Coach Thomas Rongen's shaky status
Brent Latham
ESPN Insider
Second-guessing the coach has become a favorite pastime for followers of American national teams. Almost every match brings out the detractors, be it for Bob Bradley or coaches at lower levels of the soccer structure.
It's usually just idle chatter, but last week, Thomas Rongen, the coach of the under-20 national team, gave those who like to speculate about such things some real talking points. The disastrous failure of the American team to qualify for the 2011 U-20 World Cup left plenty of questions as to whether Rongen's long spell with the U.S. should be over.
Certainly, the team fell well short of its potential, but there were plenty of explanations for the underperformance. The coach himself described the squad as one of the most talented and deep American U-20 teams ever assembled, but in Guatemala, Rongen was missing a number of important contributors and a couple more fell to injury during the tournament. So the team that lost a do-or-die qualification match to the host country with a World Cup bid on the line was far from full strength.
<OFFER>Given those circumstances, it's easy to see why federation president Sunil Gulati's initial response has been a wait-and-see approach, backed by a reasonable decision to not judge a program, or its coach, on one match.
Gulati knows as well as anyone that Rongen is very good at some important parts of his job. Of late, the Dutchman has been hugely successful at finding and recruiting American players spread around the globe. And almost all of Rongen's players say that he is a pleasure to play for -- a pretty rare quality, which shouldn't be underrated at the youth level.
The casual approach to addressing the coach's job status would make complete sense -- if the result in Guatemala were an isolated one. But a careful review of the U.S. U-20 program suggests that when it comes time to put a team on the field, Rongen can be accused of poor personnel decisions and subpar game management as often as not.
Where the failed 2011 qualifiers are concerned, the coach could have done plenty to improve the team's chances of taking a positive result from the tough set of circumstances it faced. Rongen's personnel decisions, on match day and before the tournament ever kicked off, instead opened the door to disaster.
The opportunities for second-guessing are numerous. Midfielder Dillon Powers was brought along, despite carrying a long-term injury that made him of no use to the team (he saw no action at all). Forward Bobby Wood had also been carrying a knock coming into the tournament, an injury which worsened in Guatemala and ruled him out of the decisive quarterfinal clash. When Eder Arreola went down late in a meaningless group match against Panama, the coach's decision to include eight defenders -- he used only six in three games -- and just five forwards came back to bite him. In the meantime, relatively experienced MLSers Jack McInerney and Tristan Bowen, for example, were back in the U.S., rather than available to fill the need on the wings.
Facing those self-created issues, Rongen probably made matters even worse by not choosing his ideal team against the slow and undersized, but hard-nosed Guatemalans. Paceless defender Greg Garza was planted in an unfamiliar position on the left wing, ruining Rongen's professed strategy of deploying a shifting, fluid four-man attack to keep the opposing defense off-balance. The coach could have maintained that dynamic by shifting attacker Kelyn Rowe to a wing and sliding Sebastian Lletget up into a more forward role in the middle. Instead, what should have been a physically overwhelmed Guatemala defense had little trouble locking down the static American attack.
In fact, the Guatemalans in general had little trouble doing what they wanted on the night. Unarguably short of the Americans on talent -- Guatemala's only foreign legionnaire plays in the Brazilian third division -- the Central Americans out-strategized the U.S. from the opening whistle. Witness the first goal, on which the Guatemalan coaches exploited a defensive weakness they noticed on film. With most of the American defense facing the wrong way as they found their marks, a quick corner found a 5-foot-8 forward alone in front of goal, completely unmarked among a group of much taller American defenders.
For all his success at teaching tactics, it's not the first time Rongen has been outprepared for an important game. The 2009 World Cup campaign was plagued by similar selection and tactical problems, from questionable choices in midfield for the opening match against a German team laden with Bundesliga reserves, to a disaster in the final group match in which the U.S. was trounced by South Korea when a tie or even a narrow loss would have meant advancing.
In short, the failures are adding up. To Rongen's credit are World Cup quarterfinal runs back in 2003 and 2007, but those now seem like distant memories after the more recent debacles.
In the end, the USSF higher-ups will have to weigh the relative importance of recruiting, relationships and the nebulous concept of player development, versus results. While Rongen's expertise seems to include everything but winning, it could also be argued that nothing could be better for the rest of those categories than qualifying for World Cups and getting results there. There aren't many better ways to improve player development than getting more players into top clubs worldwide, and a stellar performance at a U-20 World Cup -- which helps individuals but can also boost overall demand for players of a certain nationality -- is one of the best ways to do that quickly.
That won't happen this year, though, and it's yet to be seen if Rongen will get another cycle to try again. With all his experience, the veteran coach should certainly keep some role in U.S. soccer, maybe that of scout or ambassador. But if the federation values match results as much as it should at the U-20 level, a change at the helm is probably necessary. Whatever the decision, it will come from looking at the big picture, not just one match.
