Jill Ellis
With the dismissal of Juergen Klinsmann from the U.S. Men’s National Team, US Soccer must find a replacement soon beyond the interim. While it will more than likely be Bruce Arena will get the nod should the Men’s team look to their successful counterpart Jill Ellis to coach the U.S. Men’s National Team?
A woman coaching men? We can’t allow that to happen. A man coaching women? Well duh, who else is going to teach them to be good at sports (sarcasm)?
Let’s look at Jill Ellis’s career before we judge her:
As an assistant and head coach on the college-level from 1988-2010 she was constantly a part of title contenders including a dominating run as UCLA’s head coach where she went to eight-Final Four’s and six-straight Pac-10 titles. Going 229-45-14 (W-L-D) at UCLA and 248-63-14 overall as a head coach in the NCAA.
She would move on to help in one area the men’s national team failed to invest in, youth development. She became the National Youth Team’s Manager, where she led the U-21 teams to numerous international titles, and went on to be the National Development Director. A move that clearly has paid off given the amount of talent the U.S. Women’s team keeps calling upon year after year.
Now that all sounds great. She can develop talent and coach young people, but can she coach on the national level? Well a 53-3-11 record would say yes. Ellis would command the helm for the Women’s team since April 2014. Ellis then went on to win a World Cup in 2015 in dominant fashion beating Japan 5-2 in the finals, and go on to win a silver in the Olympics in 2016.
Unlike Klinsmann, Ellis could deal with top talents issues like Hope Solo’s temper, Abby Wambach’s retirement, and for a time Alex Morgan when she was injured and wanted her spot back. Ellis knew what depth she had developed and made it work. She even moved a top talent in Julie Johnson to defense because she knew it’d help the team go on this impressive run under Ellis. Ellis took the ego out of the individual and made it a team ego.
Now could that translate to the men’s team? Who knows. Will it happen? probable not.
But in some capacity I believe the men’s team, whoever is at the helm, needs to mimic the women’s side and take strong advice from Ellis on how to create a World Cup threat, not just an average at best squad.
As always send your love/hate towards @scottcriscione on Twitter.
