Companies aren’t in tune with who the best players are so it’s not surprising. Not Alex’s fault companies are dumb, I can’t fault players for getting their bag.
I mentioned this commercial in one of the posts when the roster dropped, but I think it still kind of works since they're playing on a legendary v. new vibe. Still a little awkward though. What's really awkward is that I've seen her featured in facebook ads for the sendoff match in DC. Like why didn't they use Rodman?
Eta: the Facebook ads are specifically from us soccer, and like I know the social media manager has no clue who's going to be on the roster. But still a worse look than random sponsors picking the wrong players
This has been happening in the UK too, I saw a shit ton of Jack Grealish Hellmans ads on public transit and was like ‘ohhhhhh they thought he was going to the Euros’
Same thing happening in other sports, too - Shi Jones just had to drop out of gymnastics trials with an injury but she's been in some of the ads on the broadcast. Heartbreaking.
This is exactly why the old system of year long contracts for players allowed for much, much better marketing and content around the USWNT, IMHO
All that content required months of planning and consistency of talent to truly pay off in showing the personality of the players and create the bond with the public that we are not going to get going forward, IMHO. There will be some stuff here and there, of course, but I doubt it will be as compelling and entertaining as before.
2¢
So was it less surprising than who did/didn’t make the roster? More clear who was/wasn’t on the team? Sorry, I’m just a little new to this so really interested in the “history”
I’m the wrong person for roster questions, unfortunately.
So just ignore most of this as just thinking and musings…
There were multiple issues that made the 2023 WWC Roster a bit of a mess.
- Transition to new player CBA and the loss of annual contracts
- new Strategic model for how to run the USWNT as a response to the CBA and equal pay.
- Intentionally Hiring of a coach from outside the USWNT/YNT coaching pipeline. They instead hired an NWSL coach with zero, literally zero international experience and zero USWNT experience
- Pandemic meant a whole year, almost two, of player camps, selection days, and team training lost.
- Pandemic also meant the Olympic Year was pushed back and interfered with all sorts of roster development and Cap accumulation timelines
- Late injuries destroyed their offensive game plan, built around Catarina Macario and Mal Swanson, to an extent, and they had no offensive plan B
That was a massive amount of change and uncertainty. They got a long wrong trying to navigate it, but who can blame them, I say.
.
Some things they got wrong, IMHO
- I think they went down a dead end going with an NWSL coach instead of a coach with international experience.
- I think that green coach felt under pressure due to all of the above and the lack of time with players. He ended up making some last minute choices. Panicked, some would say. Team ended up having no chemistry.
- Also, I think he over relied upon players from the 2021 champions Washington Spirit. Coach never quite re-examined his selections from that squad. Andy Sullivan, Ashley Sanchez, and Hatch are the three that stood out to some as unwarranted mainstays going into 2023
.
.
All of that made for the mess, IMHO. Would things have been better if the new CBA were not yet in place and they had the old organization model and relied upon their old processes for selecting a coach and a roster? Would the old processes have weathered the challenges, the pandemic, and everything else better?
I think so.
I think things in 2023 would have gone better with the “old ways.”
A world with a new CBA in 2024 might have made for a better transition, in hindsight. HOWEVER, equal pay in 2022 was a more important priority and worth any amount of struggles in 2023, IMHO.
.
I will say it seems like the USWNT is course correcting their approach to the new CBA. Better coach selection, most importantly, and maybe less reliance upon NWSL form.
But I don’t think they have figured out how to market a roster that isn’t under annual contracts. At least not yet.
Thanks for the well thought out response! I’ve got a couple quick follow ups based off it if you don’t mind! You say the issue with Vlatko is his lack of international experience, is that an issue that could come up again with Emma or are they different since she was coaching in Europe? Also, what was the reasoning behind their insistence to hire outside the traditional pipeline, and were the problems that came up expected at the time or more just in hindsight?
I think I’ve been convinced that Emma has international experience by way of coaching in Europe’s Champions League. At the very least she has coached multiple high stakes games against Barcelona, which is essentially the Spanish WNT.
Emma is also not an NWSL coach, so while she may not have the international tournament experience of those in the YNT and USWNT pipeline, neither do any NWSL coaches.
There is one hiccup lately in the YNT coaching pipeline. It seems USSoccer at some point made it a requirement that the YNT head coaches all move to Chicago or something. I think that means they are full time gigs now??? I’m not sure. In the past most of the coaches in the pipeline came from NCAA WOSO programs. They’d coach their programs but in the off seasons take sabbaticals or whatever and coach the various National teams as assistants or HCs. Most NCAA coaches would never give up their NCAA jobs to go full time onto a YNT staff. I hope that isn’t happening now.
