That is so sad. He seemed super-nice, and one of the really decent people involved with the Rev organization.
Very sad news. He truly was a great guy. Before BigSoccer, there was an email based message board that was used to discuss the Revs. Similar to our discussions here, many posts were critical of the team or coaching decisions. It turned out that Clavijo monitored and read those emails. He appreciated that we were so passionate about the team that he invited about 10 of us to join him for dinner to discuss the Revs! It was a great evening that I’ll never forget. We all spent a couple of hours with him discussing soccer. He was very honest and straight forward and welcomed all our comments and suggestions. I remember asking him why John Harkes took all the corner kicks since he sucked at them. Clavijo agreed that Harkes wasn’t good at them but said he had no alternative since the rest of team was worse! I left the dinner with a much better understanding of the challenges of coaching and a huge respect for Clavijo. He even paid for the dinner! A wonderful person and a big loss for soccer.
Sad news for such a classy guy. He had his ups and downs with the Revs, but always had his dignity. He made a significant contribution to US Soccer, when we desperately needed players with his experience. Like Carlos Llamosa, he made it only with significant personal sacrifices and perseverance. Thank you Fernando.
The last (only?) Revs coach to play anything resembling Tiki-Taka. His teams managed some beautiful soccer (despite Rusty Pierce and Joey Franchino).
So sorry to hear the news He really was a great guy, and was someone who could talk soccer for hours with anyone interested. I first met him at one of the MLS Cup functions in 1999 when he was an assistant with the Metros. He was rumored to be one of the contenders for the Revs job to replace Walter Zenga, and was full of enthusiasm and while he wasn't exactly lobbying for the job with a lowly fanzine editor, he was clearly interested,and also wanted to make a good impression. It's like someone who is in a restaurant and treats the waitress as a servant because they are "beneath" them, this was the 100% opposite. A genuine good guy to everyone he encountered. Another time he invited us to come to his office in Foxboro, and the two things that stand out the most in that meeting were that he had whiteboards all over the room, one for each team, with a list of players, and a whole color-coded system (that we couldn't figure out, and he wouldn't give the details), probably based on the salary in the pre-DP/TAM/GAM era. And then he got a phone call from Brad Friedel, of all people, they chatted for a bit (the timing would have been early evening UK time, a little while after Brad's game ended). Then he apologized to us for taking the call--when I felt like I was intruding by just hearing Fernando's end of the conversation. Another thing about him, a story my wife found very endearing, was that he met his wife when they were 5 years old in kindergarten and had been in love ever since. I knew he had been ill recently, but he had posted that he was in remission not long ago. So sad it took a turn for the worse. He truly was a great guy.
Interesting that you mentioned Friedel - I had imagined that they must be friends, since there was probably a good overlap of their USNT careers. The Revs recognized him at their Season-ticketholder event yesterday, but mentioned him by first name only. I was wondering how many knew who they were referring to.
[QUOTE="rkupp, post: 37511263, member: 12281"The Revs recognized him at their Season-ticketholder event yesterday, but mentioned him by first name only. I was wondering how many knew who they were referring to.[/QUOTE] Given how many fans apparently couldn't pronounce player names, or spell the manager's name correctly in tweets, I'm guessing it was few and far between who knew Clavijo.
Given how many fans apparently couldn't pronounce player names, or spell the manager's name correctly in tweets, I'm guessing it was few and far between who knew Clavijo.[/QUOTE] I know - my favorite was the fan addressing "Mr." (?) free-DELL!
People seemed to have a real tough time pronouncing Mancienne as well. Why not just call him Michael? One of the more humorous moments was when Mancienne was asked if he was familiar with the "Duck Boat" concept - he clearly was not. He looked totally confused, even after some help from the panel.
Early 2000’s after the Rev’s had let him go, he, Nicol and some other ex-revs were playing in the OTHSL. Our goalie did not show up and I drew the short straw. Clavijo got the ball near midfield, dribbled our midfield and defenders and came into the penalty box 1v1 with me. He started to dribble around me and I American football tackled him around the waist. Didn’t bring him down, just hugged him. Amazingly I only got a yellow card, Clavijo got the PK goal. We laughed about it over beers in the parking lot. Good guy.
Cool story. I used to watch those guys (their home field was about 1/2 mile from my house) a little later on - starting from about 2010 or so? Khano was on the team, after his Rev days were done and he was the star (and a load for any OTHSL defense to handle).
I can imagine Khano was a handful for defenders, but did you still qualify for hazardous duty pay as a spectator when he took a shot? Very sad news about Fernando. I didn’t know him, but our seats were right behind the bench in those days. He was so calm and measured compared to Stevie. Seemed a real gentleman. RIP.
I know this thread is meant for Fernando, but thank you guys for sharing some very cool and interesting stories.
Really nice article about Fernando. It confirms, as I recalled, that his story is very similar to Carlos Llamosa's - before performing as USNT players in World Cups and coaching at the highest levels of US Soccer, they worked as janitors, alongside other Latin American immigrants.