I remember when the Revs sacked Rongen. On a personal level, I liked him. He had been around US soccer for a long time and had some great stories of his playing days with the old Ft. Lauderdale Strikers in the NASL. But given the results at the Revs (and the whole World Cup fiasco), he had to go. The thing is, everyone knew he'd land somewhere else (he did, at DC, the following year where he won MLS Cup). Because he's a professional coach, and that's what they do. If they get fired somewhere, they usually end up with another team not too long after that. Does anyone think this would happen with Heaps? He'll probably go back to some kind of civilian job, and that will be the end of his career in soccer. Nothing wrong with that if it's what he wants to do, but it speaks volumes that, instead of a professional coach, who is committed to making a career out of being a coach, and being a better coach with each passing year, the Krafts hired a guy who figures he'll do it for a while, and then, if it doesn't work out, he'll go back to figuring out the algorythms for maximmizing the return on treasury bonds, or something like that. And Burns? Could he get a job as a GM/Technical Director/Soccer Ops guy with another MLS club? He's done better in recent years with trading and dealing with MLS Funny Money, so it is not as insane of an idea as it was a few years ago, but I still think there's no way another team would hire him in a similar, high profile role.
Agree on Burns. He's not very good at his job and has the personality of a wet towel. Combined, that's not very marketable to MLS 3.0 organizations. Heaps, on the other hand, is young and ambitious and does have 5 MLS Cups on his resume which differentiates him. I don't know but someone may see what we see (handcuffed on getting talent by failing GM / cheap owners) and be willing to take a risk on him. After all Zenga was a crap coach for the revs but did reasonably well over in Italy. It's not unheard of for a good future coach to fail at his first gig. Channeling KAD positivity, it's a unique situation in current Boston pro sports to have neither a coach nor GM that other teams covet. KIASBM!
I dunno if Heaps is really all that well-regarded, but that could be my Revs-colored glasses. I did make a remark on one of the neutral fan boards a few weeks ago about high-profile pedigreed managers like Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Jay Heaps, and someone took it seriously! Of course, he argued that one of those guys does not belong, and I said, whadddayamean? Heaps has got more "pedigree" than the freakin' AKC dog show... But I would be willing to take my chances that Heaps will go on to have a hugely successful career coaching some other team...
Think so? At what level? IMO, someone who has experience at the college level like the Brandeis or UConn coach would eat him for lunch tactically.
I know your opinion on him being old-school and I agree but the guy knows how to win. It was like Stevie Nicol on the revs - bringing his old school 80s England tactics with Rally crossing from the wings and a traditional forward like Twellman scoring off headers. Oldschool, yes, but MLS coaches were rarely sophisticated enough to offset them. Same thing with Heaps IMO - a guy like Ray Reid may not do much past the NCAA level but he'd keep it simple while Heaps would probably over think it, play guys out of position (or misjudge like playing Teal up top) and shoot himself in the foot.
My view of college soccer is that it is much less involved with tactics and much more about intensity, effort, teamwork, motivation, etc. - things that I think Heaps is actually very good at as a coach.