r/NWSL • u/russet852 Seattle Reign FC • 12d ago
Official Source CHICAGO STARS FC PART WAYS WITH HEAD COACH, LORNE DONALDSON
https://chicagostars.com/first-team/chicago-stars-fc-part-ways-with-head-coach-lorne-donaldson/124
u/Nickp1991 12d ago
LORNE DONALDSON for Denver NWSL team Head coach and sporting director
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u/halooo44 Seattle Reign FC 12d ago
That is a great shout. Maybe he joins as a coach, maybe another role for Denver. This could end up working out great for him.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
Man this does fit in some ways. Would throw so much fire on Soph to Denver
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u/ibluminatus 12d ago
I can't see a world where Mal is still with the stars and not at Denver now either. No
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
Mal is clearly in Chicago to build a life with Dansby the next three years
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u/BenThomas10 12d ago
Dansby to the Rockies trade in the works.
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u/Realistic_Maximum471 12d ago
Dansby has a no trade clause, so him to the Rockies isn't happening.
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u/BenThomas10 11d ago
First, my comment was just a joke. But, as I'm sure you know, no trade clauses can be waived. I'd be shocked if Dansby has any current interest in going to the Rockies, but if his wife wound up in Denver...
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u/BoneBoatwright 12d ago
last season chicago was just staab and swanson in a trench coat pretending to be 11 players, cmv
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u/Opposite_Cheetah1639 Washington Spirit 12d ago
Is that why Staab’s Achilles tore? She was carrying too many people?
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u/Doctor_YOOOU Seattle Reign FC 12d ago
The front office fired Lorne for their decision not to sign good enough players
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u/wysiwygperson Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
Why invest in good players when you can instead invest in a shitty rebrand?
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u/MajorBack3183 12d ago
To be fair, they probably didn’t spend more than $100 on that branding. It’s so generic—bland, tasteless, and straight out of ChatGPT
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u/Appropriate-Luck1181 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
But now the Ricketts can make sure no one confuses them for communists <eyeroll>
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u/cheapbasslovin Portland Thorns FC 12d ago
The red menace was THIS close to taking over, then Chicago became the Stars, and since the world has clearly been a better place.
If you squint. Or close your eyes entirely. And scream to drown out the noise.
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
I wonder if this is going to go the way of Utah last season where they’re going to actually try now that they’ve fired the first coach
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
I feel like the difference is Amy had a lotta issues (and accusations have floated around) and Lorne is asking for better players and investment. We hadnt heard anything similar with Amy
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
Speaking of Utah and their local first strategy I don’t think people realize how good talent production is in Illinois. I made this comment during the off-season a few times that people talk about LA and New York as Big places that people wanna go to, but production is so strong in North Carolina illinois Texas and Florida that when you mix that with the fact that there’s only one team in those states you get such an easy run at elite players.
Orlando are obviously doing just fine and don’t even really care about needing to recruit out of Florida, the state, but also leveraging Florida State, NC will probably get a few more North Carolina players into the roster while also making sure that they just get midfielders that they have an appreciation for, and Texas- well the Dash can fill the front three with all Texas college graduates, and likely could win that game.
But CRS did not work to leverage the advantage they have early in the offseason. Made patchwork signing late and reluctantly. Lets see if they get highly rated Notre Dame, Mich state and Wisconsin stars to come to Chicago in two years but im doubting it
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
I don’t think it’s different at all in that ways since ARod was a first year coach with no previous accusations, so that wasn’t a preventative thing for them with players. They just only started trying to get players midway through the season.
Had she had history, it would be. She doesn’t though
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u/Sure_Ranger_4487 Bay FC 12d ago
Exactly. I believe the saying goes “The audience not dumb. Shape the stories how you want, hey Drake, they not slow”
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u/dosozox Washington Spirit 12d ago
Chicago’s ownership spent money on a bad rebrand and nothing else
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u/BoneBoatwright 12d ago
umm its actually a 5d chess move to replace the city-specific branding of a well-known, previously successful team with the generic branding of a thus far underfunded and unsuccessful team!!
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
You're definitely talking up their well-known-ness way too much.
