By Michael Lewis - NEW YORK, NY (Aug 19, 2011) -- Before I go any further, I should make it clear that I do not represent Richie Williams. I am neither his agent nor his manager. OK, now that I've gotten this out of the way, I now can say it: Why isn't Williams a head coach of an MLS team? I mean, what does the man have to do?
Williams has gone through enough job interviews in recent years - FC Dallas, DC United and even the New York Red Bulls, after Juan Carlos Osorio resigned during that forgettable 2009 season, among other clubs - that he probably can be on the other side of the table and ask some probing questions himself to prospective head coaches.
At 41, Williams has all the background and tools to be a head coach. He has paid his dues, coaching in college as an assistant at his alma mater, the University of Virginia. He also knows this League, inside and out, having been in the original, 1996 class of Major League Soccer. He became one of the top defensive midfielders in MLS, an all-star and was called into the National Team 20 times.
He has been a professional assistant coach since the 2006 MLS season and was an assistant coach under four coaches on the MetroStars/Red Bulls learning from and assisting the likes of Mo Johnston, Bruce Arena, Juan Carlos Osorio and Hans Backe.
He has been around the block and then some. He is there for the hiring. Yet, no one wants to take the plunge.
In fact, Williams has been an MLS head coach already - on two occasions - as a caretaker coach for the Red Bulls, first in 2006, between the Johnston and the Arena regimes and then three years later after Osorio resigned.
Both times Williams directed the Red Bulls to 3-3-2 marks. He inherited a team from Johnston that had accrued more ties than wins and losses combined (2-3-7). Hmmm, where have we heard that song before? (this year's 6-6-13 Red Bulls' team). He then took over a down-trodden side from Osorio that had won all of two matches out of 22 (2-16-4 record) and acquitted himself well, especially given the circumstances.
Granted, 12 games might not be the ultimate measuring stick, but I saw enough, the way he ran practices, dealt with the players and the media.
Williams is ready.
When Williams took over as interim Red Bulls coach two years ago, he received a major endorsement from Arena himself.
"I see a guy who will be demanding of his players, demand quality and demand concentration," Arena told Steve Goff in his Washington Post Soccer Insider. "If they inherit half of Richie's competitiveness, they may win the league this year. Is that possible? I'd guess they'd have to make the playoffs, which isn't possible, but the guy will get the most out of them."
Arena admitted at one time he did not think Williams was a future coach.
"Actually, no. He was so competitive back then. He has matured," he was quoted by Soccer Insider. "He's not punching anyone out anymore! He was a little crazy as a player and you would not have thought of him as a coach, but he has changed and he knows what it takes to lead a team."
In fact, it is quite confounding that Williams is without an MLS position these days.
On February 28th, he and former Red Bulls goalkeeping coach Des McAleenan were forced to start looking for a job as they were fired under rather mysterious circumstances (with McAleenan recently finding work with a club in Saudi Arabia). According to one League source, it was for violation of team rules. Well, that certainly narrowed down the reasons to any one of hundreds.
"As an organization, we decided to go a different direction with our coaching staff. We want to thank Richie and Des for their contributions to our franchise and wish them good luck in their future endeavors," Red Bulls general manager and sporting director Erik Soler said in a statement at the time.
We haven't been able to decipher what exactly the reason the dismissals were for, and no, I am not going to speculate or rehash any rumors. When I asked Backe a week after the firings about the reasons, he replied, "I can't or don't want to comment anything about that." When pressed about why he wouldn't comment, Backe replied: "And it always will be rumors. But at the moment, I can't comment on anything about that."
Regardless, the timing could have not been worse for the two with the season only weeks away. Not too many clubs hire new assistant coaches on the cusp of a new season. They usually make the hirings much earlier in the off-season.
Given the theory of soccer relativity in which there is a winner for every loser (and sometimes two losers for a tie), there should be a few jobs opening in the off-season.
The Chicago Fire picked Carlos de los Cobos to replace Denis Hamlet, and after parting ways with de los Cobos are now coached by their technical director. They should have the periscope up for a new coach after a second successive abysmal season. There are other teams in need of the salvation of the playoffs to keep their current coach employed. Even with ten teams making the postseason, that means a few teams deciding the real problem with their 2011 season was the guy filling out the rosters.
Since Williams became an assistant coach with the old MetroStars in January, 2006.I have seen coaches - the count is probably a dozen or two - come and go in MLS. Some have been recycled. So why wouldn't it hurt to give Richie Williams a chance?
Teams can do a lot worse. In fact, some of them have.
Michael Lewis, who is the editor of BigAppleSoccer.com and TropiGol.com, can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com.
