News: Montreal Impact name former Chicago Fire boss Frank Klopas as head coach

I wonder how Canada is going to disappoint me this week.

 

Well, TFC seem to be the most improved team in the league and have highly competent leadership.

We're like conjoined twins, the growth of one can only happen at the expense of the other

 

Not many MLS coaches have had a better run winning percentage wise then Klopas. Considering the Fire had middling quality in terms of talent I think that's damn impressive. Klopas gets more out of guys, he's a players coach and players leave it all out on the field for him. I liked him in Chicago and was sorry to see him go, he was our best coach since Bob Bradley. I think he'll do just fine with the talent Montreal has.

 

Press conference live at www.RDS.ca/en-direct

 

i'm not sure what canadian teams expect out of a first year from a coach, MLS cup or coach is gone? in that case, shouldn't they only hire coaches that win cups's their first year?

 

Depends on how they do in the playoffs.

 

I think you're slightly deviating from your original point about LigaMX, but whatever.

In fairness to Klopas, he did lead the Fire to the playoffs in 2012. And his career track record is 9 games over .500, which, while not mindblowing, isn't a bad resume item. It's only 20 games better than the career track record of a coach several pundits thought had a serious chance at Coach of the Year last year (Pareja). So I think he has a few more criteria than you credit him. Even if I'm not particularly impressed with Klopas's coaching ability.

But if you're going to panic-fire a guy like Schällibaum, I agree with you that Montreal should be setting the bar a bit higher for the next guy who gets the keys.

 

The problem with Shallibaum wasn't that they didn't advance in the playoffs, it was the manner in which they did so.

At the supporters Assembly this evening (standing room only crowd of 600) DeSantis basically put all the blame for the late season slide, as well as the shameful performance in Houston on Shally's shoulders.

Kloppas said all the right things today. Much more so than last year, there are a multitude of indications that he'll be here for more than a season at least.

 

kinda feel bad for Schallibaum. he basically took all the blame, when NDS sucked just as much as he did. and if Mtl was going to fire him, why leave him hanging, at least publically, till now? shameful.

 

The problem with Klopas is that while his overall record on paper wasn't that bad, his record in games that mattered was abhorrent.

Simply put, Fire fans have examples from each of his past three seasons where the team fell flat in the big games or games they needed to win:

2011: U.S. Open Cup final at Seattle (Sort of give him a pass here because Seattle was better).
2012: Fire round USOC upset by 4th Division Michigan Bucks, last month of the season, specifically final home game vs. DC to avoid Knockout Round game.
2013: U.S. Open Cup semifinal home vs. DC, final game at New York, inconsistent performances the last two months of the season against opponents that Fire should have beaten.

Save the 2011 Open Cup final, in almost everyone of these games, the team was flat and looked unprepared. That has to come down to coaching at some point. I love Frank Klopas and his passion for the city of Chicago but unfortunately this is what I'll remember most about his coaching tenure at the Fire.

Perhaps Andrew Hauptman didn't help and there's no doubt that the combination of Leon and Petrei was a disaster but even with that, the last two seasons this team was better on paper than where it finished in the table. If Frank truly gets the most out of his players than they would have finished in the Top 3 in the East in 2012 and at the very least made the Knockout game this past season.

 

Of course, Klopas had a direct hand in bringing a lot of that middling talent to Chicago, so its hard to give him a free pass there.

So, good luck with that, Montreal. Hope you like boring, skill-less midfielders.

 

You can paint it that way, but it wouldn't be true. Those in Chicago know who was responsible for the busts that resulted in the middling talent I speak of.

 

You know I've read the same criticism about Kreis. Fact is Klopas took a team that was awful in 2011, turned them into a playoff contender and made the US Open Cup final, with the best player being injured (Grazzini). The Fire was in the hunt for the SS his second year, unfortunately we faded at the end of the year. It should have been expected since we so over achieved, we lost Pappa and Grazzini while Leon added a "DP" by the name of MacDonald. 17 wins with that team was miracle work.

2013 was a mixed bag, Leon replaced the injured Arne Friedrich so late that the hole the makeshift backline dug the team was too much for even MVP Magee to make up. Once Soumare incrementally improves the backline and Magee arrives the Fire post the best record in the league from June to the end of the year.

Like I said I think Klopas will do just fine with the talent Montreal has.

So we can interpret things in many ways, I don't think the Fire was much better than the Crew talent wise, we certainly had nobody close to Higuain pulling the strings, yet under Klopas we kicked ass June on.

 

DeSantis put together a team that was fighting for the SS race for 3/4 of the season. Then the melt down of catastrophic proportions ensued. Along the way, they dominated most of the better sides in MLS. Does a team capable of doing this go bad overnight? I think not. The problem here, is that they refused to turn over the roster even against weaker opposition, and key players predictably ran out of gas.

There were also signs of discontent within the locker room in the latter part of the season. Ultimately, Schallibaum paid the price. The real shame here is that DeSantis, despite his constant meddling keeps his job by reflecting his ineptness on who ever happens to be coaching the team.

Kloppas had the best winning percentage in the second half of the season, of any MLS team. Along with being named coach, he is also Director of player personnel. He's also locked in for 3 years, which shows that the club is willing to give him sufficient time to improve on whats already a decent foundation for a 3rd year club. Interestingly enough, Joey Saputo, who's never met a microphone he hasn't liked, was conspicuously absent at Kloppas's press conference. Has he finally taken the decision to step back from day to day operations?

 

Funny, the same 2013 DC team that knocked Klopas' Fire out of the USOC knocked Jason Kreis' RSL out of the USOC as well.

 

Indeed.

It's still hard to say if Klopas is particularly responsible. Most of his roster choices are reasonable, and a few ones like playing Warner and Felipe all the time might be a collective decision.

This team is in tatters, but I can't see how firing another coach changes things any.

We need to transform our roster or find some diamonds in the rough, not much else we can do at this point.

 

Yeah, everyone's going kinda nutzo in Montreal these days.

 

eh. it is a huge speculation to debate whether Mtl would be better off with JM right now (what is JM doing nowadays?)

the reason for Mtl's suck is that they failed to heed to the warning signs of last season, and did not make adequate signings off season. Mtl was always a one trick pony of di Vaio and you see what happens when di Vaio gets cold and the key members of the team are too old. this is Nick de Sanctis problem, not necessarily a Klopas problem.

well, there is also Joey Saputo problem too, but that's another story

 

Joey Saputo tweeted that "changes are coming" yesterday.

Klopas will be gone this week IMHO, but then they need to find a way to get NDS out of the FO.