Patrick Vieira Appointed As NYCFC Coach

[JayH]

Assuming Ian Joy is correct, JK began to lose the locker room (or at least his captain) as early as when he surprisingly yanked DV in the 60th(ish) minute. That game would have been the May 10 game against the Red Bulls. Yes, MAY, which likely means almost an entire season of dissension and discord, which I suspect only got worse. There's no recovering from that. Nothing else matters, it was a fait accompli for a while.

 

[Mikeylito]

Care to put your money where your mouth is? $100 says NYCFC still exists and is in fact a top MLS club in 5 years. Put up or shut up.

Bet. Who holds the money?

 

[JayH]

Bet, Who holds the money?

I'm happy to hold it

 

[dannd23]

Bet. Who holds the money?

Can I get in on this bet also? I put my entire bank account on the line.

kinda kidding, but only way NYCFC doesn't exist in 5 years is if something terrible happens to MLS. NYCFC support is far and away greater than Chivas's ever was.

 

[Mikeylito]

Fan support is not how I gauge Top 5.
Show me trophies.
If the trophies are there, fan support will be there.

 

[MikeDatTiger]

I understand your point here, but I wanna address one particular item you said here and others have elsewhere.

"you can't blow up the roster midseason"

What, exactly, was "blown up" midseason? Do you mean where we brought on additional players that pushed the likes of Brovsky, Wingert (some of the time), Kwame, Ballouchy, and Alvarez out of the lineup?

I don't understand at all how that can possibly be a bad thing.

Getting in better players is a good thing. I have no problem bringing in better players (although I'm not sure that's what actually happened; we'll see). The problem is when that much of the starting lineup is turned over, the precious little chemistry which had been built up over the first few months was instantly gone. If you look at the results map, you can even see it: Kreis had managed to finally get a consistent roster and overcome injuries, including a notable one to Villa, to put together 5 wins, 2 losses (RBNY and Revs), a draw. That last win is when Pirlo comes in, and he worked with Poku to beat Orlando City 5-3. After that however, once Lampard and other reinforcements start coming in (and opponents get to look at MLS Pirlo on tape) NYCFC wins only 1 in 7, with 5 of them losses. NYCFC then puts together a solid 3 game winning streak with a win at Vancouver the best before they knocked out of the playoffs chasing a win in DC that really should have been a draw (which would have been a good result early in the season). After that, Kreis goes experimental, and NYC doesn't win again.

The main issues with an expansion team are depth and chemistry. NYCFC got hit with some big injuries in the early part of the year and lacked the chemistry and depth to overcome it. When NYCFC started to have something cooking, Kreis was forced by the DP contracts to throw that out of the window and had to start back at square one. There were plenty of signs of improvements despite the horrible roster given to Kreis by Reyna & CFG. I think Kreis could have gotten NYCFC to the playoffs with a full offseason with his DPs. To not give him that chance based on roster turnover which he can't reasonably be blamed for is insane.

 

[dannd23]

Fan support is not how I gauge Top 5.
Show me trophies.
If the trophies are there, fan support will be there.

Gotcha, that is fair. Thought I read you say it probably won't exist in 5 years.

 

[Gene]

Vieira was supposed to be in town today. Anyone hear if there was a press conference or not?

 

[Mikeylito]

Go back and read again.
I said NYCFC was repeating the mistakes of Chivas USA,
Others have inferred what I meant by that and they're free to do so.
They are not free to put words into my mouth.

 

[The Toe]

I wouldn't be surprised if they do an exclusive interview with him and follow him around today as he tours everything (again). Probably would be available towards the end of the week

 

[FirstTeamer]

Fan support is not how I gauge Top 5.
Show me trophies.
If the trophies are there, fan support will be there.

Real fans support trophies or not.

 

[FirstTeamer]

Go back and read again.
I said NYCFC was repeating the mistakes of Chivas USA,
Others have inferred what I meant by that and they're free to do so.
They are not free to put words into my mouth.

Repeating what mistakes? Firing a coach that wasn't doing a good job?