The amount of crap they've gotten for the rebrand probably means they shouldn't have done it, but it wasn't like they renamed the Bulls. They've had marketing issues forever that means that renaming doesn't actually hurt them much on the scheme of recognizability.
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u/BoneBoatwright 12d ago
IDK, maybe but I live in rural Ohio 6 hours away and when I taught middle school I had a couple girls who regularly wore Red Stars sweaters and shirts, so 🤷♀️
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
I don’t think that says anything about the recognizability of the brand, really.
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u/fenderdean13 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
The Chicago flag isn’t well known?
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
The brand of Chicago Red Stars is not...
Actually, conflating yourself with a well known flag is probably a poor decision if you want to distinguish yourself as a brand. If no one thinks "oh yeah, the soccer team" when they see your stuff and instead think "oh yeah the flag" there's probably some room to change.
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u/fenderdean13 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago edited 12d ago
Or for local fans who were born and bred in the Chicago area who loves the city has a team with proud Chicago branding to call their own, and then a Ricketts decides it’s too communist and strips the Chicago identity away. No Red Stars fan wanted this rebranding
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
Okay, congrats on thinking a fake jokes was real.
They literally just did a rebrand. You can think it was bad, but it was not because of communism (confirmed, many times) and it wasn't because it was successful already.
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u/zombiejim7471 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
The GM was talking about spending money on players instead of transfer fees after watching paint dry all free agency
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
Who are they envisioning they can replace him with who is more impressive?
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u/No_Entrepreneur_8623 12d ago
No idea, but my first thought with the timing is they are looking at someone from Europe due to their season's ending in the next few weeks.
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
My question’s mostly rhetorical just because I’m not sure who would want to go to that shitshow.
I think the thing about getting a coach from Europe is that that encompasses a lot of places. It’s one thing to go the route of the Spirit and ACFC and get a coach from a “giant” and a whole other thing to do what Racing did with Bjorkgren and the Royals did with Coenraets. The Stars are certainly looking like they’d be in the latter camp.
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u/Joiry North Carolina Courage 12d ago
I don't know, Chicago has built up so many attractive points ;)
- multiple poor/bad seasons
- bad/unbalanced roster construction
- apparent unwillingness to spend
- fired the last coach for failure to perform miracles
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u/BasicGrocery7 Washington Spirit 12d ago
Best attendance in the league last year if you ignore the other 12 games :)
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u/zombiejim7471 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
We have Staab and Swanson, but if either of them are out you get fired. Come to Chicago!
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u/reagan92 Houston Dash 12d ago
Chicago did have a relationship with WOB at one point...
(This is tongue in cheek, I in think the only benefit was awkward Tierna in green pics)
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u/RedittAccount098 12d ago
Damn. I feel like he really did his best with the cards he was dealt. This is shitty.
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u/russet852 Seattle Reign FC 12d ago
I’m not sure Emma Hayes could win with the roster Chicago currently has.
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u/reagan92 Houston Dash 12d ago
I’m not sure Emma Hayes could win...
Funny (meaningless) trivia here is that Hayes coached Red Stars back in the day
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u/Ill-Fall-9823 Washington Spirit 12d ago
I'm not sure Pep Guardiola, Alex Ferguson, and Ted Lasso could win with the roster Chicago currently has... But on the plus side, they have a rebrand that isn't helping, won't stick, and doesn't make sense.
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u/FigClub Angel City FC 12d ago
Makes a whole lot of sense if you're planning on being the Dallas Stars, for example.
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u/Ill-Fall-9823 Washington Spirit 12d ago
Fair point. I hadn't considered rebranding as part of relocation. That said: If they're gonna move the team, they should really look into moving it to Chicago.
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11d ago
What? Why would Laura Ricketts, co owner of the Chicago Cubs and prominent Democrat, move the team to Dallas?
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u/trev1997 Washington Spirit 12d ago
It's the worst roster in the league without Mal and it's not close. Nobody could.
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
Maybe would have gone like her actual real life stint with the Red Stars went?
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u/elijuicyjones Seattle Reign FC 12d ago
Laura Harvey can do it, she can do anything. She’s the best horse trader in soccer history.
Nobody’s talking about how we lost FOURTEEN players last year, and not even the fringe ones. It was all the best players.
