Nottingham Forest has about twenty. They can give em a ring.
2021-22-23-24 News Thread
- Thread starter jeffbear
- Start date
Roberto Mancini resigned as coach of Italy’s National Team. He led them to the Euro 2020 Championship but they failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup and finished 3rd in the recently completed Nations League.
Italy faces Ukraine and North Macedonia in September qualifiers for Euro 2024.
Italy faces Ukraine and North Macedonia in September qualifiers for Euro 2024.
Wow ... I had forgotten that Mancini was still hanging onto that job. I know it's been like 5 years since he's had a club job but he's got to be near the top of the replacement manager list in Europe once the hot seats start heating up. IIRC he's still under 60, which is spring chicken status for top clubs.
He’s 58 but it seems like his been around as long as Big Sam. He got his first coaching job in 2001, his last club job was at Zenit, which ended in May 2018, and he took the Italy job the next day.
A group of women civic leaders in Chicago are buying the NWSL Chicago Red Stars. The group is led by Laura Ricketts, a minority owner of the WNBA Chicago Sky and a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. The deal ss expected to be about $35.5 million and includes an additional $25 million iest,ent in club and soccer operations. It exceeds the previous highest amount paid for an existing NWSL club, ahead of Michelle Kang’s purchase of the Washington Spirit,
That's good. NWSL needs another big market team to balance the West Coast powers and Chicago has played that role in the past since the NY teams have never seemed to have their mess together.
Less good ... the NWSL and NWSLPA are going to arbitration on the team option contracts ... again. The league lost the decision last year, which saw upwards of 25 prominent players hit free agency unexpectedly early, including arguably the best player in the league in Debinha. They want another bite at the apple, but it's hard to see that they have a better case than last time. Better lawyers, maybe. Still, for a league that was just starting to build some trust between the PA and the league office, re-litigating old battles seems like a dumb thing to do.
Less good ... the NWSL and NWSLPA are going to arbitration on the team option contracts ... again. The league lost the decision last year, which saw upwards of 25 prominent players hit free agency unexpectedly early, including arguably the best player in the league in Debinha. They want another bite at the apple, but it's hard to see that they have a better case than last time. Better lawyers, maybe. Still, for a league that was just starting to build some trust between the PA and the league office, re-litigating old battles seems like a dumb thing to do.
As well there should be. Vlatko might be a muppet as a national team coach but he's a competent club coach and great at player development. I saw there's also international interest, and I'd pump the break on that. But hey ... not my call.
I'm seeing all sorts of ridiculous lists of possible candidates coming out too. Hoo boy, some of the soccer press are bonkers. Worth noting that even with their struggles in this cycle, the US job is still one of the 2 or 3 best positions in the women's game. They'll have plenty of solid candidates when the time comes. I'd like to see somebody who's who a little more challenging/demanding as a personality this time, after Vlatko's human muppet act. It's also probably best if the next coach isn't somebody with a long history with the current player pool. That reluctance to move on from veterans has been a problem for a long, long time.
Twila Kilgore has been named interim coach of the USWNT. She served on Vlatko’s staff the last 18 months. Prior to that, she was an assistant with the Houston Dash for 2-1/2 years and spent 15 years as head coach at UC Davis and an assistant at Pepperdine. She also worked with US youth national teams.
Yeah, they've got a round of friendlies scheduled in September ... which would have been the traditional "victory tour" had there been anything to celebrate. And that would wrap up the 2023 schedule so far as I'm aware ... with NWSL not wrapping up their playoffs until November, that's pretty normal. After that the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup is in February of 2024. So that's the next milestone should USSF want to take their time. IMO, despite criticisms of how long the men's search went, they SHOULD take their time and get this right. And if Markgraf is also eventually getting the axe as women's GM, then you'd have to deal with that first anyway.
Which means they don’t have a lot of time to get their mess together. The Gold Cup is the last event before the Olympics, for which the US already qualified by winning the 2022 CONCACAF Championship. The Women’s tournament starts on July 25. The Gold Cup is being held on the dates the She Believes Cup would normally be held. After the Gold Cup, there are 2 FIFA windows, 4/1-9 and 7/8-16. So there will probably be US based friendlies in the first window and European friendlies in the 2nd.
I'm just saying they don't have to be on the clock right freaking now. So long as they have somebody for camps leading up to the Gold Cup, they'll be fine. That's like 4-5 months, which isn't an eternity but it's not a pants on fire deal either. A ton of prospective hires have contracts that run out at the end of the year.
The Athletic is reporting today that USWNT GM Kate Markgraf will be leaving USSF at the end of her contract ... which is the over at the end of August. I doubt they'll replace her, because they've gone with a completely different setup now that Matt Crocker is sporting director. If I had to guess, they'll go with a much lower profile coordinator/assistant director for the men's and women's programs now. Markgraf is of course, the one who hired Vlatko Andonovski originally, and who failed to be concerned with the warning signs coming out of the Tokyo games in 2021. It's being reported that Markgraf made this decision before the team left for AU/NZ. If so, fine ... it's probably the right call either way.
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Wrexham keeper Ben Foster re-retired, saying his performances this season haven’t been up to the level of play he expects from himself. They’ve allowed 13 goals in their first 4 matches, with a win and 2 draws. He signed with the club in March and was instrumental in their promotion to the Football League. It was his 2nd stint at Wrexham, having played 21 matches for them in 2004-05 on loan from Stoke. He made his first appearance in the Premier League for Man U in 2007–08 and also played for Watford twice, Birmingham City and West Brom, where he made 223 appearances for the Baggies in 7 seasons until the 2017-18 season. He returned to Watford for 2018-19 and retired from the Hornets in September 2022. He also had 8 caps for England between 2007-14.
Mason Greenwood will not return to Man U even though UK prosecutors dropped their case against him for attempted rape, assault and coercive control and Manu U’s internal investigation found no wrongdoing. They’re not terminating his contract and According to The Athletic, there has been interest from clubs in Italy.
From what I've seen floating around, Man United tried to do a kinda/sorta trail balloon for bringing him back to the senior team but it didn't go well. At this point, I'm sure they'll just be happy enough to wash their hands of the contract even if it costs them some money.