When the 2020 MLS schedule first came out, last Saturday was supposed to be the day Marc Dos Santos coached his Vancouver Whitecaps side against former mentor and boss Bob Bradley and LAFC.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed that meeting for now, that didn't stop the two men from reuniting over video chat to talk about their respective coaching philosophies and — perhaps most interestingly, the teams and players in the game they admire the most.
Dos Santos is still early into the second year of his rebuilding project in the Pacific Northwest. But he says the hiatus has given him the chance to do a deeper video dive into some games around the world to think more about how to model his side. And he has come away particularly impressed with Brazilian giants' Flamengo, who under manager Jorge Jesus in 2019 became only the second team in Brazilian soccer history to win the Copa Libertadores, Brazilian Serie A and their state league, the Campeonato Carioca.
"It’s a team that I think has a lot of principles that I believe in as a coach," Dos Santos said. "It’s a very aggressive team without the ball, normally set up in a 4-4-2, but very aggressive without the ball, want to recover the ball as fast as they can. Very vertical going to goal, so there’s similarities I would say to what Liverpool does under [Jurgen] Klopp. When they win the ball, that strong reaction to the loss of possession."
With the time afforded from the MLS hiatus, Dos Santos has even been able to connect with Jorge Jesus and pick his brain.
"The way he brought the club alive again that was a big club, sleeping, really intrigued me," Dos Santos said. "And watching Libertadores last year, there was a lot of moments that I became a fan."
Dos Santos also spoke highly of his time on Bradley's staff during LAFC's inaugural season, saying the collaborative tactical discussions Bradley fostered really helped his own coaching growth.
For Bradley's part, it's all part of trying to bring out people's personalities, something he says is essential to having a high-functioning club.
In that context, it's perhaps no surprise that one of his all-time favorite players was Bulgarian legend Hristo Stoichkov, who brought a bad boy reputation with him when he arrived in MLS to be part of Bradley's double-winning days with the Chicago Fire.
"I was told by a lot of people before he came to Chicago, no no, this is going to be a problem, no you won’t be able to deal with him, all these things," Bradley recalled. "Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. Sure we had tough moments. Sure, I got at him and he got at me. But Hristo, man he was full of personality. He loved the game. There was nothing that happened in football, anywhere around the world, that he didn’t come in the next day talking about."
For more on coaching, from Bradley trying to tell jokes in Norway to how Dos Santos prepares to face his former teams, check out the video above.
