This is my transcript from the ExtraTime Radio podcast of Jun-25-2018 where Matt Doyle gave a ballistic and convincing rant on why Juan Carlos Osorio should not be USMNT coach. Go to 1:03:35 in the podcast. I wanted to preserve this brilliant rant for posterity. It reminded me of Ned Beatty’s Oscar-winning speech in the movie Network. My transcript is close but not perfect, and I’ve used some abbreviations…
ExtraTime Radio Mailbag question from Kevin Chan:
Is Matt Doyle on the Juan Carlos Osorio bandwagon yet or does Mexico need to make it to the QFs before is he willing to consider him as a USMNT candidate?
Matt Doyle: I would never want to see Juan Carlos Osorio as the USMNT coach. He has been excellent through 2 games in this WC. He got the tactics so right against Germany. … And he got the tactics very right against South Korea. And he’s got his personnel mostly right.
And it reminds me so much of the 2008 playoffs for the Red Bulls. Because that team was really talented that year. They had the league’s best DP that year in Juan Pablo Angel. They had a young Jozy Altidore. They had a good and talented roster overall.
And every freaking game, every game, he would… different formation, different lineup, nonsensical subs. Drawing a completely different line of confrontation. Sometimes they’d play on the front foot, sometimes they’d play… and none of it ever made any sense. And never any rhythm built up.
And then came the playoffs. And he finally said, you know what, we’re just going to play a 4-1-3-2. We’re going to put our best players in their best spots. We’re going to try to have a good amount of the ball in the central midfield and we’re going to use that to open up the flanks. And he simplified, and it was great, and they made it all the way to MLS Cup. And they got beat by a better team.
But I thought, OK, this man gets it. And he can come back the next year, build off of that, take what works, build off that foundation, and make it better.
And in 2009, he made it worse. He just made it… every week he would do something worse and worse and worse. And honest to god, that is the worst soccer team I have ever seen in MLS. It was terrible. They made 2013 DC United look like Barcelona. So that…
Ben Baer: 2013 DC United was really bad, for people who don’t know that. The worst in MLS history. So that…
Andrew Wiebe: Columbus or…
Doyle: That is my very personal memory of Juan Carlos Osorio.
Wiebe: The scar tissue is…
Doyle: And if you look at his career, he’s been able to establish this narrative where’s he a miracle worker. Whether it was in Columbia, whether it was… certainly in Mexico, where he was terrible… whether it was in Brazil, the guys before him and after him at those respective clubs all had better records than Juan Carlos Osorio did.
And then he somehow ended up with this Mexico job. And granted, I’m even going to say it again, he’s had 2 spectacular performances in these first 2 games. This is as good as I’ve ever seen his teams play. And as smart well-executed a game plan as you could possibly have against a team as good as the Germans.
But that does not erase what happened last summer in the Gold Cup. It doesn’t erase what happened last summer in the Confederations Cup. And it sure as hell doesn’t erase what happened in 2016 in the Copa America. When they got… Not only did they get smoked was it, 7-1, by Chile, they totally got outplayed by Venezuela and Jamaica in the previous 2 games. And those teams did the exact same thing that Chile did. He made zero adjustments.
So yeah, nice 2 games, but No, NO, that does not override 3 tournaments of abject failure from Juan Carlos Osorio. So No, I do not ever want to see him in the frame for US National Team. Never!
Wiebe: That was arguably the best rant in ExtraTime Radio history.
Then Ben Baer talks more about Mexico’s record going into the World Cup…
Doyle: You know what it reminds me of? Jurgen Klinsmann 2006. Klinsmann with Germany in 2006. They were going to fire him in March of that year. Jogi Löw and Michael Ballack went to him and said you have to stop being a lunatic with this team. You have to just simplify everything. And Jurgen listened. And they just went to a box standard 4-4-2 from that point on, and that led to a great and really stable performance in the 2006 World Cup. And of course, everyone thought Jurgen learned his lesson from that. He did not. But this is exactly what happened.
There was no indication that this would be Juan Carlos Osorio, but for whatever reason, he has seen the light, temporarily, I guarantee it. He has seen the light and has decided to go for stability and cohesion and chemistry and it’s paying off for Mexico, and I’m happy for… all my friends who happen to be Mexico friends. I hope they enjoy it. It’s not going to last, and whoever hires him next is going to learn that to their detriment.