Brent Latham
ESPN Insider
Second-guessing the coach has become a favorite pastime for followers of American national teams. Almost every match brings out the detractors, be it for Bob Bradley or coaches at lower levels of the soccer structure.
It's usually just idle chatter, but last week, Thomas Rongen, the coach of the under-20 national team, gave those who like to speculate about such things some real talking points. The disastrous failure of the American team to qualify for the 2011 U-20 World Cup left plenty of questions as to whether Rongen's long spell with the U.S. should be over.
Certainly, the team fell well short of its potential, but there were plenty of explanations for the underperformance. The coach himself described the squad as one of the most talented and deep American U-20 teams ever assembled, but in Guatemala, Rongen was missing a number of important contributors and a couple more fell to injury during the tournament. So the team that lost a do-or-die qualification match to the host country with a World Cup bid on the line was far from full strength.
<OFFER>Given those circumstances, it's easy to see why federation president Sunil Gulati's initial response has been a wait-and-see approach, backed by a reasonable decision to not judge a program, or its coach, on one match.
Gulati knows as well as anyone that Rongen is very good at some important parts of his job. Of late, the Dutchman has been hugely successful at finding and recruiting American players spread around the globe. And almost all of Rongen's players say that he is a pleasure to play for -- a pretty rare quality, which shouldn't be underrated at the youth level.
The casual approach to addressing the coach's job status would make complete sense -- if the result in Guatemala were an isolated one. But a careful review of the U.S. U-20 program suggests that when it comes time to put a team on the field, Rongen can be accused of poor personnel decisions and subpar game management as often as not.
Where the failed 2011 qualifiers are concerned, the coach could have done plenty to improve the team's chances of taking a positive result from the tough set of circumstances it faced. Rongen's personnel decisions, on match day and before the tournament ever kicked off, instead opened the door to disaster.
The opportunities for second-guessing are numerous. Midfielder Dillon Powers was brought along, despite carrying a long-term injury that made him of no use to the team (he saw no action at all). Forward Bobby Wood had also been carrying a knock coming into the tournament, an injury which worsened in Guatemala and ruled him out of the decisive quarterfinal clash. When Eder Arreola went down late in a meaningless group match against Panama, the coach's decision to include eight defenders -- he used only six in three games -- and just five forwards came back to bite him. In the meantime, relatively experienced MLSers Jack McInerney and Tristan Bowen, for example, were back in the U.S., rather than available to fill the need on the wings.
Facing those self-created issues, Rongen probably made matters even worse by not choosing his ideal team against the slow and undersized, but hard-nosed Guatemalans. Paceless defender Greg Garza was planted in an unfamiliar position on the left wing, ruining Rongen's professed strategy of deploying a shifting, fluid four-man attack to keep the opposing defense off-balance. The coach could have maintained that dynamic by shifting attacker Kelyn Rowe to a wing and sliding Sebastian Lletget up into a more forward role in the middle. Instead, what should have been a physically overwhelmed Guatemala defense had little trouble locking down the static American attack.
In fact, the Guatemalans in general had little trouble doing what they wanted on the night. Unarguably short of the Americans on talent -- Guatemala's only foreign legionnaire plays in the Brazilian third division -- the Central Americans out-strategized the U.S. from the opening whistle. Witness the first goal, on which the Guatemalan coaches exploited a defensive weakness they noticed on film. With most of the American defense facing the wrong way as they found their marks, a quick corner found a 5-foot-8 forward alone in front of goal, completely unmarked among a group of much taller American defenders.
For all his success at teaching tactics, it's not the first time Rongen has been outprepared for an important game. The 2009 World Cup campaign was plagued by similar selection and tactical problems, from questionable choices in midfield for the opening match against a German team laden with Bundesliga reserves, to a disaster in the final group match in which the U.S. was trounced by South Korea when a tie or even a narrow loss would have meant advancing.
In short, the failures are adding up. To Rongen's credit are World Cup quarterfinal runs back in 2003 and 2007, but those now seem like distant memories after the more recent debacles.
In the end, the USSF higher-ups will have to weigh the relative importance of recruiting, relationships and the nebulous concept of player development, versus results. While Rongen's expertise seems to include everything but winning, it could also be argued that nothing could be better for the rest of those categories than qualifying for World Cups and getting results there. There aren't many better ways to improve player development than getting more players into top clubs worldwide, and a stellar performance at a U-20 World Cup -- which helps individuals but can also boost overall demand for players of a certain nationality -- is one of the best ways to do that quickly.
That won't happen this year, though, and it's yet to be seen if Rongen will get another cycle to try again. With all his experience, the veteran coach should certainly keep some role in U.S. soccer, maybe that of scout or ambassador. But if the federation values match results as much as it should at the U-20 level, a change at the helm is probably necessary. Whatever the decision, it will come from looking at the big picture, not just one match.
