VANCOUVER, B.C. – It’s been an underwhelming second season at the helm for Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Martin Rennie, with his side currently sitting second-to-last in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference.
Wednesday’s failure to lift the Voyageurs Cup at BC Place – despite leading the Montreal Impact twice – is arguably the lowest point in the Scotsman's tenure in Vancouver.
This after a 2012 season which raised expectations through the club’s first-ever qualification for the MLS Cup playoffs.
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Rennie’s not giving up on those expectations just yet. He’s hoping his ability to turn the league’s worst side in 2011 into a 2012 playoff team, combined with a long-term vision he claims to share with the ownership group, ensures his job security in the weeks to come.
“We're doing things the way [the owners have] wanted us to do them,” Rennie told reporters after a training session at the University of British Columbia on Thursday. “They've got a clear philosophy on how they want things to be done and so we're working specifically with them on that, making sure we're following through on decisions they want us to make and we then implement into the team.”
And, as poorly as his team has performed at times this season, the 'Caps haven't followed the model of one of their Canadian rivals, who have rotated through five head coaches over the past five seasons and have yet to taste playoff soccer.
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“I think there are pretty good blueprints of what not to do,” Rennie said. “You don't have to look too far, like Toronto, for example, to see that if you consistently change things you don't end up in a very good place over the long haul. And I think for us we're really close to being where we need to be.
“We obviously have to pick things up in MLS and get good results but, no, I feel confident about [my job security]. That's not the kind of thing you want to wake up thinking about, you just have to focus on what you have to do to win and what you have to do well and that's where my head is at.”
