Best and worst coach of the WC?

Best: Vahid Halilhodzic. Took an Algeria side that was considered to be amongst the worst teams in the cup beforehand and made quarter finals, came pretty close to beating the best team in the cup (closer than most anyway), and won the respect of almost every football fan. Surprise team of the tournament imo.

Worst: Scolari. I hold this truth to be self evident.

Best: Jorge Pinto. What he did with Costa Rica was fantastic. No one but my tipped them to go to the R16 but not only they managed that, but they also made it to Quarters where they took Netherlands to the penalties.

Worst: Roy Hodgson. No explanation needed.

Best: Jurgen Klinsmann. He pushed a squad with talent that wasn't that great and a injured superstar out of the group of death. I could see him winning the whole thing if he had a talented squad.
Worst: Scolari. Because Brazil was mediocre the whole time and 7 goals don't lie.

Costa Rica's coach, they well extra-ordinary well drilled.

Worst? I think Scolari but, Bento is no better. Portugal played unimaginative crap and his selections were even worse than Scolari's.

Veloso at leftback, not Carvalho, not enough Varela, too much Nani and didnt bring Antunes, Ruben Michel or Danny.

Has to be Jorge Pinto, Costa Rica made Italy look like England in terms of defending. That says a lot.

Not sure about worst but most disappointing would be Del Bosque. His call ups and overall approach were misguided and stubborn.

Speaking of Costa Rica's coach, he has his own website in Spanish were he writes on tactics.
For those interested.

Also shout out to Jorge Sampaoli. Played amazing football, took a Chile side with players from Notthingham Forest and Wigan to the quarter finals and could have even gone to the semis.

Best by default:

Didn't really do anything particularly noteworthy. Took him almost losing to Argelia to notice that Lahm was not working as a DM. The entirety of Germany saw that before him.

@BC
That's not true, Algeria is not one of the worst sides of the tournament, they have loads of talent in all lines and a superb keeper on top of that.

Best coach for me were Jorge Pinto and Sabella.

And the worst ones were Del Bosque and Hodgson.

You can't say a guy who took his team to the semis (no matter what were the circumstances) is the worst coach of the tournament.

Sabella? He lost any hope of that when took Lavezzi off.

I'm really conflicted about Sabella. On the one hand he took Lavezzi off for no reason and started a 5-3-2 against Bosnia. Bosnia!

On the other, he solidly made improvements throughout the tournament and adapted to the situation that our forwards were either carrying injuries, getting injured, or not performing. We were supposed to be the team that always struggled to defend and scored more than the opponent. Instead we were the defensive unit depending on individual brilliance to score a few times. If you compare Argentina in game 1 and in game 7 they are completely different teams. That is a high degree of adaptability for only a month.

There is an argument to be made that the changes came mostly from personnel changes: if you switch Biglia for Gago, Lavezzi for Aguero and Demichellis for Fernandez your team will inevitably be a more cohesive defensive unit. But he didn't have to change the shape when Aguero got injured, that was a tactical decision.

So overall too much of a mixed bag to be either worst or best.

I dont know if Sabella is a very intelligent coach who made mistakes by over-thinking, or merely an okay coach who made some good adjustments.

Subtle but important difference.

The change to defending with 2 banks of 4 was exactly what the team needed. But he went and ruined his own work at the worst time.

That Bosnia thing slipped my mind, that was bad.

For me the best was Jorge Pinto who led Costa Rica to a deserved first place in a group with three former world champs and only lost to the Dutch in penalties. They didn't simply ride their luck to a quarterfinal berth. They played well, were organized and deserved everything they got.

The worst was Felipao.

The Franchise wrote:I dont know if Sabella is a very intelligent coach who made mistakes by over-thinking, or merely an okay coach who made some good adjustments.

Subtle but important difference.

The change to defending with 2 banks of 4 was exactly what the team needed. But he went and ruined his own work at the worst time.