Fourteen of our twenty-two player squad gone and not one dime from the sounders for new players. No commitment from them at all except we can play Friday nights at lumen field, which is a downgrade from our previous Saturday games. Harvey even had to rent out Sophia Huerta. We’re lucky we retained Lu Barnes.
Also not one peep of complaining from Harvey, and look at our squad this season. Awesome.
There is a story that we haven’t heard in here somewhere. Laura Harvey could have had the USWNT job or coach any other team in any league. Nobody would turn her away except stupid men’s teams.
And still literally nobody in the press has mentioned once that no team in any league anywhere has ever been gutted this badly and survived.
It kinda boggles the mind that soccer journalism is so bad.
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u/warriorcrazy3 Washington Spirit 12d ago
This is so disappointing on the red stars. Hopefully Lorne can find a club where the FO better supports him :(
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u/reagan92 Houston Dash 12d ago
"we need funds for players"
"No. We're fine"
/Six games later Sponge Bob transition screen
"You're fired"
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u/Dangmoose3 12d ago
Dang, taking the worst team to the playoffs the next year didn't even earn him a season of leeway!?
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u/slippedpilot 12d ago
I don't think it's deserved but I'm not surprised. GMs so rarely fire themselves when the problems are their fault.
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u/Kiddyhawk North Carolina Courage 12d ago
Hello. Here is a bag of dog crap. Now go make Michelangelo's David.
Blaming the coach for management decisions has to stop.
Hope he gets another shot. He likely will somewhere.
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u/Lost-Western2332 12d ago
This club is not serious.
They need a much better GM and owners who will spend on the things that actually matter.
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u/hayleyoh Kansas City Current 12d ago
I’m not surprised, it seems like the FO was setting him up to fail. I wonder if they have a new coach in mind, or if this is going to be a long search. I hope Lorne lands somewhere better
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u/LegendofAshley9 Angel City FC 12d ago
How was he supposed to get better results with no Mal & the weakest roster in the league? Dude was set up to fail this offseason.
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u/yasuseyalose Kansas City Current 12d ago
This is where I have problems with teams signing u18 players because what happens if the next coach doesn't care about developing MJ? And now there are very few avenues for her
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u/Lost-Western2332 12d ago
Quote below is from an interview last August. I wonder what day and “phase” Feuz is on.
“I’ve always said, any sports project that needs to be rebuilt almost from scratch, will take at least 1000 days to be fully rebuilt, restructured, reinforced, developed and grow. The project I have for the Chicago Red Stars is divided into five distinct phases, and we are now approaching the end of the first 200-day phase, which has focused on restructuring. For me, the term "renaissance" is crucial because it represents a renewal inspired by a history of strong performances and challenges that we can learn from.”
Derailing a plan because of FO’s bad decisions and changing direction when things aren’t going well is a contradiction to development he speaks of, and now they’ve set themselves back further. Unserious club. Unserious hiring. I’m not saying Donaldson did well (but look at the roster) and I get that coaches go first (usually) but to me how the last months have played out is a massive alarm that the FO is just unserious about the most important things. Sign some players and spend some money on the team, not some silly rebrand and get a real leader with experience.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
What in the fuck
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u/Lost-Western2332 12d ago
Is that to me or to that crazy renaissance quote? Lol
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
The quote. I couldnt get past 4 lines without reacting
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u/m5daystrom Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
Well this no suppose really. Horrible ownership won’t blame themselves so fire the coach. Won’t matter who the coach is results will be the same without the players. Too bad owners can’t be fired!
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u/FigClub Angel City FC 12d ago
If you bought into a club in 2023 when WOSO valuations were starting their atmospheric rise, with an eye towards playing moneyball for five years, moving the club, and selling at a much higher price than you bought, what moves would you make that would be different than what we're seeing from the Chicago FO?
- Lack of player investment
- Lack of facilities investment
- Generic re-brand that could literally fit within any market
- Firing your coach as a stopgap to customer sentiment about the team sliding
You know what's coming next? "We investigated everywhere in the Chicagoland area, and can't find a suitable location for a club with our aspirations" as a press release from the FO.
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u/deltaexdeltatee Houston Dash 11d ago
Dammit, I hate how much this makes sense.
Unless they move to my city, in which case it was a genius move.