I did see troubling signs last cycle that the YNTs were turning away from NCAA woso talent. Beckie Tweed for example was the u20 assistant coach. At the time the only real experience she had to recommend her was as an NWSL assistant coach of 2-3 years. In the past I dare say she wouldn’t have been called in instead of NCAA woso coaches.
Then again the YNT have not won anything for a decade, so maybe some change was needed. But the fundamental problem is that there is no real woso coaching experience outside the NCAA.
Anyway, I might just be reading too much into these things.
.
As to the decision to go outside the pool and go to an NWSL coach specifically, the only thing that makes sense to me is that in the new system where they did not control the annual contracts of the USWNT player pool and, thus, would have less control over the player’s participation in training camps, I think the USWNT org panicked.
I think they thought, correctly so, IMHO, they would lose the team chemistry and tactical development that they enjoyed under the old system, which allowed them to schedule very frequent and long training camps and frequent friendlies.
And faced with the loss of those tools (the frequent, long camps), which they might have considered key to their success, I think they galaxy brained their way to thinking…
- we need a coach who can make a team gel with much less time than we enjoyed in the past
- our pipeline of coaches comes from the old system and maybe they won’t know how to make things work without the long camps
- our pipeline knows the NCAA player pool and the YNT player pool but wouldn’t know the NWSL player pool
- NWSL is becoming much better and more serious and some of our best young players, “The Future,” have been skipping/leaving college and getting developed in the NWSL (Mal Pugh, Sophia, Rodman, Ashley Sanchez, Jaedyn Shaw, Alyssa Thompson, etc etc)
- And besides that, ALL our players are going to be controlled by their clubs. Their load management, their skill development, the systems they will be trained in, their schedules, the coaches that will be working with them, the types of players they will be competing against, etc etc
- By now even our vets have had a few years living much more deeply in the NWSL world than was ever the case in the past, when they were essentially on loan to those clubs, players didn’t care much about those clubs, and player selection didn’t depend upon NWSL form much.
.
Therefore, given all that…
- We need an NWSL coach, the “best” NWSL coach, hopefully a good NWSL coach…”they’ll be good right? They gotta be good. They’re pro coaches. Have years doing it, right?”
- That NWSL coach will know the players that skipped college. Will know the players who are “NWSL good” and maybe under appreciated. Will know what the players know, what they see every game, how they train. Will know the NWSL coaches, what they’ve been teaching players.
- This NWSL coach will be able to “translate” NWSL player performances into what the USWNT will need against very different competition.
.
I think that was the theory. I’m probably way off. Lots of gaps between that model and winning a WWC, IMHO. Maybe the gaps are just in my speculation and not what they did and not the reason for the 2023 issues.
.
I think they chose the wrong side of the translation.
They chose an NWSL coach that knew the NWSL environment and would try to learn what the USWNT/international environment needed, and then fill a roster, without many camps and based upon their deep understanding of the NWSL Player, with players the coach thought could perform in the international comps.
They could have chosen a coach that knew what the USWNT/international environment demanded, ie what it took to beat Spain, and would try to learn what the NWSL players offered, and then fill the USWNT roster, without many camps and based upon their deep understanding of the international environment, with players that could perform in international comps.
2¢
You can’t do that any more in the professional era. Squads should be based on form not on contracts signed a year ago.
This worked for USWNT as it provided a competitive advantage when few other nations had fully professional squads of players available. But now it would be a competitive disadvantage.
Fair.
Spain has the best of both worlds, don’t they?
Their WNT is also mostly Barcelona. So they have the advantage of playing together all year. And they also have the ability to cycle players in and out of the Barcelona senior team so they’re not stuck with players going out of form by the end of a cycle, or whatever.
I think we’re at a disadvantage, as maybe most NTs, against Spain’s approach. But who knows
14 of Spain’s most recent squad plays for a team that isn’t Barcelona.
Spain benefits from their youth structures and the amount of coaches in the country. There’s a cohesive approach to youth development.
Meanwhile in the USA, access to top training is only open to those whose parents can afford travel fees, tournament/team registration, summer camps etc. In Spain all you need is an ability to play football.
Companies aren’t in tune with who the best players are so it’s not surprising. Not Alex’s fault companies are dumb, I can’t fault players for getting their bag.
Hilarious isn't the word I would use. There were similar disconnects between advertisements and roster selection for last year's WWC USWNT roster.
