Is there an “Old Boys” network in US Soccer?

With the recent hiring of Gregg Berhalter, the “process” of hiring a head coach has come under scrutiny. The word nepotism has been bandied about and at the very least the federation has come off as tone deaf in the way the search was dealt with. We get it…you were thorough. If the Trinidad and Tobago federation had hired the C.O.O.’s brother I would certainly assume some things.

That leads us into something that has always bothered me.  It seemed like when a job would open up on the national team or in the US youth ranks the same guys kept getting jobs (Richie Williams, John Hackworth, etc.).

So my question is: Am I just a paranoid soccer nerd or is there an Old Boys Network? Let’s see…

This is an alphabetical list of all the head and assistant coaches that I could find since 1998. (Side note – it’s weirdly difficult to find info on assistant coaches prior to 2002)

The task at this point was to figure out all the places these guys intersected. Playing together, coaching together, coach-player, etc. There was A LOT of intersection.

The challenge was figuring out how to display it (If anyone has a better idea feel free to suggest). Here is a map of the US with pins put in for each (major) stop in each coaches’ playing and/or coaching career. (FYI – the letters/numbers on the pins don’t mean anything. The software I used just puts them on there when you drop a pin.)

*I did not put in multiple pins in the same location for someone like Matt Reis who went to school at UCLA and then played and coached for the Galaxy. One pin represents all three of those career stops.*

That is a little hard to read. So here are the zoomed in versions. California first and then the East Coast:

One other thought I had about displaying the results was a sort of “Relationship Web” and I will show that here. However, I gave up on it after a while because it was a confusing mess (and I would have had to draw a thousand more lines), but it does give you an idea of how much overlap there is.

*Also, in the process of writing this I discovered a much cooler version of this web on the MLS website. It’s not USMNT specific, its an MLS thing and it’s a couple years old, but way better.*

So what does this tell us, if anything? First item of note is that if you want a position on the USMNT staff you’d better have played or coached in the LA, NY/NJ, or DC areas. Second takeaway is that Bruce Arena (and to a lesser extent Bob Bradley) is the sun that the planets in this network revolve around. Thirdly, one and two mean the same thing. Those locations are the non-USMNT coaching stops of Bruce’s career.

Bruce had four major coaching stops during his career, excluding the USMNT job. He was at the University of Virginia from 1978-1995, DC United from 1996-1998, NY Red Bulls from 2006-2008, and the LA Galaxy from 2008-2016. The major clusters on the map are all in these areas. The only “clusters” that don’t follow this trend are in Chicago and Columbus (Bradley and Berhalter).

This also shows that Jurgen Klinsmann was a near total outsider.  A couple guys on his staff (Williams, Ramos) were well-connected, but Klinsmann himself had few, if any connections in American soccer and his staff was much more outsider than has been the norm.

That these coaches all know/work with each other frequently isn’t really in question. Let’s be honest here…how did you get the job you are currently in? Upwards of 70% of jobs are found through “networking” according to US News and World Report and over 20% of men end up working in/for their father’s company by the time they’re 30. On top of this US Soccer is a small pond compared to other countries (England, Holland, Germany, etc.) where most of the population loves soccer and more than likely has played or coached at some level, so most top level coaches probably know each other. It is only natural that if you are in charge of hiring, you will hire people you judge to be good at their job, you get along with, and are qualified. In a perfect world the US Soccer Federation would simply try to hire the best coach regardless of pre-existing relationships, but alas that is not the world we live in.

A word on Gregg Berhalter :

While he is certainly connected and his career has intersected with many of the coaches/players on this list, he is also much more cosmopolitan than almost everyone else in this group. His playing and coaching career took him to Holland, Germany, England, and Sweden. The coaching staff he has assembled also includes no real retreads. Josh Wolff played for Bradley in Chicago and for Arena and Bradley with the USMNT, but he is a new coach. Interestingly, Wolff also played on the same 1860 Munich team as Berhalter from 06-08. It seems likely that this is where they formed the bond that has enabled them to work so well together. Nico Estevez, BJ Callaghan, and Darcy Norman (Berhalter’s recently announced staff) are also from outside the usual coaching tree.

So does the Old Boy Network exist? Yeah…but not much more so than it does in most professions all over the world. Arena and Bradley are the two best, most successful coaches in US Soccer history. That the coaching landscape in the US is littered with their “offspring” is not unusual or surprising. MLS is a much bigger world now and the influx of foreign coaching talent seems very likely to end up influencing the national team in the near-ish future. As much as we can appreciate the success (at least domestically) of Arena and Bradley, the diversifying of the American soccer coaching landscape would be a good thing.

The hiring of Berhalter is a step in that direction. He hasn’t coached a game yet. He’s done a couple good interviews where he was open, honest, and (hallelujah) willing to talk tactics. I’m hopeful that even though the federation still seems secretive, tone deaf, and sometimes even corrupt/incompetent, they got this hiring right. I sure hope so.