Why Azkals coach Weiss had to go

Michael Weiss is out out of work.

After nearly three years on the job as Azkals coach, the German has not had his contract renewed, according to the website Pinoyfootball.com. The website reportedly received the news from Azkals manager Dan Palami and released the info on Saturday. There appears to be no official word from the Philippine Football Federation, but that seems to be little more than a formality. The Weiss era is over.

Some observers might feel this is long overdue. I would agree. And something very early on told me that Weiss might not be the man for the job.

In March 2011, the Azkals trooped to frigid Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia, for the second leg of their 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualifier against the Mongolians, carrying with them a 2-0 lead from the first game in Bacolod.

Neil Etheridge was unavailable for that game after keeping a clean sheet in Panaad. Ed Sacapaño would wear the gloves instead. Surprisingly, backing up Sacapaño was Toffer Camcam.

Then just sixteen or seventeen years old, Camcam was, and presumably still is, a promising goalkeeping prospect. But was it right to have him on the bench in a competitive match, on the road, in the snow against a hostile crowd? Had Sacapaño been hurt Camcam would have trotted on to the pitch in a very tough situation for a first cap. And people would have wondered why someone more experienced, say Ref Cuaresma, Tats Mercado, Michael Louie Casas, or even Kim Versales, had not made the trip instead.

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Fortunately Sacapaño did not get hurt, and an early James Younghusband goal made it 3-0 on aggregate, effectively sealing the series. Even though the home side won the game 2-1 the Azkals progressed thanks to a 3-2 aggregate scoreline.

The Camcam selection was rather odd, potentially disastrous even, and that seemed to indicate that perhaps there was something missing with the German mentor.

Hans Michael Weiss certainly leaves the Azkals with an impressive record, leading the team to the semifinals of both the Suzuki Cup and the AFC Challenge Cup.

Since he took command in early 2011 he, according to my reading of the FIFA site records, compiled a record of 21 wins, 12 losses, and 11 draws in full FIFA Internationals, not counting friendlies like the losses to teams like the LA Galaxy or CF Internacional Madrid. That's a winning percentage of 60.22. The loss to Laos last year was also wiped off the books by FIFA because the Laotians used too many subs.

Weiss also helmed the doomed 2011 SEA Games U23 team, guiding that squad to a 1-4 mark. Counting those games, his record dips to 22-16-11, or 56.122.

While I don't have the records, I cannot imagine any other coach of the Philippine national team who has coached more games. In all likelihood, Weiss is our the all-time winningest coach.

From 162 in July of 2011, the Philippines has vaulted 35 places to 127 in the latest FIFA rankings, an astonishing achievement.

I have spoken to many Azkals over the last few years about previous national team coaches. Some say Desmond Bulpin was good. Others say Simon McMenemy was perhaps too close in age to his players, but was a tactical whiz who made excellent in-game adjustments. Aly Borromeo also said the Englishman introduced novel drills in practice that were both fun and educational for the players.

Many old time Azkals also held Aris Caslib, the coach in the 2004 and 2007 AFF championships as well as for a brief spell later on, in very high regard. Caslib is now the technical director of the PFF.

Norman Fegidero is a Negrense coaching legend who is well-regarded. When he took the reins of the national team, he drew his share of admirers.

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Borromeo and Ceres coach Ali Rojas Go even say Sugao Kambe, the Japanese coach in charge when the Philippines lost that infamous 13-1 game to Indonesia in 2002, was a solid coach, as was the strict Masataka Imai before him.

Spaniard Juan Cutillas had three spells as the national team coach and although some players chafed at his old-school discipline (he reportedly once benched Jeffrey Liman for eating the wrong food before a game), he kept his charges supremely fit.

But it was not easy finding Azkals who held Weiss in terribly high esteem. None would speak on record, but they just never seemed to warm to him.

They spoke about repetitive drills, with one Global Azkal saying the team performed the same four or five drills all year long, unlike former Global coach Brian Reid, who had a new one in every practice.

There were many reports of a dearth tactical knowledge. “Mabuti sana kung may tactics” (it would have been good if there had been tactics) said one player who played under him in the 2011 SEA Games.

One veteran said bluntly “I didn't learn anything (from him.)”

“He wants players to be complete already” said one young Azkal to me around just over two years ago. It seemed that developing players just wasn't his strong suit.

A look at Weiss' history shows that he did indeed have a thin CV coming into the team. The former goalkeeper and assistant with Kyoto Purple Sanga in Japan may have helped out the Rwandan U16 team and served as that country's technical director, but the 48-year old appeared to have had no head coaching experience at the senior level when he took on the job.

Many homegrown players felt brushed aside from the national team during his tenure. More than one told me that they felt little chance of making the team, and that they often were used as practice players to be discarded after the training camps were over and the roster was whittled down.

Of course there are always two sides to a story, and it is very much true that the players coming from abroad are oftentimes better-trained, more experienced, and thus tactically and technically superior.

