FC Cincinnati: Gary Walker is more bad news for MLS opponents
FC Cincinnati have hired world-renowned fitness guru, Gary Walker. The hiring of the former Manchester United coach is more bad news for FCC’s MLS opponents.
One of the pillars among the staff of legendary English club Manchester United FC has left for FC Cincinnati. Gary Walker headed Man. Utd’s Sports and Science staff. He moves to the States as Cincinnati’s Director of Sports Performance.
Walker, with 11 years at Man U, is the second Sports and Science staffer to exit in a month. Robin Thorpe, head of Recovery and Regeneration, left after 10 years to train Olympic athletes in Phoenix.
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær had sent off some training staff members that differed with him, but he surely never meant for Walker and Thorpe to get away. But while Walker represents a significant loss to United, he is an equally winning hire for FC Cincinnati.
At Cincinnati, Walker joins the closest person to a development guru that MLS has: FCC head coach Alan Koch. After losing their first-ever MLS game to the Seattle Sounders, Koch and the players got together. They rapidly developed a new plan. They trained. Then they started a winning streak. Make that a rapid development guru.
With several wins under their belts for opponents to study, FC Cincinnati installs a brilliant trainer who will double down on what it takes for FCC to stay healthy, get even stronger, and outrun their opponents, a staple characteristic of their offseason acquisitions.
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Walker will run all of Cincinnati’s training, nutrition, strength, conditioning, and physical therapy. He will have a hand in getting the FCC Academy going, plus their facilities at New Mercy Health Training Center in Milford.
He got on FCC’s radar when front office members heard how highly the international football community regarded Walker. They studied his amazing success in Manchester United’s sports performance. He developed Man U’s Human Performance Laboratory. He also redeveloped the club’s strength and conditioning facilities. He refined their sports performance systems that now account for an increase in player availability over a six-year period.
Once FCC brass and scouts saw the perfect storm hit Man U’s training department, they asked Walker if he’d like to help FC Cincinnati drive to the top of MLS.
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As Walker and FCC carefully looked each other over, they quickly realized that Walker fits the fabric of what FC Cincinnati is, as Koch puts it. And it’s easy to see how he fits the image of what FCC is working furiously to become.