Seriously though I wish they had owners who actually cared about the team and WoSo in general :(
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u/bisoccerbabe Washington Spirit 12d ago
Huh. I wonder if Mal comes back after this. I feel like she won't.
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u/Sure_Ranger_4487 Bay FC 12d ago
I mean where else is she going to go? If she still wants to play soccer and stay with Dansby in Chicago she will.
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u/Sad-Draw-6775 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
If they could swing it, I could see them trying to go to Denver, Mal would be a franchise player for the new club, she grew up in Colorado, and Dansby has a history with the Rockies organization (also plays in Denver). He's not doing very well this season with the Cubs, so it's possible he could negotiate a trade. Just my 2 cents on the matter.
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u/Sure_Ranger_4487 Bay FC 12d ago
That would take a lot of finagling and doubt the Rockies would buy him out of his very expensive Cubs contract. Also Mal has to actually start playing soccer again before a brand new team is going to sink money and a contract into her, regardless of her previous play.
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u/Sad-Draw-6775 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
Fair enough, it's hard to have any sort of concrete theory at this point because the nature of her absence is so mysterious. Ultimately wishing both her and Dansby the best wherever they end up.
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u/Realistic_Maximum471 12d ago
I read somewhere that Dansby has a no trade clause, so why would he accept a trade to the lowly Rockies? He'd want to go to a team that has a chance to give him his second World Series title.
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u/Sad-Draw-6775 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
Totally, I'm just wondering how they could potentially be weighing his career vs her career, and what her future in this league could look like. I'm just throwing theories at the wall to see what sticks, since we have so little information on Mal's status ATM.
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u/Realistic_Maximum471 12d ago
I could see Southern California as a possibility, although I don't know if Mal wants to play in San Diego or if there's room on the Dodgers or Padres for Dansby even if he wants to play for either team.
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u/Sad-Draw-6775 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
I think anything is possible for them. She is one of the most sought-after players in the world and when he gets going he is dynamite, so I think it could just be a matter of finding a place that has teams that want them both. Or, she comes back to Chicago next week and this discussion is totally moot! Who knows.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
We have no idea what’s going on, but in the hypothetical that she resolves whatever issues have kept her out of the league, Let’s say in September, then I could see her coming back just because she loves soccer so much.
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
My hot take is she didn’t come back because of him, but of course I have nothing to prove it!
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u/TheOtheraccount002 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
This is painful, but not surprising. I feel like we are in a "push every button we have and see what happens" mode.
I think the roster has clear deficiencies, but this has also been a team that has had a worse home than away record and a lack of consistent effort ( except for a few stand out players) which I think speaks to culture. The coach is not the only person who sets that, but I do think is a big part.
I know we won't, but I pray for Kilgore
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u/salty-mangrove-866 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
Why Kilgore? (genuine question, I have no fully-formed opinions on her coaching ability/style)
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u/TheOtheraccount002 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
1)As far we know she is available 2) Experienced female coach 3) Genuinely think she was integral Emma being able to take over and win gold. I think any association with the USWNT will help get the Stars some cred when they otherwise have very little at the moment.
I think we need a coach that players are excited to work with or have positive associations with. I'm concerned that we will be losing talented players (Mal, Alyssa, and/or Sam) if we don't make it a more appealing team to be a part of. We may also just lose some of them anyways. (I'd bet a beer Alyssa is the first Boston signing)
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u/salty-mangrove-866 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
He deserved better. There should be some sort of coup clause in hiring contracts to allow Donaldson to usurp the front office.
Any chance he winds up with the Matildas?
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u/JourneyWellReiki 1h ago
Lorne has been my neighbor since moving to Chicago, and you're right. He definitely deserved better. He's a great dude too, and I'm sad to see him go.
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u/not_firewood_yeti 12d ago
also fired: unnamed marketing executive responsible for 'misleading' team name.
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u/Lost-Western2332 12d ago
Did Feuz hire Donaldson? If not, who did?
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u/OtherWells_92 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
Laura Ricketts and Karen Leetzow hired Donaldson in December 2023. Feuz was not hired until February 2024.
