Like so many foreign coaches and players who came before him, Houston Dynamo head coach Owen Coyle encountered a steep learning curve on his arrival in Major League Soccer, as he revealed to Sky Sports in an in-depth interview last week.
The Scotsman led the Orange to an 11-14-9 mark on their return to a tough Western Conference, missing out on a playoffs place by nine points despite a 9-4-4 home record. He confesses that even his lengthy coaching resume in England's top tiers did not prepare him for the rigors of travel and competitive balance in North America.
“It's not like back home in England where there are 20 teams in a 50-mile radius,” he said, referring to the “fascinating league” and “tough environment” that greeted him in MLS. “In Texas, it's nearly three times the size of the whole of the UK. When we travel, I'd actually equate it to playing a European game every second week in terms of when you go on the road, because flights can range from anything between one hour and five hours.
“There's no buses, you've got to fly everywhere because of the size of the country and we're changing time zones all the time, we change altitude. I've got to say the first season has been so much of a learning curve, but within that we've done very well at different things.”
Coyle lavished praise on Dynamo attacker Giles Barnes, who thrived in the early part of the season but later found his form suffering amid a draining schedule due to his international duties for Jamaica.
“When Giles Barnes is fresh, I have such a high opinion of him,” said Coyle. “I think he can play at any level, but what we've got to make sure we do is get the balance of the club games and international games. The traveling does take a real toll on people … For Giles, I think you'll see next year for me he's going to light the league up and will be up there with the top, top players.”
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Comparing MLS's level of play to the Championship, England's second division, Coyle explained that he's been keeping up on the action back in Britain and plans to scout for offseason signings there this winter.
“We're never going to have the finance of the New York Citys and the Torontos and the Galaxy so what we have to do is be very clever in terms of our signing targets so we can go out and bring young, talented players,” he said, holding up Houston's cross-state rivals FC Dallas as a role model of canny long-term roster development.
“I'm going to be home for a few weeks in the run-up to Christmas, I'll be out to games, probably more in the Championship in terms of what the finance can afford, but if there are one or two players that can catch your eye you can probably do something … Certainly Dallas, they're a team that's been building for three or four years to get to the level they are, so of course these things take time, but it's a great challenge ahead and one we're really excited about.”
