Olsen is interim coach for league’s worst club
With an expected rebuilding season on course to be the worst in franchise history, D.C. United announced the firing of coach Curt Onalfo on Wednesday. First-year assistant Ben Olsen was named interim head coach.
“I’m extremely disappointed,” Onalfo said. “I wanted more time to build something that would’ve been very special, but that’s not the case and I don’t agree with the decision, but I respect the organization.”
United has lost three league matches in a row and is winless in its last six, dropping to a league-worst 3-12-3 (12 points) with last weekend’s 3-0 defeat at Real Salt Lake.
“Curt’s a good friend,” United president Kevin Payne said. “He’s a good person and a good coach, and he doesn’t deserve it. It wasn’t about assigning blame. It was about how do we get better, how do we move forward, and based on what I’ve seen in recent weeks, I didn’t think we were going to move forward without making a change.”
D.C. hasn’t made the playoffs in two years and the expectations weren’t high for Onalfo when he signed a guaranteed contract through 2012 last December.
But many of the team’s winter signings have not produced results, including defender Juan Manuel Pe?a (often injured), midfielder Christian Castillo (released) and goalkeeper Troy Perkins, who could be sent back to the bench after his performance in Utah last weekend.
Injuries also have been a constant, but Onalfo has made missteps, including failed preseason plans to play Santino Quaranta as attacking midfielder and Chris Pontius at forward. That led United to abandon its attacking 3-5-2 formation for a more defensive 4-4-2.
“As funny as it seems, I think I really did some of my best work,” said Onalfo, whose most notable achievement has been the tutelage of rookie midfielder Andy Najar. “It just never showed. I never got any reward from it. I think we dealt with enormous adversity.”
Olsen takes over the team less than a year after retiring as a player. Payne said there are no plans to keep him in that role beyond the end of the year. Former United assistant coach Chad Ashton also will return to the sideline from his role as the team’s technical director and assistant coaches Mark Simpson and Kris Kelderman also have been retained.
