Upgrading Mike Burns - Who should replace him?

I hope the Krafts start asking why that is the case. If they were willing to spend money as Nicol says, then it is clearly something else. That assumes of course that the Krafts notice and care rather than just committing money.

 

Let's not treat Tom's post as fact - that's just his own baseless conjecture. He has no way of knowing how "competent MLS journeyman coaches" feel about working for the Krafts.

 

No instead, we'll just wave our hands in the air and grudgingly admit that Burns should have been fired years ago and Heaps never should have been hired to begin with, and not bother to ask why we are still stuck with them. Highly unlikely that there will be any changes--that 3 game win streak assured us of being "in the playoff race" until the end.

Let's not consider the quality of hires the Krafts have made regarding their team. Let's not look around the league and compare our operation with other comparable (i.e. not the big spenders) teams. Let's not wish we had half the ambition of the average middle of the road club who will, in fact, fire a coach or a GM if they are not delivering.

Atlanta have signed the most high-profile manager in league history. Other teams have hired managers with success elsewhere, and have given them resources where they can at least have a shot at succeeding. No need to ask why a prerequisite for employment in the Kraft organization is that they have had to have worked in the Kraft organization previously. Bob Bradley or Bruce Arena need not apply. They'd also need not apply because they'd want some kind of control over the players they'd get and wouldn't want to have to take orders from chimpanzees like Mike Burns.

But that's just baseless conjecture, unlike the absolutely tremendous facts that you provide, like Heaps just doesn't want an assistant, or in the entire world of soccer, he couldn't find one single guy who knows a thing or two about tactics who would have the right "chemistry" to fit in here. I can't Trump those kind of facts, believe me!

 

Brian Bilello, Mike Burns, and Jay Heaps share three attributes that mark them as ideal candidates to fill key roles in the New England Revolution management structure.

1) They're not overly ambitious.
2) They don't make waves.
3) They're ecstatic to just have a pro sports franchise willing to employ them.

That's it. Period.

"The Three Stooges" of MLS are fortunate to be holding down jobs that pay with a professional sports franchise, are all too aware that the likelihood of their landing a gig with any other pro team is somewhere between "non-existant" and "illusory", and are content to tread water in their current situations for as long as the Krafts' indifferent stewardship of the Revolution provides them with accountability-free jobs.

If I can be convinced, in a moment of generosity, to concede that Messrs. Bilello, Burns, and Heaps may have once harbored ambition, passion, and vision, all I can say is that they hooked-up with the wrong MLS outfit to preserve and nurture those qualities.

I call 'em as I see 'em... and that's what I see.

 

I wonder how Bob Bradley would feel about it. Certainly no 'MLS journeyman coach' he. Can't see him going to LAFC either, but that it is being discussed is WAY more than the Revs would ever get to. I hope he lands at Swansea. But the bigger point is this: I don't think our front office/organization has any credibility to even have a discussion with the likes of Bob Bradley. Isn't that sad?

Here's a link to the article on Bradley: http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2016/09/28/bob-bradley-swansea-lafc-mls-manager

 

Those may be valid questions, but they are different questions.

You said "We wouldn't have a prayer in getting someone like Peter Vermes, Dominic Kinnear, Jason Kreis, Jesse Marsch, or any similar name. ". I think the organization is a much better prospective employer for a coach than you imply. The fact that they stood by Steve Nicol for as long as they did (and parted respectfully and on good terms) should mean a great deal to a coach. And, despite the constant criticism that they won't spend, they have shown in recent years that they will pay for DPs.

I can certainly understand a coach being wary of their track record for acquiring international players, but I think that's a discussion point, not a non-starter.

 

It's not that they "won't spend" on high-end players, because from time to time they have, as evidenced by post-Jones acquisitions like Kouassi and Kamara. It's more of a matter of skimping on other things--critical things like an adequate level of staffing like assistant coaches and scouts (sometimes doubling up).

I don't know how widespread this thinking is, and whether it directly hinders their ability to make good hires, but it can't be helping.

 

I don't think this issue is with those coaches refusing to come here, but more with the Kraft's never considering them based on their philosophy of hiring from with the "family".

