Photo: Nicolae Stoian
Philadelphia Union manager Peter Nowak can prove Sunday just how good a manager he really is.
It will happen when the starting lineup is announced.
Outsiders may think Nowak’s a potential coach of the year, but those who follow the Union closely know he’s been a better executive than a chooser of starting lineups. He’s been terrific at building a team from scratch, but his questionable lineup choices have repeatedly cost the Union points.
That was never so clear as on Thursday, when Nowak deployed a two-defensive midfielder set that’s failed for two years and inexplicably gave a 16-year-old kid just his second professional start and third appearance in a big road game against the club’s primary rival. Amobi Okugo and Zach Pfeffer may be talented and deserving of playing time, but the situation wasn’t fair to either. Most wondered why Roger Torres and either Danny Mwanga or Jack McInerney didn’t start.
The results were predictable. The Union had no punch in one of the season’s biggest games. And they lost.
The double halftime sub: A familiar sight for Union fans
To Nowak’s credit, he acted to rectify his mistake with two subs at halftime, inserting Mwanga and Freddy Adu for Pfeffer and Okugo.
If that seemed like a familiar sight, it’s because it is.
Nowak has spent two halftime subs in nine different games this year. That’s 26 percent of the Union’s games, a stunningly high ratio.
One halftime sub isn’t uncommon in soccer, but two is an admission that your lineup failed. When Nowak replaced Okugo and Veljko Paunovic with Torres and Adu against Chivas USA, it was an acknowledgement that the two-defensive midfielder set limited the attack, as usual. When he yanked Stefani Miglioranzi and Gabriel Farfan for Mwanga and Michael Farfan in that wild New England game, the double d-mid set had failed on both ends.
Each choice — the starting lineup and the replacements — is consistent with the most notable Nowak trait. It’s not just tinkering. It’s wanting to control the game.
Too smart for your own good
The problem isn’t that Nowak isn’t smart. He has a great soccer mind.
But too often he tries to be too clever. He tinkers when he doesn’t need to. He puts his stamp on the game as much as he did when he was the best playmaker in Germany and Poland. But sometimes, less is more.
Sometimes, the simplest, most obvious solution is the right one.
- When Sebastien Le Toux wasn’t scoring, it was because new acquisition Carlos Ruiz clogged the middle and pushed Le Toux away from goal and Mwanga.
- When the Union’s dual-defensive midfielder set fails, it’s because you’ve subtracted a central creative presence and limited Brian Carroll’s strengths (huge coverage area, great defensive vision) while highlighting his weaknesses (offensive distribution).
- Yes, Roger Torres plays best in the middle of the field.
- No, Michael Farfan was never a fullback. (And maybe his brother isn’t either, but time will tell.)
- Yes, over and over and over and over again.
And so on.
Sometimes, you just play a guy where he’s most comfortable and historically played best.
Sports are about players, not coaches
The great New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel once said, “If we’re going to win the pennant, we’ve got to start thinking we’re not as smart as we think we are.”
Great coaches recognize that. Sports aren’t about coaches. They’re about players. Phil Jackson, Joe Torre, Bill Walsh, Kenny Dalglish, Brad Gilbert — Regardless of the sport, they all know you can put the player in position to succeed or fail, but the player still has to do it. A coach’s role is to guide players, but he can’t play the game for them. Tactical approaches matter, but it’s the players who win games.
Nowak was a great player, and he has the intellect, presence, experience and work ethic to be a great manager, as he showed in D.C. United’s 2004 title run. If not for the Carlos Ruiz debacle, Nowak would deserve to be named MLS Executive of the Year. His vision in building the Union with youth has been largely spot on, he’s identified and acquired key veterans (Sebastien Le Toux, Danny Califf) and great young players (Danny Mwanga), and he’s hired good soccer people in John Hackworth and Diego Gutierrez who have helped secure key players (Sheanon Williams and the Farfans for Hackworth; Carlos Valdes, Faryd Mondragon and, more indirectly, Roger Torres, for Gutierrez).
But over and over again, Nowak has shown he has a hard time letting go of the control he had as a player.
It might just be that Nowak recognizes this. After the loss in New York, Nowak had this to say:
“I think the team needs to take charge right now to be in a position to challenge themselves. I think that if you work every single day to push these guys, the message sometimes is going to get old. They need to take the reins from me and the coaching staff, and make sure they will compete against each other and against the teams they will face, whoever it’s going to be.”
It’s time for Nowak to prove just how good a field manager he really is — by stepping back.
This time it matters
One can argue the MLS regular season doesn’t mean much, that it’s all just preparation for playoff time, and therefore, the lineup tinkering was worth doing to find that playoff starting 11.
If so, now’s the time. It’s one thing to maintain perspective with expectations and remember the Union are just a second-year club. It’s quite another to look ahead to your third season as part of a team-building plan and miss a chance to seize the moment in a season when the league’s best teams (Los Angeles, Seattle, Real Salt Lake) have key injury problems (Robbie Keane, Landon Donovan, Mauro Rosales, a still-slowed Javier Morales) that could leave the MLS Cup wide open for the taking.
Now’s the time when Nowak gets to show everyone he was right and they were wrong, something the fiercely defiant Nowak clearly likes to do.