 

[FirstTeamer]

gosh so many "fans" here with more loyalty to JK than to our club. enough, he is gone, lets move on. yes he had good results with Salt Lake City but it was then and this is now. their logic goes like this:

guy to the current girlfriend: honey why are you dumping me
Girlfriend: because you have not made me happy in the first year of our relationship, I am disappointed and i see no sign of upside potentials if we continue to stay together;
guy: but look, my last relationship was a great one. I made my ex really happy and i was unanimously voted the boyfriend of the year twice. so why are you dumping me? if you give me another year i can prove it to you...can't you see if I was a great boyfriend for her i must be a great one for you if you can just have a bit more patience...
girl: are we really having this conversation?
.....

Nail on the head.

 

[Tom in Fairfield CT]

Getting in better players is a good thing. I have no problem bringing in better players (although I'm not sure that's what actually happened; we'll see). The problem is when that much of the starting lineup is turned over, the precious little chemistry which had been built up over the first few months was instantly gone. If you look at the results map, you can even see it: Kreis had managed to finally get a consistent roster and overcome injuries, including a notable one to Villa, to put together 5 wins, 2 losses (RBNJ and Revs), a draw. That last win is when Pirlo comes in, and he worked with Poku to beat Orlando City 5-3. After that however, once Lampard and other reinforcements start coming in (and opponents get to look at MLS Pirlo on tape) NYCFC wins only 1 in 7, with 5 of them losses. NYCFC then puts together a solid 3 game winning streak with a win at Vancouver the best before they knocked out of the playoffs chasing a win in DC that really should have been a draw (which would have been a good result early in the season). After that, Kreis goes experimental, and NYC doesn't win again.

The main issues with an expansion team are depth and chemistry. NYCFC got hit with some big injuries in the early part of the year and lacked the chemistry and depth to overcome it. When NYCFC started to have something cooking, Kreis was forced by the DP contracts to throw that out of the window and had to start back at square one. There were plenty of signs of improvements despite the horrible roster given to Kreis by Reyna & CFG. I think Kreis could have gotten NYCFC to the playoffs with a full offseason with his DPs. To not give him that chance based on roster turnover which he can't reasonably be blamed for is insane.

Look at our early schedule vs our late schedule. Its not even close. It was better teams, not chemistry that made us lose.

 

[Mikeylito]

FirstTeamer, if you're going to take me to task, you need to go back and read what I've said.
I'm not here to recap the thread for you.
When I respond to a thread, I try and read ongoing comments before I voice my own.
I've been pretty clear where I stand on the firing of Kreis, the hiring of Vieira and the general state of NYCFC.
If not, I guess I'm just inscrutable.

 

[AJS]

I also don't think that one evens needs to fully indict Kreiss to justify the decision to go in a different direction. I'm sure, if we could unpack it all and figure out what caused the results, there were things that Kreiss did poorly while at the same time there were factors outside his control that hindered him. It would be both fascinating and, unfortunately, impossible, to figure out how to assign weight to those different factors

At the end of the day, the decision should be whether the team is better off with the best available alternative than it was staying the course. Here, it seems almost 100% likely that they knew the alternative was Viera when they decided to fire Kreiss. At that point the decision is which is better for the team going forward.

Sure, it is a bit callous and, depending on how you weigh the factors that went into this season's mediocre results, perhaps even "unfair" to Kreiss at some level. But you cannot de-link the two decisions and this could well be a good decision even if there was reason to believe Kreiss would do better next year than he did this year and that the majority of this year's failings were due to things outside his control.

 

[S1ARK5]

I don't care about winning matches. I care about trophies. And this club isn't going to do it with this mindset. If it takes a walloping to get out of this mindset, so be it. I don't want to be the Red Bulls, sitting on 20 years without a title.

Relax homie. I was probably the biggest Kreis backer and supporter on this forum. I think he is a very good coach with a very good soccer mind, and I think whichever club gets him next are damn lucky and he will be very successful. However, having said all that, I think CFG knows better then you, me, and everyone else on this forum. They know what they are doing and what they want, and how to get there.

Patrick Vieria is very good hire for many reasons to list here. But we won't know for sure how it turns out until we see the team perform on the pitch. In the meantime, embrace the fact that CFG will not settle. And for the last time, look up what a farm team actually is before you state NYCFC is a farm. I have already stated in another post why this is in fact not true, quite the opposite actually. And my last point to about the redbulls.