But one of those homegrown players also told me that Weiss had a habit of only inviting the starters in a game to learn the set plays. This was corroborated by another Fil-Am and certainly alienated this one Visayan player. “Paano ba namin malalaman ang plays kung di kami kasali sa meeting? (how can we learn the plays if we aren't in the meetings?)” He has a point. What if a starter gets injured?

Weiss was also not particularly media-savvy. I recall him saying the word “pitiful” to describe the Azkals on TV after the loss to the Galaxy, perhaps forgetting that his team had played one of the best players of the last twenty years in David Beckham, and in a feel-good exhibition. I also remember him talking in a postgame press con about how Jason Sabio was in his doghouse at one time, a detail perhaps left within the team.

He also rankled the UFL with his comments about how the league wasn't cooperative enough with the national team. It is also noteworthy to mention that he didn't attend UFL games nearly as often as many of us would have liked. This was in contrast with Zoran Djordjevic, the U21 NT coach who was at Umak for UFL games on almost every playdate and also watched collegiate matches religiously. Former Gilas mentor Rajko Toroman, was also this way, spending time obsessively watching as much local hoops as he could.

Perhaps his most bizarre moment came in the 2012 Suzuki Cup, when he appeared to throw a ball at a Thai player and was suspended for the 1-0 win against Vietnam.

Weiss' teams often scraped by with wins, but they often didn't play attractive Football in doing so. Long balls hoofed from the back four into the middle of the park seemed to be the order of the day in many games, and pretty passing sequences were rare.

The Azkals made the semifinals of the 2012 Suzuki Cup, losing to Singapore 1-0 over two attritional legs. In the team Christmas party afterwards, knowing that discontent with the coach was rife, I chatted with one Azkal and mentioned that perhaps it would have been better had we lost and the coach had been fired.

The Azkal gave me a very strange look, then after a few moments softly murmured “you're not the only one thinking that.”

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The German also had a predilection for not bringing enough defenders and carrying a surfeit of midfielders to every game. He would oftentimes use Jason De Jong as a central defender even though it was not his natural position.

Earlier in the year, in a friendly against Myanmar, Manny Ott, a midfielder, was fielded as a right back, and struggled to contain the Burmese attacks on his flank. “He looked lost” said one Azkal official to me after the game.

Perhaps Weiss' biggest failing was a stubborn refusal to play young players, even in friendlies.

In the last series of friendlies, against UAE and India, Ray Jonsson played right back alongside Juani Guirado, and Rob Gier at the center of the defense in front of Sacapaño. The defensive mid slot was occupied by Jerry Lucena. All of those players are 32 years or older. And this was in a friendly, not even in a competitive match.

Other countries like to use friendlies to give youngsters valuable experience. Not the Philippines, where every friendly seems to be played like a World Cup qualifier. Even in the friendly against Myanmar last year, little-used Army players Roel Gener and Boogie Margarse were in the squad. Both are north of 37 years old. Surely younger players could have made the trip and benefited from the experience more.

The failure to prepare for the future was, in my opinion, Weiss' most unforgivable sin. His predecessor will inherit an old team, with a huge chasm in quality and experience between the veterans and young up-and-coming players like Amani Aguinaldo. I believe the German well and truly mortgaged our future for the sake of overrated FIFA ranking points today. This is especially harmful since the U23 Azkals were denied SEA Games experience do to the incompetence of our sports officials.

But to be fair to him, the Philippines is not a traditional Footballing nation like Germany. We are still in the embryonic stage, and winning was paramount to keep the momentum and excitement going. The sponsorships too, needed to keep on flowing in, and keeping the winning vibes was important. Thus the unwillingness to go with a youth movement.

But still, we needed more friendlies like the Indonesian one in Solo last year, when Jerry Barbaso and Amani Aguinaldo were fielded, albeit in late-game cameos.

Plus, it is clear that Weiss may not have been the only one making the lineup decisions.

Weiss did have his apparent good points. He was a brave coach who unflinchingly dropped the Younghusband brothers from the 2012 Peace Cup for allegedly not showing enough commitment to the team. That move certainly took guts, although Phil and James countered that Weiss was two-faced during the whole episode, and tried to drive a wedge between the other Azkals and them.

He was also a stickler for fitness, which many of his players found odd. But anyone who knows Football understands that conditioning is the foundation on which all winning teams are built.

One of his longtime assistants, Diding Cabalida, insists he is a very good motivator of players. A common friend of mine quoted Roroy Piñero, another Azkal assistant, saying he has the tactical acumen for solid in-game adjustments.

And at the end of the day he won. Again and again and again. If you're results-oriented, then his record is unimpeachable. But were those wins thanks to the sheer quality of our European-bred stars, or his coaching prowess? Can it be said the Philippines could have done even better with a more capable coach? Might we have even lifted either the Suzuki Cup or the Challenge Cup? We will never know.

Philippine Football will now enter a new chapter, with the 2014 Challenge Cup close at hand. A new coach needs to be installed soon so that we can hit the reset button and start anew.

As for Weiss, whoever employs him next will know one thing for sure: they are hiring a winner.

Follow Bob on Twitter @PassionateFanPH.