New England Revolution: Experience the key in managerial changes

The New England Revolution have replaced general manager Mike Burns and head coach Brad Friedel with Bruce Arena. Experience is the key to these managerial changes.

On Monday night, the New England Revolution announced that club’s general manager Michael Burns had been relieved of duties effective Immediately. Monday’s monumental decision stems from Thursday’s announcement that the Revolution had relieved Brad Friedel of his coaching duties.

Burns, who formerly played for the club from 1996 to 2000, started his front office career in 2005 as he served as the club’s Director of Soccer. Burns would later go on to serve as the VP of Player Personnel. In November of 2011, Burns was appointed as the club’s General Manager.

As to why Burns was relieved of his duties as GM, club president Brian Bilello said:

"“In light of recent results and the team’s on-field direction over the last few seasons, we felt it was time to take the soccer side of the organization in a different direction. We expect to make an announcement related to the leadership of the soccer organization in the coming days.”"

The decision has been wanted by fans for some time. The Revolution is seen as a stagnating — if not rotting — franchise with disinterested ownership and management that simply does know what it is doing, Burns being chief among the alleged ineptitude.

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Sacking Friedel was almost unquestionably the right decision. The footballing record was proof enough of that, as was his egregious handling of the players’ personalities and his questioning of their mentality and bottle. But Friedel was not the root of the Revs’ problems. They have been far more deep-rooted than just the head coach for many years.

And so, their next hire to replace the Friedel-Burns tandem, in this context of extended ineptitude and misunderstanding, makes a lot of sense. The Revolution turned to one of the most experienced American and Major League Soccer coaches in the world. Bruce Arena was announced as the new head coach and sporting director of the New England Revolution earlier this week.

Arena has won five MLS Cups during stints with D.C. United and the Los Angeles Galaxy. He has also coached the U.S. Men’s National Team and the New York Red Bulls. There are few individuals who understand American soccer as deeply and successfully as Arena. If the Revolution wanted to address their inexperience, they could not have done a swifter job.

Whether Arena can now lead the Revs turnaround remains to be seen. But New England became more capable and more experienced quickly, and that, considering where they came from, is no bad thing at all.