They broke that philosophy when they hired Rongen, and that worked out poorly, so they won't be in a hurry to do it again.

I was thrilled when they hired Tom Soehn, simply because it was so out of character to hire someone outside the organization like that. But that seems to be a rare exception.

Look at who was interviewed for the job before Heaps got it: Steve Ralston. Did anyone with a track record like the coaches Tom listed fly in to Foxboro for an interview?

What would lead you to believe that Heaps' eventual replacement will stray from the norm?

It is certainly possible. But I think it is far more likely that they would promote Tom Soehn, or bring back Ralston, than they would pursue someone with a more distinguished CV.

 

There have been a lot of times when the Revs did the "right" thing and it didn't turn out so great,but it was still the right move. When they hired Rongen, there was no "Revs family" to speak of, unless they wanted to make Lalas the player/coach! At the time they hired him, he was the coach of the year, coming off an excellent season wehre he had assembled a very good team in Tampa.

The fact that they were able to get him speaks volumes about the league at the time. He was making $75k on a one-year contract, and asked for a raise after his season there. Surely a team with an owner would have found a way to keep him, but Tampa was owned by the league, and there was no one to step in and make sure someone like Kraft didn't double his salary and get him to move. It wouldn't be the first time it sucked to be a Tampa fan.

Where it all went wrong with Rongen was when he took 6 weeks off in the middle of the season to go to the World Cup. Still, it was absolutely the right kind of move to make at the time. Much better than the way they hired their first coach. It just happened that then-GM Brian O'Donovan was on the same flight from Ireland with Irish legend Frank Stapleton, who was looking to get into coaching at a kids' camp on the Cape. Interested in coaching at a much higher level? Y'see, we're starting up a new pro league, and...

Another "right" move that turned out badly was signing a guy like Jerry Bengston, who had all the right attributes, but just didn't work out. Come to think of it, there are quite a few guys over the years who should have done better for us, but for some reason did not, and then they went on to succeed at other teams. Different coaches and surrounding casts, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is...

 

There's never been any evidence that those things are financial decisions or that they even came from the top.

I don't think that "family tree" connection is as strong as you suppose.

Nicol wasn't really from the Revs family (he was actually from the Bulldogs/Crusaders/Renegades organization whose management did have a relationship with the Revs management/ownership). He was brought in as an assistant with the possibility (likelihood?) that Clavijo wouldn't be able to succeed with the team. His background was much more about Scotland and Europe than anything to do with the Revs or NE.

With Heaps, it wasn't so much about him being associated with the team as a TV guy, but he was a former player who did have a long tenure in the league. At the time he was hired, a lot of teams were having some good success with their former players from his generation. Now, the league-wide trend is much different - with more teams looking for coaches with world experience and more technical background.

With Zenga, who knows. Maybe they figured that nobody else could manage him, so why not try letting him manage himself? That team was so talent-poor (aside from Zenga) that no coach was going to have much success.

 

Well, it does cost more money to have 4 coaches instead of 2 and plane tickets to go scout players don't grow on trees, but sure, if you say that there's never been any iron-clad, smoking gun, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence that it is purely financial, you got me there, but I will argue that it plays a part. That aside, what is your theory if it isn't financial? Heaps doesn't want any of those things? Yeah, that't prolly it.

The further back you go, there was an even smaller pool of "family" for any kind of soccer position. Don't forget that Nicol was the interim manager for the last couple of games in the 1999 season, after Zenga boldly asked for a contract extension after not making the playoffs (and a couple weeks after he jumped the fence and chased down a fan in the parking lot and got into a shouting match in Italian because the guy called the Revs a "Serie C team"). So by the time Nicol was hired as an assistant in 2002, the Krafts certainly knew him. And Nicol certainly knew what side the bread was buttered on when he was managing the Bulldogs.

Well, yeah, he was an ex-player. But would they have hired an ex-player from another team, even if he was a guy who was well-respected and a "student of the game?" I dunno. But even at the time Heaps was hired, most teams were going in a different direction. Richie Williams and Ben Olson were the only "Heaps-like" guys coaching then, IIRC. American ex-players who spent their entire career in MLS and never played/managed abroad.

