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I know this may seem harsh, as Luchi has not had a chance to coach the team this season with all three DPs, now that the Quakes finally signed Hernan Lopez Munoz (HLM), but the team must make a change right away. This is not just to try and salvage the season, which is the worst start in team history. This is to avoid the mentality of the players falling further into the abyss, to show the fans the team does have standards and minimum expectations, and to protect against losing crucial players this upcoming offseason. I will explain more below.
The reason to move on is not just down to a bad start to this season. SJ have been horrific under Luchi for the past full year. In 2023, Luchi consistently made very timid sub decisions to try and protect a result rather than showing the players he believes in them to go out and win a game. When SJ were able to play on the front foot, it is more an issue when the opponent decides to sit back and allow SJ to come at them. A couple examples of this are the late season 2023 home game against Nashville, where a draw suited them just fine and they had a stout defense that was very difficult to break down. A more recent example is the last game at Carson, where the Galaxy were up 3 midway through the second half and geared down by taking key players off.
I want to delve deeper into the team performances under Luchi. Many fans were thrilled the team made the playoffs in 2023 after a terrible 2022 full of turmoil. In fact, 2023 started out great under Luchi for the first third of the season. Over the first 11 games the team won 5 games, had 18 points and had a +1 GD. The problem is what the results were like after that. Over the remaining 23 games the team had just 26 more points, a big drop. There were only 5 wins in the last 23 games, only 1 of those wins were in the final stretch of 10 games. When SJ played a home game in the season finale against an already eliminated Austin, Luchi decided to play for the draw when he heard the other results. A home win would have given SJ much better playoff seeding but Luchi’s default mentality about being more afraid to lose than wanting to win reared its ugly head yet again.
Next I want to look at the road record under Luchi. In 17 away games in 2023 SJ had only 2 wins. A win at Seattle and one at Vancouver. Both games were textbook examples of a smash and grab road win. Quakes were thoroughly outplayed in both games, got a lucky goal and held on to the clean sheet to get a win. Luchi is now at 0.61 points per game (PPG) away from home. For context, that is worse than Stahre who coached SJ to our worst season ever in 2018. The Quakes have just 2 wins, 13 losses and 8 draws in away games under Luchi.
Since I am comparing Luchi to the other coaches, let’s go much deeper into that. I will focus only on those coaches SJ have had since returning in 2008, and will exclude Ian Russell and Steve Ralston as they were mere caretaker interim coaches after Mark Watson and Mikael Stahre were fired. Luchi ranks as the second worst coach SJ have had since 2008 in PPG and win percentage, ahead of only Stahre. To emphasize that point, Alex Covelo took over the team after Almeyda was let go 7 games into the 2022 season. He had no preseason, a demonstrably worse roster than Luchi and had never been a head coach anywhere near this level, yet Covelo has a better PPG and win % than Luchi. Covelo, with no preseason and a similar or worse roster had Jeremy Ebobisse score 17 goals in 2022. That dropped to 10 goals in 2023 under Luchi. This will be crucial later.
On a recent Aftershock podcast, Jamon made a point about the club bristling about how they are seen as not spending any money after breaking the club record transfer fees two seasons in a row as well as the $50M the club will be spending on the new training facility. I do think it is important to note the $3M for Gruezo and now $6M for HLM are still pretty low numbers compared to most other clubs record signings. I know the Colorado record is just $3M and I doubt any other clubs are below us in that list. If the club wants credit for spending money and trying to win, they need to now spend more and buy out the rest of Luchi’s contract. A failure to do so will only show the fans that Fisher is still too cheap to do what needs to be done. This was supposed to be a 50 year anniversary celebration. It has turned into the worst season in SJ history in MLS. The team talked about making the playoffs in 2023 as a stepping stone toward being competitive. That turned out to be a lucky result in a down year in the West.
