D.C. United made its second dramatic offseason move in as many weeks Thursday when it replaced head coach Peter Nowak with assistant Tommy Soehn. But team officials don’t believe the club has undergone a dramatic change in the wake of two straight seasons ending in disappointment.
“It’s not like we sat back and said, ‘Gee, we don’t have a good team, we need to start over again,’” said United president and CEO Kevin Payne. “We did make some decisions about what our priorities were…Because of the nature of those decisions, they required us to take some big steps.”
The first was to grant trade requests by Freddy Adu and Nick Rimando. Nowak’s departure to become an assistant with the U.S. men’s national team came about in similar fashion and was not wholly unexpected from the ambitious Polish native. According to Payne, Nowak was offered the chance to return as United’s head coach.
“I think after the World Cup when U.S. Soccer announced the coaching change is when Peter spoke openly to Kevin and I about wanting to pursue that opportunity,” said United technical director Dave Kasper. “When the opportunity opened up and he was considered a candidate, that’s when we said Tom is going to be our guy should something happen.”
In his new job, Nowak will have more time with his family, which has remained in Florida throughouthis three-year tenure in Washington.
Meanwhile, Soehn, who was a candidate for multiple coaching vacancies, said his first priority was to remain with United. He and assistant coach Mark Simpson, who Soehn said will be retained, relish their presence in the club’s day-to-day operations and involvement with the players. Nowak did most of his offseason United meetings via teleconference.
“Tom’s been a major part of every decision we’ve made on or off the field the last three years,” said Kasper.
Though he worked under Nowak for three seasons, Soehn has his own coaching style, which often features brutal honesty and assessment.
“From the outside looking in, [the changes] probably won’t be as noticeable as the guys know from the inside,” said Soehn. “I’ve been very hands-on for the last three years, and my relationship with the players is there so the transition is going to be easy.”
