The importance of authenticity

Ok, one more column about John Herdman. Partly.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Most of us have been in a relationship at some point of our life that we now look back on with a degree of regret. One where outsiders saw all the flaws, while we remained convinced that the person was the same exciting prospect that we first were attracted to.

Inevitably we start to see things more clearly a few months after we are out of the relationship. We realize that what we saw as connection was actually co-dependency and there was very little authenticity that remained in the connection.

Yes, this is another column about John Herdman. The final, final one, I suspect, although I covered the man for so many years that I am bound to want to talk about him again at some point in the future. You do that with your Exs, don’t you?

What got me thinking about this today was a couple decisions made by two different coaches this week.

The first was Robin Fraser’s choice to leave Lorenzo Insigne at home for TFC’s first game of the season last week. That was followed up by Jesse Marsch’s decision today to speak out about the idiocy about Canada coming out of the President of the United States’ mouth on a near daily basis.

On a surface level, the two decisions may seem disconnected, but what I see with both is an authenticity that was often missing in the way that Herdman operated. Both Fraser and Marsch seem to behave in a consistent and dignified manner when it comes to how they communicate and coach.

With Herdman you rarely felt that you were seeing John, whoever that man might be. Rather, you were getting johnherdman, the character in our soccer drama (often with props!).

That worked for a while, but it ultimately stated to unravel at every stop he made. He jumped from the women to the men before it was too obvious that the program was stagnating and then used Canada Soccer drama as a smokescreen to give him permission to take the money TFC was offering, after two years of poor results, following the initial uptake with the men).

At the professional club level, his hubris caught up to him before the results would have betrayed him, but the second half of 2024 was likely a preview of where things were going. Basically, I think that TFC dodged a bullet with Herdman getting caught up in the drone scandal, which allowed them to bring in a guy that is far better positioned to navigate what is going to be a tricky season for the Reds.

What makes the season tricky is a roster that is weighed down by Insigne, a man who is arguably the worst signing in MLS history. Being able to calmly and decisively bench him in week one is a great sign that TFC now has a leader in charge, rather than someone who does Ted Talks on leadership.

Herdman’s approach very likely would have been to make Insigne the captain while pitting him against someone else at the club as motivation, while reciting Henry David Thoreau prose to him before games, for some reason. There probably would have been a domesticated racoon involved somehow too.

Nonsense, basically, with an ample dose of manipulation. There wouldn’t have been anything authentic about it.

As for Marsch and his comments today, the difference would have been a little more nuanced. Herdman would have absolutely tried to use Trump’s stupidity as motivation, but it would have come off as counter-trolling. On some level, you would have sensed that Herdman respected Trump’s ability to get a rise out of people, because that’s exactly what he did too.

I don’t pretend to know what Herdman’s politics are — although I doubt they are MAGA — but as a coach, he absolutely used techniques straight out of the Blowhard-and-Chief’s playbook. So, criticizing that in someone else would have come off as inauthentic.

Marsch, on the other hand, came off today as someone speaking his authentic truth. Maybe this belief of mine will age poorly, but right now it doesn’t feel like it.

Ultimately, I feel, authenticity is going to get Canada and TFC much farther than anything Herdman ever did