Finishing off my points about why now, I want to look at the roster and the team future. Ebobisse is under contract only through the end of this season. He will be a free agent and can choose wherever he wants to play next year. He competed in two MLS Cup finals for Portland and was part of their winning the MLS Is Back tournament. While many may think JeBo is easily replaceable, please read and think about the following. JeBo is a domestic starting striker who has scored in double digits each of the past two seasons and very likely to make it three. To replace that production would be very expensive and almost certainly require the team to use an International roster spot and a $8M or more transfer fee to get similar or better production. Covelo got a lot of goals from Jebo, Luchi is unable to do it. SJ have a unique advantage in having a non DP and domestic player as a quality starting striker. We all celebrated Wondo when he scored double digit goals year after year. Why would we not feel the same about JeBo? Also, this decision to remove Luchi is not just about the impact on potentially keeping JeBo. The players are being shown the team accepts losing. The longer Luchi is in charge of the team the deeper the losing mentality sinks in and the tougher it will be to turn things around.
The time is now. Fisher, Leitch and everyone at the club need to step up and show the fans that the club has standards and will hold people accountable. No other team would keep a coach with only 2 wins in the past 20 games. It is unacceptable to fail to act with so much at stake.
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Sure: who is your replacement? Given the new player coming in, you only make this move if you've got someone better in mind, so name 'em.
I would just name Ian Russell interim for the rest of the season
Ian Russell. Period. Already there. Knows the players and the limitations of the front office. Has the CV. Worth the shot.
Ian Russell. He had great success in his four seasons coaching Reno. He has been an MLS assistant since 2008. His teams not only win a lot (just over 50% which is damn good) but they win while scoring a lot of goals. He has been on MLS coaching staffs to get a lot of experience seeing different tactical set ups and ways of managing players. He was who I wanted the club to hire after Almeyda left. He is on Luchi’s staff and would know the players skills, strengths and mentality better than anyone.
I’m glad you pointed out losing mentality in particular.
His strategy to play for draws in playoff implicating scenarios showed me all I needed to see with him.
Flashbacks to the last game of last(?) season where we could have avoided the first playoff round with a win at home. We played for a tie, even when the results around the league favored us to go for a win since a draw/loss didn’t negatively hurt us.
Luchi’s win% is fuckin 22.92%, that’s terrible! His win % ant Dallas isn’t that much better, it’s 33.33 - he went from winning 1 in 3 games to winning 1 in 5. Pathetic. Ian Russell wins 1 in 2, if it happens it would be a huge boost.
Also I just realized that Ian played for the Sounders, and the Sounders are also in major crisis mode. I wonder if he’ll be approached by them, and signs as a replacement for Schmetzer. That’s the kind of shit I’m expecting from the Quakes now. This 101% speculation but that’s the vibe now. Musovski is actually playing pretty well for them.
I hear you. 2 wins in 20 games is hard to justify.
I will say that I have hopes for the team with HLM. We have had a huge offensive deficiency in the midfield. But that is not enough, we need a change of team stance for success.
I agree with most of your analysis, and my opinion of Luchi has also been steadily declining, but I think we should wait a bit and see if things get better once Hernan Lopez Munoz arrives. Having the turmoil of a coaching change while trying to work our new DP into the lineup may be counterproductive and may worsen team morale. If results don't improve pretty quickly after Lopez's arrival, then I agree with you, but I think we need to wait and see if Lopez helps turn things around before advocating for a new coach.
Very fair points.
To me, it would make more sense to do it now as there is already going to be adjustments integrating HLM into the team. Why start him down one path that we all know is going to dead end quite soon? The players do not look like they are confident in Luchi’s tactics and I truly think he has been holding the team back for roughly a year.
I do not expect the team makes the change now, but I think they should very soon at the latest.
Yeah, it's unlikely things will significantly improve just because of one big signing, but I am (maybe foolishly) holding onto a little bit of hope. Our central midfield really has been our core weakness. I like Niko, but he is not yet consistent enough to be a high level starting #10. Maybe if Lopez fits in quickly, Wilson gets healthy, and Rodrigues stays healthy, the team can thrive in spite of Luchi's cautious tactics
There's what someone thinks *should* happen and then there's what *will* happen. I doubt that it will happen this season, sorry. And, sorry again, but he may very well be the coach in 2025 also. Reasons are:
Style points notwithstanding, we made the playoffs last year, which is considered a success by Quakes low-bar standards. Even if we have a down year this year (almost certain), last year's success gives Luchi a "1-1 record" and Leitch could even give him one more year as a sort of "rubber year" to break the tie. Assuming we have some kind of better 2nd 2/3's of the season, Leitch may view it as an "upswing" and want to see if it continues next year rather than to break the "momentum".
