Talking Tall
Q&A: Crew GM Issa Tall Zoomed with the local media Thursday
The Crew on Wednesday were in the middle of a tribute to Darlington Nagbe when, on the other side of the Atlantic, Celtic news-bombed the going-away party with the official announcement that Wilfried Nancy had been hired as the next coach of the Scottish powerhouse.
On Thursday, the Crew invited a half dozen media who regularly cover the team to Zoom in for a confab with Tall. What follows is a transcript of the Q&A, lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Where are you right now in the coaching search?
IT: It’s funny you’re asking this because over the past 18 months or so we’ve kept a list of names just because we knew this could happen. Although we never received an official offer for Wilfried, we knew his name was being circulated, mainly in France and other areas. So, we kept a long list ready, per se, something that we were were checking quite often, removing names, adding names back and forth. Now that it’s real and it’s happening, we’re actually ahead of starting out of nowhere. At the moment, we’re refining our list to the final candidates and we’ll start the process. It’s the same thing we did three years ago. It (the process) doesn’t change much.
Q: How long is the list (of names)?
IT: (Short laugh). I’m laughing because initially it’s 16 names, but we omitted a lot of names that we get from various agents or candidates. To be honest with you, we’d like to focus on what’s best for our club, so we’ll probably go with between six and ten. Again, I’d love to walk you through the process we went through in 2022, where it … was a list of between six and 10 names. Hopefully, if we can, try to get the coach as soon as possible.
Q: Do you have a timeline for when you want this search to be done?
Our report date is in five weeks and ideally we’d have a coach before that. But at the same time, we want to get the right person. We don’t want to rush. … We’ve obviously done the work over the past 18 months, but we want to be very diligent (and avoid) getting someone who will not fit us, because (that) would be backward.
Q: When did Wilfried express that it was his desire to go to Celtic and what kind of negotiations did you have with him before it became official?
IT: No negotiating with him. (He) told me the week after we met (referring to post-season conference with reporters Nov. 13).
Q: There have been reports that Celtic could be interested in a number of Crew players. Have Celtic reached out to you at all about any interest?
IT: No, they haven’t reached out for players.
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Q: What is your preference — are you looking to take the best coach you can get your hands on, someone with experience perhaps? Is that a greater priority than keeping keeping some kind of systems continuity? … Would you hire a rookie coach with no first-team experience to coach this team if you thought that continuity was more important?
IT: I think we’re open-minded. Obviously, continuity is a big, big thing, although I think we need to evolve, and do good for our players. When you look at the current coaches that … have gone far in the playoffs, you have a wide range of profiles. You have guys that didn’t know our league whatsoever and guys that were experience (in MLS). When you look at the coaches across our league, you have a 34-year-old and a 74-year-old. So, when it comes to experience, it’s not necessarily a big factor. Think of Wilfried when he came to us — it was a risk. He only had two years of head-coaching experience. At the end of the day, we need to do what’s best for the club. When we took Wilfried, it was a specific profile, as well. We hired Wilfried because we wanted to play a certain way and we have gone very far in this philosophy, to the point where our academy teams (play a similar style). So, we need to have some consistency there.
Q: Will you give the new coach the same amount of power that you gave to Wilfried?
What do you mean by that?
Q: He seemed to be the last word on player decisions.
IT: It is a collaboration, so no decision was made by Wilfried alone. It was definitely a collaborative effort and, moving forward, I think it’s something that we can do an even better job at, involving more people in the conversation. That’s the idea — bringing in a coach that we can collaborate with.
Q: Did Wilfried’s departure change in any way your roster decisions this year? Put another way, if he was still here, would your roster decisions be different?
IT: No. No. Because the roster decisions have been talked about for weeks, so it’s not something suddenly, ‘OK, Wilfried’s not here, now what do we do?’ It’s really, ‘What we do is what we believe is right for our club?’
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Q: Wessam Abou Ali, you recruited for a long time. You started last December and it was August when he got here. What was he promised and, in your view, why did he come? How much did the coach factor in his decision?
IT: Wessam was promised — and its something that he quite often refers to is that I didn’t lie to him. Meaning, he was promised one of the best clubs in MLS. He was promised amazing facilities and amazing people and an amazing city. And he kept on saying, ‘You are so right. I love it here. I love the people.’ And he was also promised a certain style of play, of us being dominant on the ball and being very proactive, and that won’t change. So, it doesn’t change anything to Wessam. Wessam did not sign because we had Wilfried Nancy. He didn’t know who Wilfried was. So, Wessam came for the Columbus Crew and he needs to stay because it’s the Columbus Crew.
Q: How many in-house candidates do you have?
IT: In-house? I’ll take anyone that’s talented. But, obviously, we have talent within the club. I think this club has been very good about promoting from within, but then again, it needs to make sense for our team, for our club, on experience, on leadership traits and also the game model.
Q: You’ve touched on this before, but can we revisit your targets for players this offseason in the order of priority?
IT: I’m going back to the question you asked earlier, about if the roster decisions would have been different: Maybe one of them would have been to keep Darlington Nagbe — but we tried and it didn't work. Joke aside, we need players in the middle because, obviously, we lost a couple of players there. So, bring a No. 6/8. This is a position of need. If we can, bring in some center back depth. We do have players there but it would be great to add some more there. For the rest, we believe we have a strong roster. Unfortunately this past season we had all these injuries. We actually revisited them yesterday and, at times, we had multiple injuries to key players at the same time. Had they all been healthy, what would our ceiling have looked like? Because I still believe in this roster and I think we have a strong core.