Well, that’s cool. Most Union fans would rather see Nowak put up than shut up.
So put up. Show us your best 11 already. Then get out of the way and let them play.
Union halftime substitutions, 2011
1 sub – 0-1 at LA (Daniel for Mwanga) – 4/2
2 subs – 1-0 vs San Jose (Farfan, Migs for Torres, Mwanga) – 4/30
1 sub – 1-1 vs LA (Mwanga for Daniel) – 5/11
2 subs -0-2 at Dallas (Ruiz, McInerney for Mapp, Carroll) – 5/14
1 sub – 0-1 at Vancouver (Mwanga for Migs) – 6/19
2 subs – 3-2 vs Chivas (Mwanga, Daniel for McInerney, Harvey) – 6/25
2 subs – 2-1 vs Colorado (Torres, Marfan for Daniel, Nakazawa) – 7/29
2 subs – 1-1 vs Houston (Mapp, Torres for Mwanga, Marfan) – 8/6
1 sub – 1-2 at RSL (MacMath for Mondragon, injury-related) – 9/3
2 subs – 4-4 vs NE (Marfan, Mwanga, for Migs, Garfan) – 9/7
2 subs – 3-2 vs DC (Mapp for Okugo) – 9/29
2 subs – 1-1 at Chivas (Torres, Adu for Okugo, Paunovic) – 10/2
2 subs – 0-1 at New York (Adu, Mwanga for Okugo, Pfeffer) – 10/20
(NOTE: As usual, if you see one I missed, let us know, and we’ll correct it. These were manually reviewed in limited spare time before work, so it’s possible I overlooked something.)
In my eyes. Nowak has already shown his managerial worth.
I think some of this is unfair. I think it’s fine to poke and prod at coach’s choices, as we always do, but to say he’s done a poor job season-wide is going too far, particularly given the outcome. Part of his job isn’t just starting his favorite 11, it involves developing younger/future players, and taking wear & tear into account so the players aren’t worn-down when you need them the most.
p.s., if the 9-game number of two-halftime-subs is an indicator that his lineups are failures), then you’d have to concede that the 21 games in which he used zero subs before halftime are indicators of his success.
Perhaps. But then, it’s what a competent manager is supposed to do.
Bottom line, the indicator of success is the won-loss record and the progression of the team. Overall, Nowak has been a success with the Union. The above points still stand.
Unless you are specifically in a rebuilding year, developing young players should never come at the expense of winning games. It would be one thing if we didn’t have 11 players that could get the job done; if that was the case then I could maybe see the point of allowing the young guns to play in important games. But our game against the Pink Cows was not such a game. There is no excuse for not playing Torres, Mwanga, or Adu from the start. Once again we have seen Nowak’s arrogance cost us precious points.
josh- have you watched adu play at all this year? he shows up on occasion but has generally been not good. not worth the start at all in my opinion.
Well nobody can say Torres doesn’t deserve to start, surely?
torres looked awful against toronto admittedly. i would have started him anyway. meanwhile, pfeffer has never looked more than average.
I probably would’ve started the players you mentioned too (although after that game, I wouldn’t start Adu again), particularly because they are also young/developing players but you shouldn’t say that experimenting during games doesn’t provide benefits. Without experimenting, Marfan would still be a backup fullback and Keon Daniel would never have reached the field. Torres probably wouldn’t have ever gotten playing time last season either.
I know that this game meant a lot to us, but maybe Nowak thought it was worth the gamble to see if Okugo or Pfeffer could be reliable options in the playoffs off the bench.
I would categorize the Union 2011 campaign as a playoff year (NOT a championship year) and as such…mission accomplished! With a game to spare! Good work NOWAK!!!!
I agree with each of the last 2 comments. Nowak has done a good job of managing the team and getting more out of a young team then most managers would. I expected a playoff run but it still almost feels like over-achieving. That being said he should’ve put the best 11 out there against NY. 1200 supporters, a chance for 1st place, bitter rival plus the likelihood of 10 days off afterwards. If we were locked into a top 3 berth i’d be fine with the lineup but with a loss we nearly got bumped to the wildcard. Not to mention all the confidence & momentum we lost
great point about the momentum…we are totally limping into the playoffs…
I probably agree with this article more than most. No one is saying Nowak isn’t doing a great job, but you’d be lying if you don’t admit we’ve left points on the field, mostly due to very questionable lineup choices.
And it gets more questionable when it seems so obvious to us, and a wide spectrum of people (analysts, reporters, TAYLOR TWELLMAN lol) are reporting the same thing. Where is Torres? Where is a striker who can support Le Toux? How many times does the two holding mid formation need to fail?
At that point Nowak reminds me of Andy Reid, more stubborn than he should be.
That’s about what I was going for, James.
Overall, I agree with Los: This season will be considered a success for the Union, regardless of what happens against Houston, as I wrote a few weeks ago. (See https://phillysoccerpage.net/2011/09/06/the-real-reason-the-union-arent-winning.)
But that doesn’t change the other points noted above.
Right now I’m so angry, and you were so right. Why have a different set that we haven’t used but once when we look great when we go with the regular set up? Arggh!