Leitch knows that he did not (until just recently) get Luchi the DP attacker that we badly needed this season.
Luchi is Leitch's hand-picked coach. If he fires Luchi after just over a season, it reflects as badly on CL as it does on Luchi, and it could even put CL's job in jeopardy.
Fish is not going to be in the mood to eat another coach's salary just after spending a "by far" record transfer fee for a player. If Leitch walks into Fish's office with that proposal, he might walk out with his own pink slip. Kind of a deterrent...
Leitch knows that, by many measures, we are not as bad as our record indicates, and assuming our results even out a little bit (they'd almost have to) that will only serve to reinforce that belief.
All great points and I could definitely see the club doing exactly what you outline. I also think that will set the club up for having to spend a lot in the offseason to go get a new striker, far more than it would cost to buy out Luchi. The losing mentality has really taken over. Players will not want to play here. So now Leitch would have to overpay to get players in SJ or go for bargain MLS free agents who want a last payday.
2 wins in his last 20 games as head coach. That is on the precipice of matching Stahre who won only 4 games in 2018, SJ worst season ever.
I'm not a big fan, but I'm not as down on Luchi as a coach as lot of people. He's a "tactical flexibility" guy who will adjust tactics by game state and opponent, like Dom, vs. a dogmatic guy like Almeyda or even Covelo, who will stick pretty hard to a particularly style of play. I actually prefer the dogmatic approach, but all depends on what the style is. Wilfried Nancy is the best successful example of the "dogmatic" approach in MLS right now.
But in terms of the tactical flexibility approach I think Luchi does OK. We high press a fair amount, we mid-block OK. We could play faster on offensive transitions - a recurring issue with the Quakes for *years* (Hernán should help), and we sit back too much / early to protect leads. But iMO there is nothing really bad about the tactics.
The really poor win % and the "lack of wins since" are valid points but I think we have to take the biggest sample size we have of Luchi, and although wins are super important in MLS, it's points that matter in the end, and the fact is that we made the playoffs last year - his first year with the team, and that should count for something.
I'm always a bit skeptical of the "no one wants to play here" narrative. I don't think intl players look that hard at a team's place in the standings and care that much. I think the coach is a factor, the location somewhat, and of course the money is important. Besides there are just a few teams in MLS that are sort of "perennial winners". Having Hernán on the team will also help. If you're a forward you'd want to have a guy like that unbalancing the defense and feeding you the ball. Hernán may seem like an overpay but OTOH the Gals paid ~$10M transfer for a similar young Argentinian attacking player, Pec. Hernán and Pec are 2 of the 3 young attacking Argentinians mentioned here:
https://totalfootballanalysis.com/article/scouting-south-america-finding-the-continents-most-creative-young-players-using-data
If I were Leitch my first "buyout" priority in the offseason would be Carlos Gruezo. They will probably not do it, but if they did, it'd free up a DP slot, ~$1.7M in salary, and for really very little cost to the value of the squad as he has only been serviceable if that. If we turned that DP slot around, we could have 3 strong DPs, which is what we need to move up the table.
Finally, I think it's really helpful to have a Spanish-English bilingual coach right now as Hernán comes on board. I think it's important that he feels comfortable here. I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming that, like Espinoza and Almeyda, he doesn't speak much English if any.
Fantastic response, and a couple points you make are crucial IMO. First, we are way too slow moving the ball upfield. Gruezo and Yueill are quite ponderous rather than quick and proactive. Second, I agree about bilingual coaches and strongly prefer them. One of the assistant coaches, Luciano, is a native Spanish speaker. I have no idea if Ian speaks Spanish and to what degree.
To your point about taking the points under Luchi in totality rather than a smaller and recent sample size, that actually strengthens my view. Luchi is at 1.09 PPG over his entire time with SJ. Only coach that was worse was Stahre. Covelo, Watson, Kinnear, Leitch, Almeyda and Yallop all far better than Luchi. If we multiply Luchi’s 1.09 PPG over a full season of 34 games the club would finish with 37 points which is nowhere near a playoff spot. And over Luchi’s last 34 games as coach the team has 33 points. By any measure, the results under Luchi are more than bad enough to make a change. By not making a change the club is, in my opinion, showing there is a lack of accountability and ambition that permeates the club. The players know just how bad the results are and if nobody is held accountable why would they expect to do anything other than continue to lose. The winning mentality a club needs to have has been sucked out of every cell of everyone associated with the soccer side of the club.