Q: There something to the perception that Wilfried was critical to the style of play and the success that was had with it. Can that be replicated?
IT: I don’t think we’re looking to replicating it. … In 2022, when we looked at a coach and we had our KPIs (key performance indicators), we had a non-negotiable, one was style of play. We wanted to be entertaining. We wanted to create chances and shots and goals, and making memories for the fans. It sounds stupid here, but we’d rather draw 2-2 and everyone has memories and fun and we were dominant as opposed to winning in a scrappy 1-0, and something that is not sustainable. We believe that it is in our DNA, we believe it’s our identity. We want people to continue enjoying playing this style. We also want fans and media to enjoy coming to our games because it will be an entertaining brand of football.
We believed that Wilfried fit in that style. So, we’re not looking to replicate Wilfried’s style, per se. I think we can evolve from it. But the main guidelines will still stay there in being a dominant team.
Q: Would you even consider a coach who plays with four in the back? Or someone who has always played with four in the back, and is flexible enough to adapt to your one-team system?
IT: Yeah, I think so. At the end, again, and Wilfried will be the first one to tell you that formations are (flexible). At times, we played with four in the back when the had the ball. Everything’s flexible. When you look at how we play, we build up with 2-3, sometimes with 3-2, sometimes with 3-1 and 1-3, so the formation is not the issue. It’s (more) the guiding principle of the style of play.
Q: Is there a concern that you have that you may have to be more of a micromanager with a new head coach if, in fact, achieving consistency with the club is a priority for you?
IT: No. … We empower people. Even before this current job, the way I was working in the past, I was really empowered by my former boss, and I try to be like him. I hope my colleagues will be able to tell you that they’re being empowered and trusted with their skills. So, with a new coach, I think it will be a same thing.
Now, with the new coach, will I need to … try to teach him more that this is the Columbus Crew way? To be honest, this is what happened with Wilfried, too. Prior to his arrival, there was a lot of education on how we do things here. It would be the same, maybe slightly more, but it is something that we’ve done before. The club is about everyone. I’m not here to micromanage anyone. Whomever we select, it’s because we trust that person.
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Q: Would your expectation be that, for a candidate that hasn’t been in the league for a year or two, (who) has spent some time evolving his perspective on how the game should be played, and maybe offering change from what we’re accustomed to seeing that coach employ vs. what he could do with the roster you have now?
IT: At the end of the day, our guiding principle is how we try to play, and the why, as well. It’s to entertain, to have fun and to play with passion. That being said, there are so many different avenues to do so. There are obviously some opposite styles of play, and we don’t want to be to the opposite of what we do. But what we do can be done so many different ways. Sometimes, you watch teams and you say, ‘Well, they play like us.’ But they don’t, really. … There are so many differences between the way they do it and the way we do it. And to be honest with you, just look at our league. If you look at teams like Vancouver, San Diego, LA Galaxy, they kind of play like us but they don’t really play like us. So, this is where we’ll start.
Q: In the past you’ve referenced how you want to make the Columbus Crew a global brand. A lot of steps forward have been taken in that direction in the last few years. Have you heard from around the globe from candidates who are interested in this position?
IT: Yeah, if only you knew. It’s flattering, not only that people want to come here, but the why. And it’s because they’ve seen what’s done here, they know of the Crew and they’ve heard of the Crew. Meaning, the word that has been carried outside of this city and this club is positive and people speak highly of the people we have here, the consistency we have here. And when we present our project and how we (believe) a team should work, a lot of them are stunned. I’m not trying to say we’re a super-special club; I’m sure there are a lot of clubs that operate the way we do. But it is flattering and it is humbling to hear such positive things about our club as a whole, and that people really want to be here.
Q: Are you anticipating, or have you heard from candidates who are under contracts with other clubs, who actually want to get out of their spot and be part of what’s happening in Columbus?
IT: Yes, but not directly from these people. Through agents. … We have (among) our targets coaches who are currently at clubs, but we haven’t yet made any moves on such coaches because it wouldn’t be right for us to go behind the back of another club. … But, yeah, we haven’t heard directly from a coach (who is under contract).
Q: With the calendar being what it is at the moment, does it lend itself to somebody who is currently in America because it’s the offseason here, and it’s not the offseason in other places?
IT: No, not necessarily, because you have coaches who are out-of-contract (all over the world). So, you have a lot of coaches who are available. Now, it’s just a matter of getting the right one.
Q: Did you try to do anything to try to keep Wilfried in Columbus before this?
IT: Yes. We approached Wilfried multiple times with an extension, a potentially (lucrative) extension, and he decided not to pursue it.
Q: You talk about finding the right coach for the club and for the city. What, in your eyes, is that right coach?
IT: The right coach is, first and foremost a good person. Someone that will connect with our players, with our staff but also with our city. Because it is important. We can’t have a coach that has bad intentions or doesn’t really care about what this club is about, and its history. And secondly, we need an astute coach tactically, that has ideas and wants to play a certain way. And a coach that also believes in we do as a club, meaning believing in the current players that we have, meaning believing in our processes, and believing in our “one club” mantra, meaning it’s not just the coach and his staff, it’s an entire club that trying to strive for greatness. A good person first, and a very good coach, as well.
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