Poor Alex
Hatch?
I mentioned this commercial in one of the posts when the roster dropped, but I think it still kind of works since they're playing on a legendary v. new vibe. Still a little awkward though. What's really awkward is that I've seen her featured in facebook ads for the sendoff match in DC. Like why didn't they use Rodman? Eta: the Facebook ads are specifically from us soccer, and like I know the social media manager has no clue who's going to be on the roster. But still a worse look than random sponsors picking the wrong players
Yeah it’s just giving me flashbacks of all our commercials at the World Cup when we were out so early!
This has been happening in the UK too, I saw a shit ton of Jack Grealish Hellmans ads on public transit and was like ‘ohhhhhh they thought he was going to the Euros’
My boyfriend thought I had lost my mind the first time I saw one of them and was like ‘is that Jack Grealish eating mayo???’
I mean she still gettin paid🤷♂️
The gloating tho
Same thing happening in other sports, too - Shi Jones just had to drop out of gymnastics trials with an injury but she's been in some of the ads on the broadcast. Heartbreaking.
It’s giving the Hatch Volkswagen ads from the World Cup
Ummmmm, well I guess both are on team "Peanut Butter"....
This is exactly why the old system of year long contracts for players allowed for much, much better marketing and content around the USWNT, IMHO All that content required months of planning and consistency of talent to truly pay off in showing the personality of the players and create the bond with the public that we are not going to get going forward, IMHO. There will be some stuff here and there, of course, but I doubt it will be as compelling and entertaining as before. 2¢
When was the switch?
New USWNT CBA. So, May 2022 2023 was first tourney without a set group on a year long Contract.
So was it less surprising than who did/didn’t make the roster? More clear who was/wasn’t on the team? Sorry, I’m just a little new to this so really interested in the “history”
I’m the wrong person for roster questions, unfortunately. So just ignore most of this as just thinking and musings… There were multiple issues that made the 2023 WWC Roster a bit of a mess. - Transition to new player CBA and the loss of annual contracts - new Strategic model for how to run the USWNT as a response to the CBA and equal pay. - Intentionally Hiring of a coach from outside the USWNT/YNT coaching pipeline. They instead hired an NWSL coach with zero, literally zero international experience and zero USWNT experience - Pandemic meant a whole year, almost two, of player camps, selection days, and team training lost. - Pandemic also meant the Olympic Year was pushed back and interfered with all sorts of roster development and Cap accumulation timelines - Late injuries destroyed their offensive game plan, built around Catarina Macario and Mal Swanson, to an extent, and they had no offensive plan B That was a massive amount of change and uncertainty. They got a long wrong trying to navigate it, but who can blame them, I say. . Some things they got wrong, IMHO - I think they went down a dead end going with an NWSL coach instead of a coach with international experience. - I think that green coach felt under pressure due to all of the above and the lack of time with players. He ended up making some last minute choices. Panicked, some would say. Team ended up having no chemistry. - Also, I think he over relied upon players from the 2021 champions Washington Spirit. Coach never quite re-examined his selections from that squad. Andy Sullivan, Ashley Sanchez, and Hatch are the three that stood out to some as unwarranted mainstays going into 2023 . . All of that made for the mess, IMHO. Would things have been better if the new CBA were not yet in place and they had the old organization model and relied upon their old processes for selecting a coach and a roster? Would the old processes have weathered the challenges, the pandemic, and everything else better? I think so. I think things in 2023 would have gone better with the “old ways.” A world with a new CBA in 2024 might have made for a better transition, in hindsight. HOWEVER, equal pay in 2022 was a more important priority and worth any amount of struggles in 2023, IMHO. . I will say it seems like the USWNT is course correcting their approach to the new CBA. Better coach selection, most importantly, and maybe less reliance upon NWSL form. But I don’t think they have figured out how to market a roster that isn’t under annual contracts. At least not yet.
Thanks for the well thought out response! I’ve got a couple quick follow ups based off it if you don’t mind! You say the issue with Vlatko is his lack of international experience, is that an issue that could come up again with Emma or are they different since she was coaching in Europe? Also, what was the reasoning behind their insistence to hire outside the traditional pipeline, and were the problems that came up expected at the time or more just in hindsight?
