With the swirl of rumors about who IS going to be Real Salt Lake’s next head coach we wanted to clear the air on 5 names we think you can just forget about right now. As a note, ESPN 700 doesn’t have any insider info on actual decisions being made besides statements that the club has officially released.
While it would be interesting to see what the following names would bring to the club, these are 5 names you shouldn’t expect to be announced as a manager any time soon.
1. Kyle Beckerman
Let’s first get him out of the way. Twitter was on fire with rumors that RSL’s current captain was going to pull a Jason Kries and retire from soccer to immediately take the helm of his club. The rumors escalated 24 hours after the firing of Jeff Cassar when the club announced a special press conference with Beckerman in attendance. It turned out to be the club announcing an international friendly with world powerhouse Manchester United, an announcement that didn’t seem to pacify twitter’s hopes for a Coach Beckerman.
2. Jason Kreis
Speaking of pulling a Jason Kreis, the former manager is not coming back to his old club. Kreis left RSL after the 2013 season in which he led the club to the MLS Cup Finals only to lose on penalties to bitter rival Sporting Kansas City. Kreis took the head coach position with NYCFC only to be let go after the inaugural season. Rumors floated that he was getting in with US Soccer after he was invited to join the coaching staff in January 2016. However, months later he would become Orlando City SC’s second head coach after the firing of Adrian Heath, now Minnesota United’s coach.
When asked about the firing of Cassar, Kreis said that it was absolutely absurd. Plus, Kreis seems pretty happy with his current club who sit at undefeated on the season, second in the west with a game in hand.
Full quote from Jason Kreis when asked about Jeff Cassar’s firing at RSL during stint on @969thegame in Orlando this morning. pic.twitter.com/DFKNe1jIws
— Chris Kamrani (@chriskamrani) March 22, 2017
3. Nat Borchers
“The Bearded One” retired from soccer this past season after having a season ending injury last year. Nat has always looked to Real Estate as a post-soccer career and he seems to taking up broadcasting with the Timbers as well. None of this is to say that he couldn’t be head coach, but he shouldn’t be expected to be announced in the coming weeks. No matter how much Ian Paul Joy thinks so.
@RealSaltLake needs to get back to what it once was. An @MLS powerhouse. Bring in @NatBorchers rebuild & 2/3 yrs club will be back on top.
— IAN PAUL JOY (@JOYPAULIAN) March 21, 2017
4. Landon Donovan
LD was the near miss for RSL during the off season. Fans might have been wondering why you would bring in a DP who had retired twice already and could only contribute off the bench at best. Was there some thought behind making him a part of the coaching staff? It wouldn’t have needed to be with the first team. RSL is building an academy locally and LD has hinted in the past that he wants to work developing younger players plus, he has coached the MLS Homegrown team. However, there is a huge jump from coaching a youth team to coaching a MLS team.
5. Mike Petke
This might start a huge argument, but it needs to be said. The reasoning? Mike Petke is an amazing coach. He did great things for the New York Red Bulls in his time there. However New York is a completely different market than Salt Lake. The Red Bulls were built on a different philosophy than RSL. Petke might have been brought in as a potential replacement if he had time to adjust to the “RSL way”. But with 3 months in Utah, that is very unlikely. David Cheever sums it up perfectly about why Petke will be great for Monarchs but should stay with Monarchs.
Even Petke himself says he’s focusing only on Monarchs.
This is exactly the thing I needed to hear from Petke. https://t.co/PECfo40WKa pic.twitter.com/vSwqWlne9z
— Matt Montgomery (@TheCrossbarRSL) March 23, 2017
