Let's Fail Upwards with Frank de Boer
Trying to emulate a career path which we should all truly aspire to.
Frank de Boer is really going to coach the Netherlands, isn’t he?
He went from almost single-handedly tanking Inter’s season in 2016 in just a couple months, to getting booted in even less time with Crystal Palace in the Premier League, to walking into one of the most exciting MLS teams to ever exist and systematically destroy so much of what made it good, to… leading one of the most storied national teams to ever exist. Ok, Franciscus. I see you.
I see many people on the Internet getting upset about this sort of thing, too. Does no one in the Netherlands know what happened in Italy? England? In MLS? Where he took a club from defending champion to losing to FC Cincinnati? How could they possibly do a thing like this? Didn’t they listen to Jose?
I, however, am an enlightened individual, and I believe that the de Boer hire speaks to a deep want all of us have: the ability to do whatever the hell we want, and be rewarded for it.
Frank de Boer is absolutely living a dream where the clouds are made of cotton candy and the streams all run beer. When was the last time an MLS coach went straight from MLS to coaching a major International side? Tata Martino, sure. If we can call any team from CONCACAF a major international side, and even then, Tata won MLS Cup, and constructed a team that was consistently one of the best in the league. Frank’s Atlanta United was an ‘80s teen movie drunken joyride in your older brother’s Thunderbird. You never knew where that thing was going to end up and there was a greater than 50% chance you’d wake up naked and covered in blood of an indeterminate origin. He alienated some of his team’s best attacking players in favor of a style that was demonstrably less successful than his predecessor, and even more importantly and tragically, was far less fun. AND NOW HE GETS TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN WITH ONE OF THE BEST TEAMS IN THE WORLD, BABY.
This is all I want in my life. Sure, feeling validated for producing work you deem as “good” and “important” is nice, and the emotion of justly reaping a reward for the years of work you put into any given thing is great, and I would love to be recognized around the world for things I love to do and care about, and do well. But I also would like to just be randomly given promotions that seem to be conjured from the ether, seeing as they have no tangible connect with reality. Whenever I pump out a newsletter that is esoteric to the point of being barely understandable as speech, I would enjoy being named the U.S. Poet Laureate. Because that’s basically what happened to Frank de Boer, and that’s the dream, kids.
I will take a small amount of pleasure in watching the Netherlands crash and burn under FdB, of course, if that is the thing that occurs. But I will have to applaud the man if he somehow, for the first time in six years, churns out a team that meets the expectations of its fans and staff. It’s a high performance art, the managerial career of Frank de Boer, often inscrutable. But he has the potential to pull off one of the greatest surprises the soccer world has ever seen, if the Netherlands can pull out something wild at the next Euro. And if he does do that, let us never forget that he earned the right to do that by being one of the most consistently terrible managers multiple leagues have ever seen.
If they suck, though, let’s get these memes off. You think I’m going to defend de Boer just because I can empathize with good things happening to you for no reason? Hell no. I’m a class traitor at heart. Remember that.
God Bless UK Journalists Covering WSL
They have absolutely no idea what they’ve gotten into with the Americans in the league now.
Taker Tweets
I know Leicester was out here just trying to advertise their new signing, the excellently-named Cengiz Under, but I didn’t have “The actual Undertaker joins soccer Twitter for a couple seconds” on my 2020 bingo card.
Come to think of it, my 2020 bingo card has been terrible.