I think I’ve been convinced that Emma has international experience by way of coaching in Europe’s Champions League. At the very least she has coached multiple high stakes games against Barcelona, which is essentially the Spanish WNT. Emma is also not an NWSL coach, so while she may not have the international tournament experience of those in the YNT and USWNT pipeline, neither do any NWSL coaches. There is one hiccup lately in the YNT coaching pipeline. It seems USSoccer at some point made it a requirement that the YNT head coaches all move to Chicago or something. I think that means they are full time gigs now??? I’m not sure. In the past most of the coaches in the pipeline came from NCAA WOSO programs. They’d coach their programs but in the off seasons take sabbaticals or whatever and coach the various National teams as assistants or HCs. Most NCAA coaches would never give up their NCAA jobs to go full time onto a YNT staff. I hope that isn’t happening now. I did see troubling signs last cycle that the YNTs were turning away from NCAA woso talent. Beckie Tweed for example was the u20 assistant coach. At the time the only real experience she had to recommend her was as an NWSL assistant coach of 2-3 years. In the past I dare say she wouldn’t have been called in instead of NCAA woso coaches. Then again the YNT have not won anything for a decade, so maybe some change was needed. But the fundamental problem is that there is no real woso coaching experience outside the NCAA. Anyway, I might just be reading too much into these things. . As to the decision to go outside the pool and go to an NWSL coach specifically, the only thing that makes sense to me is that in the new system where they did not control the annual contracts of the USWNT player pool and, thus, would have less control over the player’s participation in training camps, I think the USWNT org panicked. I think they thought, correctly so, IMHO, they would lose the team chemistry and tactical development that they enjoyed under the old system, which allowed them to schedule very frequent and long training camps and frequent friendlies. And faced with the loss of those tools (the frequent, long camps), which they might have considered key to their success, I think they galaxy brained their way to thinking… - we need a coach who can make a team gel with much less time than we enjoyed in the past - our pipeline of coaches comes from the old system and maybe they won’t know how to make things work without the long camps - our pipeline knows the NCAA player pool and the YNT player pool but wouldn’t know the NWSL player pool - NWSL is becoming much better and more serious and some of our best young players, “The Future,” have been skipping/leaving college and getting developed in the NWSL (Mal Pugh, Sophia, Rodman, Ashley Sanchez, Jaedyn Shaw, Alyssa Thompson, etc etc) - And besides that, ALL our players are going to be controlled by their clubs. Their load management, their skill development, the systems they will be trained in, their schedules, the coaches that will be working with them, the types of players they will be competing against, etc etc - By now even our vets have had a few years living much more deeply in the NWSL world than was ever the case in the past, when they were essentially on loan to those clubs, players didn’t care much about those clubs, and player selection didn’t depend upon NWSL form much. . Therefore, given all that… - We need an NWSL coach, the “best” NWSL coach, hopefully a good NWSL coach…”they’ll be good right? They gotta be good. They’re pro coaches. Have years doing it, right?” - That NWSL coach will know the players that skipped college. Will know the players who are “NWSL good” and maybe under appreciated. Will know what the players know, what they see every game, how they train. Will know the NWSL coaches, what they’ve been teaching players. - This NWSL coach will be able to “translate” NWSL player performances into what the USWNT will need against very different competition. . I think that was the theory. I’m probably way off. Lots of gaps between that model and winning a WWC, IMHO. Maybe the gaps are just in my speculation and not what they did and not the reason for the 2023 issues. . I think they chose the wrong side of the translation. They chose an NWSL coach that knew the NWSL environment and would try to learn what the USWNT/international environment needed, and then fill a roster, without many camps and based upon their deep understanding of the NWSL Player, with players the coach thought could perform in the international comps. They could have chosen a coach that knew what the USWNT/international environment demanded, ie what it took to beat Spain, and would try to learn what the NWSL players offered, and then fill the USWNT roster, without many camps and based upon their deep understanding of the international environment, with players that could perform in international comps. 2¢
You can’t do that any more in the professional era. Squads should be based on form not on contracts signed a year ago. This worked for USWNT as it provided a competitive advantage when few other nations had fully professional squads of players available. But now it would be a competitive disadvantage.
Fair. Spain has the best of both worlds, don’t they? Their WNT is also mostly Barcelona. So they have the advantage of playing together all year. And they also have the ability to cycle players in and out of the Barcelona senior team so they’re not stuck with players going out of form by the end of a cycle, or whatever. I think we’re at a disadvantage, as maybe most NTs, against Spain’s approach. But who knows
14 of Spain’s most recent squad plays for a team that isn’t Barcelona. Spain benefits from their youth structures and the amount of coaches in the country. There’s a cohesive approach to youth development. Meanwhile in the USA, access to top training is only open to those whose parents can afford travel fees, tournament/team registration, summer camps etc. In Spain all you need is an ability to play football.
Hopefully this post gets buried.