Can a foreign coach succeed in MLS?
It's the question that will follow any manager who arrives from overseas to take over an MLS team. If one ever gets the opportunity again.
The recent wave of 2014 coaching hirings in MLS has seen teams go with names that know the league intimately: Frank Klopas (Montreal Impact), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids), Gregg Berhalter (Columbus Crew), Oscar Pareja (FC Dallas), Jason Kreis (New York City FC), Jim Curtin (Philadelphia Union), Carl Robinson (Vancouver Whitecaps), Greg Vanney (Toronto FC), Mark Watson (San Jose Earthquakes) and Jeff Cassar (Real Salt Lake).
Long-time MLS reporter Steve Davis recently dug up the research to explain why MLS clubs should veer away from British-style managers, and there is more than enough evidence in the past two seasons alone that suggests an MLS background is the way to go for any club looking to fill a head coaching vacancy.
But finding a coach is not that simple.
Currently, the only club with an opening is the Houston Dynamo, and while the MLS-only trend is clear, the Dynamo are not letting it dictate their search.
“We’re approaching this process in a very thorough way and on a global scale,” Dynamo president Chris Canetti told MLSsoccer.com. “We’re not limiting our search to those with MLS backgrounds. While that’s been the recent trend, we have a wider scale and a wider scope to our search in mind. While our search is global in nature, we are interested in looking at the top candidates from MLS as well.”
That global search has resulted in what Canetti estimates to be approximately 100 candidates. As Canetti has sifted through the resumes, he said he did not exclude those from outside the USA or Canada, but he has now limited the focus to five or six candidates from the wider pool.
When new general manager Matt Jordan arrives in Houston and can participate in the process, he and Canetti will work to narrow that list even further. What's clear is that the successor to Dominic Kinnear will be chosen based on how he approaches the game, not where he was born.
The Dynamo have stated they want a leader, someone who has worked with professionals and has an open mind to emerging soccer tactics, soccer analytics and new methods of soccer training. Those traits could very well belong to a foreign coach for the Dynamo -- if one emerged with the right mentality.
“With foreign coaches, you have to make sure they’re here for the right reasons, number one, which is to win and help develop the club for the long-term,” Canetti said. “You have to make sure that when they come into the league, they entirely buy into the league structure and are willing to learn it and accept it and not use it as an excuse for failure.
“Lastly, they need to come in with a humble approach and not with a know-it-all attitude, because our league’s different. There are other variables that add up to success that are not exactly the same as leagues in foreign lands. Whoever comes in here needs to be able to embrace that, accept it and be able to deal with it.”
The club is still aiming for a hire to be in place no later than the MLS Expansion Draft on Dec. 10.
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.