Make no mistake, if the Redbulls do not win MLS CUP this year, they will still be one of the sorriest, loser franchises in MLS. NYCFC will have more trophies in the next 10 years then the energy drinks will have during their whole history. And guess what, if this doesn't happen, at least you know CFG cares about winning trophies, which is not something you can say about redbull and their north american operations. You can't compare Redbull to CFG. One cares about winning trophies, the other is all about marketing and advertising.

 

[Falastur]

I'm coming a day late to the party here as yesterday I only got to sit down in front of a computer at 10:30pm, and I was sufficiently wound up (and tired) that anything I wrote wouldn't have been in any way useful to the discussion. Having had a further day to consider it in a more neutral fashion, I've basically settled on this:

When I first read the story, I was pretty disappointed. I may be a fan of MCFC and a fair proponent of CFG, but I didn't want this to happen. First of all, I wanted NYCFC to select a manager independently for the good of their own culture and identity, and secondly despite all the people eulogising his efforts in Manchester with the youths, I don't actually think he's done as well as he could've done. I didn't really want Capello, either. I didn't really want NYCFC to buy out another MLS manager's contract, but I was drifting increasingly to the "we need an MLS-experienced man" camp ever since Kreis' sacking.

Thinking about it, though - and with the knowledge that this is happening, so some level of acceptance is necessary - I'm slowly coming round to the idea. First of all, going past the argument that there simply aren't any real top-level MLS managers available right now, the more I think about it the more it seems ridiculous the idea that MLS requires people who have lived the system in order to be successful. It may have been the case so far, but that's more through a lack of serious quantity of foreign people coming in, I'm sure.

Sure, people make a fuss over how MLS has complicated salary and squad rules (and it does) but I refuse to believe that only those who have played in the league or managed in it for years can have the tactical aptitude to make a team of three superstars and twenty-five squad players work. There's nothing about failing to understand salary restrictions that makes someone suddenly tactical incapable. MLS squads are actually some of the biggest in the world anyway - if a manager can't get a team playing, it's nothing to do with their experience. Kreis demonstrates that with his success in Salt Lake City and his failure in NYC.

Besides, if MLS has any pretensions whatsoever to being a top-level league internationally, it simply has to shake this supposed wisdom. No league can aspire to greatness if it maintains a tradition of rejecting foreign managers.

Then there's the hiring of Vieira himself. As I said, initially I was reluctant. Aside from the fact that he's not achieved much so far, I think there's far too much being made of his potential simply on the basis of him having been a great player, but time has taught us that great players often make for mediocre managers. However, I'm starting to see the benefits. As a top-level player, he should be able to hold the respect of the team far easier than someone the DPs particularly may never have heard of, he promises quick, attacking, entertaining football at the least, he has no affiliation to current players in the league meaning hopefully no more repeating of the constant playing of Grabavoy, Jacobson, Wingert, etc, he'll have an all-round improved squad of players to work with anyway, and as others have pointed out, he will have the perfect selection of youths to bring in on loan.

I'm still not overjoyed with this announcement. I'd say I'm lukewarm on it. But I feel better about it today than I did yesterday.

 

[Lasker]

Assuming Ian Joy is correct, JK began to lose the locker room (or at least his captain) as early as when he surprisingly yanked DV in the 60th(ish) minute. That game would have been the May 10 game against the Red Bulls. Yes, MAY, which likely means almost an entire season of dissension and discord, which I suspect only got worse. There's no recovering from that. Nothing else matters, it was a fait accompli for a while.

I remember that Villa was angry about that, but it seemed effective at the time. The very next game was the one in which Villa led a comeback from 2-0 and a man down to draw Chicago at home. I though his effort over the next 5-7 games was noticeably better than it was earlier in the season. Mix was also yanked in the RB game and I also felt that he did his best work for us after that point. Not to say Joy is wrong - he is probably right. But I found it surprising.

 

[The Toe]

One thing will be awesome: There are a ton of guys that will want to prove themselves to Vieira -- that only bodes well for them trying to be in the best of form and fitness as quickly as possible.