Chris Canetti was prepared for the inevitable day that Dominic Kinnear stepped away from the Houston Dynamo’s bench. The Dynamo president had a list of candidates, names that had a connection to him or MLS that he wanted to contact first.
Owen Coyle wasn’t on it. That all changed with one phone call from the veteran English Premier League manager.
More than a month after that fateful conversation, the club announced Tuesday a three-year deal that will make Coyle the Dynamo’s second-ever head coach.
So what was Coyle's message during that initial phone call? I want in.
“One of the things that was really important for me was that someone shared the vision for the club and wanted to be part of the club heading into the future,” Canetti told MLSsoccer.com. “One of the things that Owen made clear to me and stressed time and again was that he’s coming here to help build this club and take it to the next level both on and off the pitch.
“When you’re making a transition and there’s so much at stake going forward you want to be dynamic. Hiring Owen reflects our desire to be ambitious.”
The hire hits in the name-value department. Coyle has experience leading Bolton Wanderers and Burnley in the English Premier League with a reputation of being a manager who can invigorate a side, and taking an MLS post will certainly grab headlines on both sides of the pond.
Still, the hire did not come without obstacles.
There was the process of vetting Coyle’s desire to come to MLS, adapt and succeed, which means not just learning the league’s single-entity structure but embracing it and the ways to exploit it.
Also, Houston had to be sure the Scotsman fit with the club's philosophy regarding sports science and player development and would be able to forge a relationship with new general manager Matt Jordan.
The move also bucks the recent trend that's seen most clubs hire ex-MLS players instead of going the foreign route, which has developed a reputation for failure in American soccer circles.
“We’re aware of the history and we’re aware of the stereotypes coming into this process, but we wanted to be open minded about this thing," Canetti said. "During the process we feel we asked all the right questions to make sure there’s transparency about the concerns we had. We spent hours with Owen Coyle and days, which is unusual."
“We asked some hard questions and had some very straight-forward conversations,” he added. “We’re aware of what the pitfalls could be, and we believe we’ve addressed them in the process.”
In the end, however, the prospect of landing the right man, a leader who was passionate about the product at hand, was too good to pass up.
“We knew this was a big decision and knew we needed to put a lot into it,” Canetti said. “I’m a big believer in how we went about this process and I’m confident we’ve reached the right conclusion. It’s very exciting to finally have gotten to the end of the road knowing we’ve got an outstanding individual to come coach the Dynamo.”
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.