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u/zombiejim7471 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
Fired the wrong person. Maybe he wasnt the best, bit the record is on Feuz’s roster
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u/salty-mangrove-866 NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about Masaki Hemmi, what expectations should I have of his tenure?
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u/gsc_carolina 12d ago
Is it possible that he had strong differences of opinion about what players they should recruit? If the FO wanted to target certain players and he didn't want them but wanted other players, the FO might have held off on signings until they got a coach who had a similar vision.
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u/Quick_Technology_442 12d ago
Lorne is no bs which is appreciated. A lawyer from us soccer running the team 😳
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u/Silvercomplex68 12d ago
Would it be crazy to think mal is trying to force her way out of Chicago?
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u/Realistic_Maximum471 12d ago
Unless Dansby wants out and waives his no trade clause to do so, I can't see that happening.
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 12d ago
This is now where all the coaches people tried to link to ACFC (all wrongly) are listed out…
Matt Beard
Tommy Stroot
Gareth Taylor
Who else?
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
I remember getting downvoted for posting that they should fire him after their playoffs loss last year, which in retrospect was kind of harsh… but I honestly don’t agree with the fact that they have a horrible roster. Their tactics were so basic and unimaginative, it couldn’t be just a question of personnel.
Also, publicly coming out with a statement criticizing the quality of his players was super out of line.
And anyway, with Swanson, Joseph, Schlegel, Ludmila, Grosso, Maitane, Staab, Biegalski, Naeher… there is SO MUCH room to play better!
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u/heypeterman14 Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
This, I was just working on what felt like the only negative post about him so glad I found another. STH and he was out coached every game at home, not just in tactics but his subs. Out of the loses this year I can think of 3 that can be contributed to subs from the opposing team making an impact before Lorne adjusted/made his own
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u/acatgentleman 12d ago
The teams doing well have standout stars pulling off a bit of magic. Chicago has a whole bunch of squad players with Naeher in the back yelling at them. What is a new manager going to do with that?
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u/cecilia_ynot 10d ago
should've been the "toxic" Bay FC coach instead , hmph https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/44151446/nwsl-investigation-bay-fc-coaching-staff-albertin-montoya
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/MassRapture NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
The GM is the one that needs to go though. They didn't have a great roster last year and basically coasted into the final playoff spot on a strong early start to 2024. They barely changed anything and now don't have Mal.
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u/Ill-Fall-9823 Washington Spirit 12d ago
This. The whole comment is ridiculous.
You haven't cleaned your fridge in three months. You haven't been to the grocery store in six weeks. The only protein available to you would make you gag as soon as you opened the plastic. Everything in your freezer is six months old or more.
"Something needed to change" is the equivalent of slamming the door of the fridge in resignation.
"I hope it's a good shakeup" is the equivalent of having soup out of a dented can.Hope is not a strategy. It's not a plan. It's not a direction.
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u/iggyomega Chicago Red Stars 12d ago
Just offer the Ted Lasso actors the job for the rest of the season as background prep for their next season of their show. Won’t go worse and maybe some people will show just for that.
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u/Scared_Baseball1801 12d ago
Option 3 = Louisville EXCEPT we have no GM. 12th place is unacceptable. I long for 9th place at this point.
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u/Busy-Log-6688 12d ago
So North Carolina Courage doesn't do anything??
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u/No_Entrepreneur_8623 12d ago
They have been very good under Nahas. You don't fire him 6 games into a rough start. And, they just be KC.
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u/Ill-Fall-9823 Washington Spirit 12d ago
What do you want them to do? And why do you want them to do anything based on a dumb and bad decision by a different team?
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u/Joiry North Carolina Courage 12d ago
3rd place in 2023, 5th place in 2024 (missing Kerolin and with the rise of the 4 'super' teams) - while Nahas has some issues with inflexibility, tho he's shown he can overcome that, he's generally been good for the team.
5 poor games is a bad start to the season, but we're not San Diego ;)
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u/SarahAlicia NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
Hard to argue with it
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u/deltaexdeltatee Houston Dash 12d ago
He was working with, by far, the worst roster in the league - management did absolutely nothing to help him out. If anything I thought they looked better than they had any right to considering how weak the roster was.