And I wish the club were ambitious enough to buy out Gruezo. But I don’t expect Fisher to approve the $1.7M buyout and then also approve the transfer fee that it would take to get another DP. I would be interested to see if a coaching change could get more out of Gruezo. One would think he would be at his best with Luchi, a coach he already knew, so that seems pretty unlikely to be how to get Gruezo playing better.
Fair point about Luchi's overall PPG. My only counterpoint to that is that we did make the playoffs last year, as I say, style points notwithstanding. So that PPG was good enough by the Quakes low standards of making the playoffs. It's this year that's really dragging Luchi's PPG down to pretty terrible levels. And he's been operating this year w/o a key piece to the team. So given last year's "success" and this year operating somewhat with one hand tied behind his back, I think it's fair to see how he does with Hernán added to the club.
If we continue our current form or even close to it through the end of the season, with Hernán available most games, and assuming he's not a dud (doubtful), then I think a coaching change is warranted. As far as losing mentality goes, I think this situation is different than the Stahre situation, because we were bad virtually the whole time with Stahre whereas with Luchi we were good enough to make the playoffs last year. Also, I don't get any sense of "losing the locker room" with Luchi. I think he's level-headed and says the right things, and I don't think it's devolved into finger-pointing. And the last 2 games have shown that the Quakes can fight back and get back into games when things don't go their way.
As for Gruezo, I think he is what he is unfortunately. That is partly on Luchi because I would guess he was the impetus behind that acquisition, and at least in hindsight, it was poor judgment. I don't know if Gruezo got worse since the Dallas days or if the league got better or what, but we badly overpaid for him and it's just a deal that should have never been done.
They really should be firing both at once asap. If they need to, as much as it will suck, sell Daniel and Christian this summer to fund it:
I don't really have faith in Luchi to turn this thing around but I also don't have faith in this FO to get "The Guy" so... welp.
I think it is very revealing that the four worst coaches on a PPG basis the club has had since the 2008 return are the last four coaches the Quakes have had. To me, that shows the league really moved well beyond the SJ spend model at the time and the coaches were not up to the task of getting the most out of the roster they had.
Or, it shows the coaches aren't necessarily the real problem.
This is the only stop in Matias Almeyda's career where he didn't win anything. He's already won a double in Greece. I know by the end he was unhappy with the club and clearly mailing it in, but we sure look like the common denominator.
The hot stretch in his first season with SJ was freaking magic. Then an odd second season (pandemic, stop/start schedule) tough to really evaluate. Third season was bad and that is when it looked like he did not care. Lost his dad and then his main assistant had a stroke. Then the first 7 games of 2022 were an insult to the players, club and fans.
Had Almeyda allowed Jesse F to go out and get the best players he could find for $900k/year rather than go get his buddies I wonder how things could have gone.
Bad thing in replacing this coach, similar to alemyda, is these are now his players. A new coach may like the starting pieces, or may just revamp the team again
If the club appoints Ian Russell he knows all the players. Also, guys like Pellegrino, HLM, Wilson, Costa and Morales just got here and I am sure they would like to play for a coach that motivates the team and believes they can win.
I agree but I also think it’s a hard sell. I think Ian Russel should ultimately end up as our coach at some point. I’d just rather him not inherit someone else’s dumpster fire and never have a fair chance. But that’s sometimes the call you get.
But Leitch gets a free pass? Are the quakes the lowest spending team in the league? No! Leitch has been a part of every single losing season this team has had
Quakes are dynamic on the ball, Ebobisse is ass at this point, so hopefully Judd's work-rate can do enough. With Pel, Espinoza, Lopez we should start picking up points.
Important update:
With the MLS press release listing player contract length and options, SJ DOES have an option on JeBo for next season which reduces the urgency.
Under Covelo, JeBo scored 17 goals in 2022. Under Luchi he still scored 10 last season without being the primary PK taker.
His effort/work-rate, touch on the ball are awful. He looks to either lack confidence or not care.
Agreed. And glad to see a reasonable take on here about jebo for once. If he was our penalty taker last season he would have been top 5-10 in goals scored in the league. I don’t think he is having a good season thus far but no striker would with the sorry state of this franchise