WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
SETTING THE BAR FOR FIRST-YEAR HEAD COACHES
We've got just two more Saturdays to get through before MLS is Back and The Daily Kickoff, the universe's only soccer newsletter to ever exist (probably), goes back to being in your inbox every single day until the season ends or my brain explodes from an overload of MLS consumption and I'm left an empty husk of myself that's only able to repeat things like "Julian Gressel should thrive in Vancouver's new 4-3-2-1 formation" over and over again. But it's probably the former, not the latter. Probably.
Anyway, the point is we're really close. There are still big moves coming in here and there before opening day, but most teams are at the point in their offseason where they look how they're going to look. Which means we can start setting our expectations for them with about as much confidence as you can actually have in predicting MLS. So, not much confidence. But at least a bit more confidence than a month ago.
For today's expectation-setting fun, I want to focus on our newest managers. There…actually aren't all that many and I had to sorta cheat to get a full newsletter out of the idea. But that doesn't mean this group is boring. In fact, there's a sense we're seeing a second act for a lot of characters we're already familiar with. It'd be harsh to call them retreads, but it's also pretty fun to do that because it means MLS is re-running former head coaches and expecting different results LIKE A REAL SPORTS LEAGUE NOW. This is 27 years of history coming to life right in front of us.
Seriously, there are only four managers in entirely new jobs and we're familiar with all four of them. The three new-ish managers we saw midway through last season are probably the ones we're actually least familiar with. It's all kind of strange. But it does make keeping track of everything a lot easier. Oh yeah, there's an expansion team as well.
All told, expectations are generally low for most of this group. So let's set the bar for them to clear and talk about how they get there in 2023.
Hernan Losada - CF Montréal
Bar: Get everyone to buy in
There are two sides of Losada's tenure in D.C. United and both deserve to be talked about equally. The first side (and the reason Montréal were willing to overlook the second) is Losada's D.C. teams were shockingly good and it wasn't because of an elite MLS roster. I'm going to mention this a lot in the buildup to the season, but Losada's 2021 D.C. team finished third (!!) in the league in expected goal differential. That was just behind a comically underperforming LAFC team and NYCFC, the eventual MLS champions.
Yeah, they missed the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs. Yeah, there are caveats there. But the fact of the matter is the underlying numbers have 2021 D.C. as one of the most effective and unlucky teams in MLS. Losada made that happen. Unfortunately, that leads us to the second side of things.
Losada made it happen despite man-management issues. Hopefully, he's learned from them.
That puts his bar a little lower than most. He needs to get buy-in from Montréal's players for a couple of reasons. The first is he needs to prove he's grown from his most recent MLS stint. And the second is he needs players to hit a hard reset from the possession-based game model Wilfried Nancy installed over the last couple of years to tremendous effect. He at least needs to show that folks can be invested throughout the season as Montréal move along what's probably a two-year timeline here. It's hard to see things clicking immediately despite a relatively talented roster.
Wilfried Nancy - Columbus Crew
Bar: Playoff game (and holding onto leads)
There's a reason Columbus went hard after Nancy once Caleb Porter left. Few, if any managers in the league have done it better since Nancy took over Montréal in 2021. With a roster that includes Cucho Hernandez, Lucas Zelarayan and Darlington Nagbe, the expectation will be for Nancy to get this team to the playoffs. Some folks might even be expecting a home playoff spot. But we'll set the bar at just getting the Crew back to the playoffs and exercising whatever demons compelled them to blow nearly every lead they ever had last season.
Wayne Rooney - D.C. United
Bar: Be competitive (??)
I have no idea what to expect from this D.C. team that could realistically find themselves in the playoffs or holding a second-straight Wooden Spoon. The variance is very, very high with this group.
But thanks to an offseason full of Rooney-centric moves entering his first full year with the team, expectations will be high. If all of these deals for older, win-now players don't come good, then Rooney will have some serious questions to answer from the D.C. folks who went all out to build some version of his team. The Black-and-Red at least need to be competing for a playoff spot at year's end for Rooney to clear the bar. At least.
Whether or not that's fair, I don't really know.
Luchi Gonzalez - San Jose Earthquakes
Bar: Get all the Almeyda out
I really kind of like the Quakes roster! And I really kind of like what Luchi did with FC Dallas! The Quakes need a steadying force, though, and we'll have to see if Gonzalez can be that guy. It seems likely he can, but just when it seems like the Quakes have turned the corner, they have a no-show game. Luchi's job here is to make things a little calmer. A little gentler. And then he can let a solid starting XI get to work and see what happens. It's a pretty good bet that San Jose will get some positive results from that.
Christian Lattanzio - Charlotte FC
Bar: Year. Two. Bump.
It doesn't have to be Austin-esque, but Charlotte folks will be expecting some kind of leap forward this year. The good news is, there's a lot of precedent here for just that and Lattanzio seems to be a solid choice to make it happen.
The Eastern Conference feels pretty stacked at this point though, so let's call a year-two bump a year where The Crown are competing for a playoff spot.
Nick Cushing - NYCFC
Bar: Get better throughout the year
For what I think is probably the first time ever, NYCFC are in a rebuilding year. So many big names are gone and so few names have come in. It's fair to probably be a little bit worried in the Bronx. Especially if you weren't sold on Cushing last year after a rough start in the summer and a solid finish in the fall.
At this point, it's fair to not expect too much from the Pigeons. You probably just want to see them make progress throughout the season as they presumably add pieces and gain cohesion. The worst-case scenario is they flatline and never recover. The best-case scenario is the new pieces fit instantly and Cushing molds this team into a powerhouse again come playoff time. All seems possible.
Ben Olsen - Houston Dynamo FC
Bar: ??????
I genuinely don't know what your ambitions or expectations are after bringing in a manager with Olsen's up-and-down record from a decade at D.C. United. It wasn't all his fault of course, but the line graph of Olsen's teams was jagged and steep. There were good years and some, uh, rough years.
He'll have some leeway with a team that's bringing in a lot of new pieces, but I'm not sure how much leeway. We thought Paulo Nagamura would have a decent amount, but here we are talking about a new Houston Dynamo FC manager.
I think Houston are building a lot of good things, but I also think we're in the awkward transition period of that process right now. Your guess is as good as mine as to what expectations are during that.
Bradley Carnell - St. Louis CITY SC
Bar: Make the Baby Red Bulls thing work enough to build on
We have a good idea of what's about to happen here after Carnell spent a few years on the red side of New York. St. Louis brought him in to make Energy Drink Soccer happen, and that's exactly what it sounds like he's going to do.
That may not go perfectly in year one, especially with an expansion team roster. But we've said over and over how the benefit of high-transition game models in MLS are they raise your floor. It's what Losada's 2021 D.C. team benefited from, it's what the Union benefited from in 2022 and it's why the Red Bulls have made the playoffs every year since I started high school.
We'll see how high the floor is for an expansion team attempting to succeed through other teams' failures, but odds are it could work pretty well. At least well enough to get folks excited for a year-two bump in 2024. That's all you can really ask in the first season.
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