Originally posted by Unregistered
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MJ left clubs in Utah and Oregon under clouds and sometimes damaged clubs' finances and reputation before or when leaving. There are coaches/directors who leave clubs and don't do that. There are also parents on this forum who have left jobs without doing damage to their former employers before or after leaving.
They recruit heavily with pre-canned GPS materials. Use to have an issue with that, don't anymore (ECNL, DA have changed traditional clubs approach to recruiting), but certainly was something different for traditional neighborhood clubs to deal with. In this sense you are correct; old guard felt threatened; for better or worse they need to get with the modern game or become a dinosaur.
Their players are technical, but boy do many of their teams play ineffective soccer. There seems to be something missing as to "when" to do some of those moves and what to do afterwards. Not going to get into tactical specifics, but I actually think some of their teams play out of the back very ineffectively. Have heard our DOC (yes part of the old guard) critique that they only seem to focus on 1 or 2 attributes of players and are not developing well-rounded players; watching some of their teams play I think he is right, unless that is what comes next in their development. Wish my kid had as pretty a pullback as some of their players though.
The irony for clubs like GPS and ADF is that the advantage they have when only a team or 2 - super focused, lots of attention from the main guy - gets really, really difficult the larger you get. If you are successful in getting teams, boom, you have a much harder time in maintaining quality (can't coach all of the teams, have to manage and develop other coaches, much less find fields) and pretty soon you are working through the same muck as larger clubs, but without the infrastructure to do it.
When GPS came into Oregon, really didn't like them; now don't care if they stay or go, but I actually think the "stress" they create in traditional clubs can be a good thing and they are a good outlet for people who feel underserved in bigger clubs (and sometimes the bigger clubs deserve to lose those families). Keeps the traditional clubs on their toes and maybe helps groups of parents figure out what they really want the sport: whether they end up trying a GPS/ADF or stay in a traditional club and try to make it better.
As for the stuff out of the past - should there be a statute of limitations on how long that stuff hangs over someone? Maybe. Maybe the stuff in Utah, THUSC, and BSC is all irrelevant now and maybe the guy is just fundamentally an entrepreneur that should work in small setting not big clubs; just doesn't make it "untrue".
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