That Bosnia thing slipped my mind, that was bad.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that he stuck by Romero and Rojo in spite of a large amount of uproar and criticism (from yours truly especially) and it worked out great for him. Romero was chosen (somewhat unfairly imo) as one of the top 3 GKs of the tournament and Rojo was chosen as the best LB.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Didn't really do anything particularly noteworthy. Took him almost losing to Argelia to notice that Lahm was not working as a DM. The entirety of Germany saw that before him.

Well, no matter what, he won the thing in the end. That's what I meant with "by default" ^^

rwo power wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Didn't really do anything particularly noteworthy. Took him almost losing to Argelia to notice that Lahm was not working as a DM. The entirety of Germany saw that before him.

Well, no matter what, he won the thing in the end. That's what I meant with "by default" ^^

Yes he won it with that German squad who have elite players in all units, look what Jorge Pinto did with Costa Rica's squad. I don't think Germany winning the World Cup is a big surprise, but Costa Rica overachieving and almost reaching semi-final was really impressing.

RealGunner wrote:Best: Jorge Pinto. What he did with Costa Rica was fantastic. No one but my tipped them to go to the R16 but not only they managed that, but they also made it to Quarters where they took Netherlands to the penalties.

Worst: Roy Hodgson. No explanation needed.

My choice as well. Whilst I understand the points raised concerning Scolari and Bento, Hodgson's performance against Italy was shocking to make no adjustments for the entire game to protect his left flank which probably would have guaranteed a point and stopped England crashing out with what I still maintain was a very capable squad.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Best: Vahid Halilhodzic. Took an Algeria side that was considered to be amongst the worst teams in the cup beforehand and made quarter finals, came pretty close to beating the best team in the cup (closer than most anyway), and won the respect of almost every football fan. Surprise team of the tournament imo.

mostly by idiots who had no idea what they're talking about . and i'll never understand what they based that on , other than the "unfashionable " name of the country .
14 out of their 23 players play in europe's TOP 5 leagues . this automatically puts them ahead of an important % of teams in the WC, and definitely ahead of limited teams like russia and south korea .

They were considered the 30th of 32 teams by the market before the cup:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1878805-world-cup-odds-2014-updated-chances-for-each-country-following-draw

Bento is the worst coach in this WC. Period. Portugal's preparation was probabbly the worst in the WC, half of our first team was injured by the end of the group, and not by getting tackled. His choice of 23 was astrocious and showed lack of judgement, stubborness and pettyness (ignoring players just because he doesn't like them, chosing others who clearly shouldn't be called up just because he likes them or they have been good in the past).

Finally, his tactics were even worse, and game after game he refused to make the necessary changes, he only made some of them because of the huge amount of injuries (which were his fault in the first place).

Losing 4-0 to a Germany that wasn't even playing that well (even germans will agree with this), drawing (with luck) to a USA that was one of the least talented teams I saw in this World Cup (but atleast they had heart, and a lot of it), and worst of all, barely winning against a Ghana without their 2 best players and completely disturbed by in-house problems.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:They were considered the 30th of 32 teams by the market before the cup:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1878805-world-cup-odds-2014-updated-chances-for-each-country-following-draw

lol at Cameroon over algeria.
like i said , they base this on hype, name , and pretty much everything non-football you can think of .
in every tournament you'll have criminally underrated teams and with it the possibility to make money .

i should've put some money on algeria to advance past the first round , printing money basically...

Agreed, Bento < Scolari.

Surprising Low doesn't get a mention.. considering he won the damn thing.

I suppose Pinto + Sampaoli would be the trendy thing to say.

sabella could be one of the best, but no the best

he managed to turn the worst department (defensive) into great thing

but...........

he also managed to turn the best department (attacking) into worst thing

Peccadillo wrote:Surprising Low doesn't get a mention.. considering he won the damn thing.

rwo power wrote:Best by default: