Gatti announces retirement, takes coaching job with Impact Academy

One Comment

1. 

   super luigi

   February 23, 2012 at 7:59 pm

   Seriously, 30 ROSTER SPOTS and you can find place for Canadians?

   Yes, I know Bernier is from Montreal, but when the Gazette ran a three-player ad, NO ONE recognized him or the two other guys since the team didn’t put names under them.

   I remember when the whole 3-Canucks minimum was being talked about and we were told that teams weren’t going to do the bare minimum because there are 30 spots, after all.

   They blew the transition over the past two seasons and this is basically the 3rd team fans are gonna support in three years and I dare you to go to a kids camp and ask them who the players are. Nothing as sad as asking 12 little keepers who the goalies are and as many kids get Bush right as Matt Jordan who retired two years ago but who toured schools across Montreal during his time here. Heck, most of them didn’t even know Pizzolitto was actually called to training camp after all since he was cut at the end of the season and not in the first of original invitees to the camp. They were all POed about it and didn’t believe the coach who told them that Pizzo was in Mexico with the team.

   Like I said, player recognition is zero and Canadian and Quebec content a touch over zero.

   NO TEAM on the planet can expect to have a soccer pyramid that leads to a strong national team without a league. Even small ones like Norway and Denmark who together are about the size of the greater Toronna region. Even Iceland with less than half a million people have a league (look at how many of their national team play in Euro teams, heck, there have already been THREE icelanders at Man United).

   At least mediocre dime-a-dozen US college players have a place to play. That’s always important.

   As for Gatti coaching, I hope they mean one of the coaches because I’m not sure what experience he brings to be a head coach yet. Quebec demands a stronger coaching license for AAA teams and coaching at that level demands some familiarity with that age group. It’s not like coaching 17-18 yr olds. Many of them are still going through growth spurts and 11-13 is a time when you have to recondition their muscles to the new size.
   I saw that age group two weeks ago at a weekend festival of AAA teams and they were probably one of the two worst of the 6 teams there. Ottawa Fury won the tournament.
   Dont get me wrong, Simon is a nice guy and I think he will do well and I hope he does but I like that they bought in ex-Impact player Jason DiTullio to coach a year or two up two years ago.
   Ditullio was technical director as well as U-16ish coach at FC Anjou so he has a great grasp of what these kids can and can not do. He also brought with him his physical preparer, a Frenchman who trained under the famed French one, Duvern, who during the 2010 WC wanted to beat up Evra. This is the kind of youth experience mixed pro experience that is needed at youth level.
   (I referee and coach provincially so I can tell you who the best coaches are at the elite level)

   His successors as TD at Anjou were ex-Impact players Darko Kolic and Antonio Ribeiro who was coach and also TD at Anjou for 6-7 years WHILE he played (except when he went to San Jose) and that’s the kind of experience I think Gatti should gather as well.
   Its nice to know the game and to be a nice guy but I think you have to learn the craft of coaching youth players.