I know there's already a Heaps oriented thread but I wanted to create an action-oriented one that focused on replacing the GM Mike Burns given he put together this underperforming roster. Rather than complain about Burns, pretend he has been fired and it's your job to find his replacement. Who do you choose and why? Make a case with data and links if available. My choice would be Rochester Rhinos' GM Pat Ercoli. Pat has been the GM since 2009. Accomplishments: He oversaw their USOC victory in 1999 - the only time a non-MLS club has won the competition since the league began in 1996. He built a team in Rochester that won the equivalent of the USL's 2015 Supporters Shield and playoffs - a USL double if you will. They have missed the playoffs just once during his tenure, 2013 (when Ercoli took over as coach) but have been overall very successful under his tenure. They have come in first in their division in 2010 and 2011, 2nd in 2012 and then won it all last year. That's a much better track record than Burns. I say bring him in for a look.
Honestly, anyone with some modest success professionally would be a step up from Burns. (Hell, I'd take a bag of used sweat socks at this point. It'd stink, but it'd be no less effective at finding new players.) Someone like Ercoli or another lower league GM is probably our best bet - I don't have a sense of a lot of movement among MLS-tier GMs, and I'm not sure they'd want the Revs job anyway.
IMHO, replace both Heaps and Burns with a very strong GM/Coach and give him more control of the player selection and the game. If we're fantasizing, my pick would be Roy Hodgson. He did a great job getting Fulham to play better than they ever had before. Yes, he failed miserably at Liverpool and England, but he has done very well in lower visibility roles and clearly knows the game extremely well. He might like moving to an area where every third person on the street didn't berate him.
Hey, you get the replacement ready and I'll bring the warm tar, feathers and rail to help Mikes relocation to Guam. Replacing him has been at the top of my Christmas want list since the day he was hired.
Just like our dumb coaching decision ... Burns was hired with absolutely no experience at that job. Let's try and make sure that both positions are filled with people that have a clue as to what the job entails. I don't think that's asking too much.
Agree - no more OTJ training for GMs and head coach, please. If I were Jon Kraft or Bilello, I'd start putting together a short list of candidates to replace Burns and then make a move ASAP. Since Caleb Porter was successful in making the D1 to pros leap from Akron, (as was Bruce Arena from UVA and Sigi Schmid from UCLA), I would take a look at coaches among the top college ranks and begin building a management team from there. Jay Vidovich from Wake Forest would be a great hire if he'd be willing to move up north and make the leap to the pros. Would put him in charge of our Academy given he's one of the better player development coaches in the US. Ray Reid from UConn is another one I'd consider recruiting for the GM job if not the coach. He's the 2nd winningest active coach, 4 national titles in 19 years at UConn. Plus, he's based in CT so it wouldn't require a major uproot to a different part of the country.
You're right but still 4 national titles is nothing to sneeze at regardless of 3 being lower division. He obviously knows how to recruit and runs a strong program year in, year out which is what the revs need at GM.
No. He's not going to have the experience getting MLS-quality players from overseas. And that's the main ability that Burns is lacking.
I havent seen the game yet.... was at Buffett Sat night and wont be home to Wed. However, I now have seen that we failed again. Only losing 2-0 is a positive result compared to games in the immediate past. Is this a positive in Burns speak? No ... News flash this is a classic meltdown and somebodies head has to roll very soon. There is no turning this SS Revolution around without big changes up top... Heaps and Burns have to go. Then see who wants to actually play for the new boss. I dont mean hire Diego's second cousin, who once say a real soccer game. Somebody with real experience that will kick ass and clean house if necessary
The revs need the soccer equivalent of Bill Parcells when he came to the pats in '93. Clean house and kick ass.
Not true - he had 7 foreign born players from 6 countries on his USL-double winning roster in 2015. Not all are MLS quality sure, but to outright dismiss his capabilities in the absence of facts seems pretty narrow minded. Add to this he has been a successful GM a step below MLS since 2009.
Have you watched UConn play? They're very rarely equal to the sum of their parts (their 2013 team was stacked with Cyle Larin, Andre Blake, and several other MLS draftees) . Reid is a good recruiter, but his teams have played some ugly soccer and have lost to less talented teams in the national tournament pretty consistently over the past decade. The last thing this team, or this league for that matter, needs is an old school collegiate coach like Ray Reid. I say all of this as UConn fan...
Fair point but this is the GM thread. My argument is to make him the GM and hire an experienced coach. Larin, Blake etc. are talented enough to win the league under the stewardship of a different coach. We just need a GM to recruit and retain players of their caliber to come here.
recruiting for DII and DI are different animals at least back when he was winning it was pretty different. He is a good college coach but I look back at some of the teams he has had the past 10 years and wonder how he did not do better than 1 national title. His style of play is a little old school
I know they have foreign players, but I said "MLS level" - the guys who have other good options than US pro soccer. Most foreign players in US leagues below MLS don't have a lot of viable pro options and they aren't the same kind of challenge to find and sign. I think a new GM needs to have the ability to sign higher-caliber foreign players than Burns or the Rhinos have been able to do.
Assuming sarcasm here? But, seriously. What is he up to these days? (You blow one World Cup, losing to Iran, and suddenly everything thinks you don't know a thing about the sport.)
Doesn't matter with who. He just needs to be replaced. He's never been suited for the position. Plus, even back then he proved he couldn't pay attention to what he needed to be doing, and that was something he was somewhat qualified to be doing.
Darn it!!! Atlanta just beat out Burnsie (I'm sure Mike was all over this) in signing Tata Martino as our new head coach. Oh shoot. Here's the link: http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/201...-gerardo-tata-martino-barcelona-argentina-mls (Somehow, the Revolution and Burnsie are never mentioned in the article, but I'm sure he was VERY close to signing him.)
But the Krafts don't have any history of working with him in the past, no "relationship" with him. Cross him off the list!
He also coached Barcelona for a bit as well as Argentina in the recent Copa America -- heaven forbid we ever set our sights that high!
Even a reasonably competent MLS journeyman coach is out of the question for us. We wouldn't have a prayer in getting someone like Peter Vermes, Dominic Kinnear, Jason Kreis, Jesse Marsch, or any similar name. Forget about someone who has coached a top foreign club or national team.