No, not at all. In fact, I had that very conversation with Brian O when it happened. They had to let Rongen go at the end of 1998, but he didn't think Zenga had the right temperament (there's that word again!). He was overruled "for marketing reasons, not soccer reasons" since Zenga was associated with the most successful team the Revs ever had (world's tallest midget). I watched a practice when Zenga was coach, and I don't know if it was a one-off, but Leonel Alvarez ran the show. It was great for guys like Carlos Parra and Pato Aguelera, but if you couldn't understand Spanish, you were SOL. Still, that team (like the current team) was worse than the sum of its parts.

 

Clearly, the Revs would not have "checked all the boxes" for Jason Kreis:

After NYCFC failure, Jason Kreis finds what he wants at Orlando City
Brian Straus
Thursday September 29th, 2016
SI.com

 

Which one?

 

Well, we know that incompetent journeyman coaches like Heaps feel just fine working for the Krafts. Good enough, eh, Kupp?

 

Crazy suggestion for a GM-manager combo selection: Andre Villas-Boas. Young, but extremely experienced in the international game. He speaks English and his Portuguese heritage will be a boon in the Boston area. Players he's signed over the years include James Rodriguez, Nicolas Otamendi, Thibault Courtois, Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata, Kevin De Bruyne, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Moussa Dembele, Jan Vertongen, Hugo Lloris and Clint Dempsey. He was early in going after Belgium's golden generation.

Would he want to do a long-term project in the states and how much would it take to sign him? I don't know, but there's a guy who'd remake the franchise.

 

Would it, though? I'm less convinced than I was. Certainly, it would've helped in MLS 1.0, but I am increasingly skeptical that any one person the Revs could bring in would increase our community engagement. (JJ being the most recent example – to be sure the average Rev fan was pumped for him, and he made a difference on the field. But I don't feel that he changed our attendance much, just the enthusiasm of our attendance.)

 

I agree that the "sign a name for ethnic ties" ship has long sailed, it's really a matter of hiring someone like Andre Villas-Boas for all the other reasons MM66 mentioned. Unfortunately a guy like that would cost money and require a level of commitment that we've never seen in these parts, but we can always dream, can't we?

In another thread, I half-joked that Big Sam would be a good hire because he has a "big" personality and would engage the media and create a buzz. We do need someone like that, not necessarily the coach, but someone who could be the unofficial spokesman for the team. In other words, Steve Ralston my be a great guy, well respected and even if he had success as a head man, he just doesn't have the personality to be that way. Even when he scored a goal, he looked like someone just shot his dog, so he's the total antithesis of a guy like Ray Hudson.

 

I would be very, very surprised if there is any kind of change (Heaps or Burns) this off-season. I said a couple of weeks ago that the 3-game win streak was enough to save Heaps' job, and by "being in the playoff race" until the end is good enough. Never mind that more than half the teams make it, and we weren't among them. Never mind that it took Heaps all year to get the team playing well, it will be enough to rationalize that this September lineup, plus a whole year of Kouassi, will be enough for the Revs to bounce back. No need for a "big" signing over the winter, we're good to go!

 

No one's asking for iron-clad evidence - how about any evidence whatsoever? A potential motive is not evidence.

 

The fact that they expect the Revs to live off their own income, rather than supplement with Patriots profits, is evidence that every decision they make is, at least in part, financially motivated.

This list of things that they under-spend on, compared to the rest of the league, is so long, that I consider that overwhelming circumstantial evidence:
Payroll
Coaching staff
Front office
Scouting
USL club
Marketing
etc.

 

Well, AVB (or any coach like him) wouldn't show up in the first place if the Revs didn't scrap their standard operating procedure. It would be a case of regime change. And those types of coaches would be different from Gullit because they've got actual coaching chops. Gullit was baffled as to why he didn't have a Galactico at every position..

Yet you'd definitely need to hire a good assistant GM who understands how to navigate the byzantine MLS system, someone who figures out how to execute what the head guy wants.