your comment is insightful and I agree we likely overestimated how hot Nick's seat is even after the poor start. No rational organization would set an intention for a long project timeline without a willingness to tolerate some struggle at the start.
I don't think you are wrong that the mindset is similar to an NBA process-type rebuild but I honestly never understood the comparison. Draft picks in the NBA are by far the most powerful roster-building mechanism. Being bad in the NBA provides a team with the rewards of high draft picks so it provides tremendous value. There is no value provided by being bad in the MLS, so why is a multi-year rebuild is even necessary? The last two MLS cup champions missed the playoffs the year before their cup win, you can 100% rebuild on the fly in the MLS.
I think people are accepting this "process" by NYCFC right now because they are used to it being a path to success in other sports and even soccer leagues but there is no precedent for this in MLS. The way Lee is building the roster looks like nothing what has led the way to success for MLS teams in the past. I will happily be wrong if it turns out Lee and CFG are the Billy Beane of the MLS and we end up with a crazy run of success but right now it feels like many of these players are being selected with the goal of NYCFC success being at best a secondary consideration.
That the NBA at least gives you something for being bad is the very significant difference (a Michael Jordan is not going to come out of the MLS super draft)and why I guess some people think it made sense for Philadelphia to go through their process. I am not a fan of that process.
I am also not fan of this process which I think reaches back as far as 2022.
I could be wrong, but I think this process accepts being, at the very least, not a championship caliber squad for the time being while thinking that it may hit a sweet spot by 2026. It’s why Nick is here but someone like Wilfred Nancy is not.
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I once thought CFG was positioning us as a pipeline myself. But I'm now convinced I was wrong about that. I'm certain we're being constructed as a team in and of itself, to compete in our league, win championships in our league and snag silverware in whatever tournaments we're eligible to play in.
I believe the timeline is to comfortably make the playoffs this year and make a serious run. We're likely too green to realistically hope for another Cup, but hey, you never know. A couple lucky bounces and we could shock some people.
We're definitely looking at contending for a Cup in 2025, and I'm sure the model is intended to be able to repeat success each year after that, even as there's turnover on the roster.
I have a lot of reasons for thinking along these lines, but one of the biggest is Ferran Soriano's background. I don't know the man at all, of course, but I do know he got his MBA -- well, one of them -- at RPI, which is local to me. In fact, I almost went into the same program as he did at the same time he was there in the late 1980s.
Engineering is baked into the DNA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. When I look at what we're doing, it looks like an engineering program.
Think of us as the SpaceX Starship. In Charlotte, we were like the first test launch: it destroyed the launch pad and shot concrete all over the place, wobbled and nearly fell over, then righted itself for a minute before blowing itself into smithereens.
Against St. Louis, we were like the second launch -- flew a little straighter, didn't wobble, looked pretty good for a minute. Then blew up into smithereens.
Portland was the third launch. We got off the ground, flew really well, actually made it to space but then the booster failed at the last moment before crashing into the Gulf and the Starship itself broke up in flight before its scheduled splashdown in the Indian Ocean and smashed into smithereens.
Oops.
And that's all I got, because there have only been three test launches.
But you get the point.
There are teams in this league who try to compete every year, and then there’s teams that develop and sell talent. Obviously you have some grey area teams in the middle but those are the two main categories when you look around the league. Dallas, San Jose, Philly, RSL, develop and sell and sometimes (as a more secondary priority) find success within the league as well. Most of the development and prospects comes through the academy. To me it looks more like we have that system except our academy is a secondary source of prospects, compared to our international player prospects brought to you by the CFG scouting network. But it’s basically a more risky version of the development and sell model. Pay more for the potential players, sell them for potentially more to Europe or UAE.
That’s a long winded way of saying we need a development coach to develop this high risk, high reward talent. Can we steal Luchi Gonzalez away from the Quakes? Please?
That’s a long winded way of saying we need a development coach to develop this high risk, high reward talent. Can we steal Luchi Gonzalez away from the Quakes? Please?
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