Sunil's Technical Director...hmmm...

"'We will bring on a technical director to work with (national coach) Bob (Bradley),' [U.S. Soccer Federation President Sunil] Gulati told Reuters."

"'There's a reasonable chance that would be an international coach, not because I necessarily think they're better but because he'll bring something different to the mix.'"


While the rest of that article goes on to talk about Gulati's preference for a Hispanic coach to connect with America's growing Hispanic population - oh, hell, call it what they call it, growing Hispanic market - it's the second passage that has me thinking conspiratorially. Given the success enjoyed by both U.S. Soccer and MLS with "reaching out" to the Hispanic community, that stinks like a red herring.

And this could go a number of ways: do they want a second banana for Bradley in the same way Gerard Houllier once played second banana to Roy Evans at Liverpool? Is this a slow-moving coup to buy Gulati more time to get his (wet-) dream national team coach? (Hell, will it be Houllier?) Could it be Gulati found a candidate who balked at risking his reputation on coaching an American team? This way, Bradley takes the hit if and when we fail, leaving the technical director free to meddle while in the steam room while he's around, but jump ship when it starts sinking.

Anyway, those are a couple of the things I thought upon seeing this article...should have posted this on Big Soccer...conspiracies seem to do all right over there.

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