When the Colorado Rapids formed an alliance with storied Arsenal FC of the English Premiership in 2007, the arrangement called for Arsenal to send a top coach to Colorado to establish the Arsenal Center of Excellence and to help bring the attractive, attacking Arsenal way of playing to the Rapids soccer complex.
Those plans took a quantum leap Wednesday, as Gary Smith, the Arsenal coach who joined the Rapids staff this season, was assigned the task of minding the gap left by head coach Fernando Clavijo's midweek departure from the team. Smith will stroll the sidelines for the Rapids, taking the helm of the club on an interim basis as it completes the final third of its season and pushes to earn a playoff berth.
"I'm filling a gap. I'm steadying a ship," Smith said Thursday after a vigorous practice in preparation for Saturday's match with D.C. United. "I'd like to get as many points on the board as possible. I think everybody would be more than happy with that."
Smith showed the ability to collect points Saturday, when he filled in for Clavijo while the head coach was home in Uruguay attending to a family emergency. After being shut out in back-to-back games on their home field, the Rapids responded with an exhilarating 2-1 win against Kansas City, putting them back in the playoff hunt where they sit in fourth place in the Western Conference, three points out of second and two points from temporarily tying for the eighth overall slot for the postseason.
"This league, as I've seen in a short period of time, is very evenly matched," Smith said. "There's one or two that hit some form and opened up a bit of a gap, as Houston has now in our group."
The Rapids hit the road this weekend for a three-week tour to take on two teams immediately ahead of them in the conference - FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake - and a team four points ahead of them on the overall table in D.C.
So Smith's official tenure will begin with an initiation by fire, taking to the road with the season on the line as each game takes on a heightened sense of significance. But after a seven-year professional playing career with Fulham, Barnet and Colchester United followed by three years coaching with Wimbledon, Wycombe and Watford and a year scouting for Arsenal in Spain, Smith is ready for the challenge.
"I have to say, I don't feel any pressure, doing what I'm doing," Smith said, downplaying the notion that last weekend's fill-in was in any way a trial run for his role as interim coach. "I've been in this position before. I'd like to think when I give my best I can be an asset to any club that I'm at."
The last time Smith was in this position was in 2004, when he took over Wycombe Wanderers after head coach Tony Adams resigned, posting a 4-0 record as he completed the season as interim head coach. The experience of making a transition in the midst of a season has helped Smith make the quick adaptation in his responsibilities with the Rapids, and his experience working as an assistant coach with the club through the season gives him a leg up on smoothing the process for his players, all but one of whom were brought to the Rapids by Clavijo over the past four seasons.
"The first challenge is with players that have built relationships with a manager that's moved on," Smith said. "The manager is looked upon as their mainstay of the group, so [I'm] just reassuring them that there aren't going to be a huge amount of changes. We've got a lot of young players that want to know there's going to be some stability for the run-in, because they won't have that experience to draw on. The senior players may well have seen situations like this before.
"It's a disappointing and sad part of football, but it happens in most sports," Smith continued, reflecting on Clavijo's departure. "There aren't too many managers that hang around for the 10- and 15-year stints. So I'm just keeping the group on an even keel, keeping spirits as high as possible. That job has been made easier with a victory at the weekend."
Smith has drawn on the academy coaching staff to step up and fill the vacant slots that trickled down following the change at the top, knowing he can rely on quality coaches who already have relationships with the players in the Rapids organization.
"The good thing is that Gary Smith has been with us all year," said defender Mike Petke, one of the longest-tenured players on the club. "He has the guys' respect 100 percent, and he's proven that he knows what he's doing. Guys are working for him very hard. He's a very capable coach. He's already made some changes here and there. If you look at Kansas City, we're seeing the result of it. Guys are very happy. It's about looking forward now to the future. We have 10 games left, and we have to get into that playoff spot."
Along with the task of reassuring players that the Rapids won't be turned on their heads with the coaching transition, Smith is balancing a very real need for change. In consultation with Clavijo, Smith ran out a starting lineup featuring five new starters against Kansas City, notably keeping All-Star playmaker Christian Gomez and regular goalkeeper Bouna Coundoul on the bench for the duration.
"Christian's an extremely talented player, and the reasons for Christian being here are good ones," Smith said. "He's very effective, he's very creative. He's been productive for the team throughout the season. Every player will go through spells where their form dips a little bit. Maybe they're not quite as focused as they should be. Last weekend it was just purely a tactical change that on the day worked. Is that going to be a regular occurrence? I can't say at this point. Christian is very much a major part of the plans of this club, and will be throughout the remaining 10 games of our season. So we'll see how the weekend goes, but I'm sure that Christian will have an effect whether it's this weekend or the weekends coming up."
Gomez and Coundoul highlighted vulnerabilities on both sides of the field, with the Rapids dramatically outshooting their opponents in the two losses preceding the turnaround against Kansas City, but failing to score in either match and letting their opponents score despite keeping their chances to a bare minimum. Backup goalie Preston Burpo will make a second consecutive start Saturday in D.C. as Coundoul returns from a call-up to the Senegal national team and continues working to return to form.
"If, again, you look at any individual whose form dips, nobody can be left out of that process of pushing in a positive direction," Smith said. "So if [Coundoul's] form does dip below the qualities that you expect from him, then Preston's in good form. We've seen that. He's feeling extremely confident, and rightly so, given the performance of the weekend."
Having struck a winning formula against the Wizards, Smith expects to implement a similar attack Saturday, though he guarded his words, noting that D.C. United head coach Tom Soehn would likely be scouring MLSnet.com for any clues to help him prepare his side to take on the Rapids.
"I think [against Kansas City] we addressed to a pretty good degree some of the problems we've been having whilst still maintaining some of the qualities we've had," Smith said. "They'll be maybe just a little bit of tinkering with one or two of the bodies and their role within that group. We know that we're playing a very talented side in D.C. Their home record is very good. Individually if you look around their group, there's some bodies there that can cause us some difficulty. So we're not going there with any undue thoughts about running away with the game. We know it's going to be tough, and we're prepared for that."
It's the first step in a concerted effort to climb the table in the final third of the season, converting the anticipated spark that commonly follows a coaching change into a plausible push to climb the ranks of a clustered conference teaming with parity.
"Every week this group goes into a game confident that they can be successful and they can add points to our tally," Smith said. "We've made our task somewhat more difficult with the form in the last few weeks, but I'll be flabbergasted if there's anybody in this group that doesn't truly believe that we're capable of making the playoffs.
"So that's going to be our intention. Week in, week out, we'll aim towards the next game. The maximum we can get is three points every week, and hopefully the minimum will be one."
If the Rapids can meet that ambitious goal, the gap between their club and those above them in the standings could quickly be obliterated.
Owen Perkins is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