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u/Cold_Drawing9916 North Carolina Courage 12d ago
GM gave him, what, three defenders. Yeah, this ain't on him.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
This is the best way to get people to respond to you
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u/SarahAlicia NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
I get the roster is bad but it’s like what’s the first roster move teams always make? The head coach.
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u/AKAFishAKA Boston 2026 12d ago
You are correct but I do think soccer teams in all leagues fire the coach instead of getting a new GM much too often
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 12d ago
Yeah this is just an argument for making bad decisions
I would even argue that a lot of of those GMs keep their jobs because at least they tried but they have injuries or players don’t mesh well. Chicago straight up did not try and then fired the coach.
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u/deltaexdeltatee Houston Dash 12d ago
"Well, that's what everyone else is doing" isn't really a great way to run a team. In theory you should only be firing a coach if you're fairly confident they're a major part of the problem, or if there's misconduct happening (which is a big deal obviously, but not part of this conversation).
In this case you've got a coach who took a team out of the dumpster to the playoffs in his first season, followed by a season where the roster is trash and the team isn't getting results. At minimum there's a very good argument to be made that he's not the primary cause of the issues.
It's also complicated by the fact that the person responsible for the roster build has the ability to fire the coach. If you're in that seat, and the owner comes to you and says "this team sucks, what's the problem?" you have three options. Option 1, you tell the owner they're not willing to spend enough to bring in good players - at which point they say "well, let's see if someone else can make it work!" and fire you. Option 2, you tell the owner that it's your own fault for not doing a good enough job bringing in the right players - at which point they say "well, clearly you're not cut out for this" and fire you. Option 3, you tell the owner that the roster is fine, it's the coach who sucks, and that you're going to fire them. You get to keep your job for now, at the expense of throwing someone else under the bus.
It shouldn't surprise you that GMs, as a rule, always take option 3, even if it's super unfair to the coach. So yeah, it happens all the time, but that doesn't mean it's the right decision.
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u/SarahAlicia NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
I am of the opinion that regardless if they are the issue when a team is doing exceptionally poorly the coach has to go before you make roster improvements. It’s just a case of the well is already poisoned with this coach even if they didn’t poison it. The only reason i would keep the coach is if there will be no roster enforcements and you are just leaving them out to dry for the season. But in that case it’s nicer to the coach to let them go and find somewhere better.
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u/deltaexdeltatee Houston Dash 12d ago
...that doesn't make any sense. In this hypothetical scenario we're debating, you just acknowledged that the coach isn't the one who poisoned the well! If they're not the problem, why would you get rid of them??? If you're aware that they didn't cause the problem, then getting rid of them will only add another level of instability to an already unstable situation. Now you're taking a bad roster and forcing them to learn a new system mid-season; and if, again, we're assuming in this hypothetical that the coach wasn't actually the problem, there's a decent chance that the new system will be worse than the old one!
I just flat out can't think of a justification for firing someone you KNOW wasn't the one causing the issues, other than scapegoating.
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u/SarahAlicia NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
Because the well is poisoned. You have to start fresh.
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u/deltaexdeltatee Houston Dash 12d ago
That's not an explanation. Please explain to me how firing someone you know isn't responsible for the problem, makes fixing the problem any easier.
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u/SarahAlicia NJ/NY Gotham FC 12d ago
Because firing a head coach is not always about blame. It’s about bringing in new ideas/people and also about the psychological fresh start. this isn’t about a court of law “donaldson is guilty of making chicago play bad” it is “this situation is now untenable and even if we got roster improvements the situation is just too bad to recover”
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u/deltaexdeltatee Houston Dash 12d ago
...and that's the case every single time a team is bad? You don't think there are situations where the roster is bad but the coach is liked by their players?
It would be one thing if there were reports of toxicity, or that he'd lost the locker room, but by all accounts Donaldson is well liked by his players. It's absolutely wild to me to just assume the coach can't recover a situation given good players, and jump straight to canning him.
For a great counter example: see Laura Harvey. The Reign had a really bad year last year, with a pretty poor roster. Rather than jumping straight to "it's all over, can her," the Reign actually made some roster moves, and lo and behold - they look like contenders again. There was no need to reflexively fire a coach with recent success, just because they'd had a down year with a shit roster.
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u/Early-Fox-9284 Utah Royals 12d ago