Nice article in The Times today about Deano. Love the fact Nas and Wes acknowledge his role in taking us to the promised land
Former Aston Villa manager Dean Smith reveals owners’ thanks for helping to set boyhood club on course for Champions League and explains why he is nicknamed Edward Scissorhands at his new side Charlotte FC
Alyson Rudd
Soon after taking charge of Charlotte FC in North Carolina, Dean Smith, the former Aston Villa manager, found himself driving along the Dean Smith Highway. “There is also a Dean Smith arena,” Smith says, “and so I was thinking, ‘I must have done really well in my first week here!’ ”
It so happens that Smith is the second Dean Smith to make his mark in the state. The one with the road named after him is the coach that Michael Jordan credited with launching his basketball career and who led the US team to gold at the 1976 Olympics. But our Smith is starting to be recognised on his own terms in the region having been appointed the manager of Charlotte in December. “People call me ‘Coach’ and that makes me feel like I’m in high school or something,” the 53-year-old says. “So I’ve told all the staff and players to call me Dean — or gaffer. It’s hard for some of them because they all call their coaches ‘Coach.’ ”
That Smith is now coaching in the MLS has an air of inevitability given that his son Jamie went to college in the US and now plays for Greenville Triumph in South Carolina, so Smith had been visiting him on a regular basis. On one trip last year Smith needed to fly from Charlotte to meet Kyle Lightbourne, his old friend from his Walsall playing days, in Bermuda and so thought it would be nice to watch a match before heading to the airport.
He asked Steve Walsh, the former Everton director of football, now special adviser for Charlotte FC, for tickets and found himself having dinner with Zoran Krneta, the club’s sporting director. They got along well and
when the coaching role came free, Walsh phoned Smith to say Krneta wanted Smith for the job and “that he wouldn’t take no for an answer”. “I wasn’t sure what the standard would be,” Smith says, “but it’s probably higher than anyone in the UK might imagine, it’s definitely top-ten Championship.”
His brief was to give the club an identity and new style of play in its third full season of existence but first Smith had to get to grips with the quirks of the American system, something he did with alacrity given that his nickname is already Edward Scissorhands. “Understanding the roster has been the hardest thing for me,” Smith says, “you have designated players [DPs can be paid more] and you’re allowed under -21 designated players. It’s different. They want parity so the same team isn’t winning all the time, so if you win the MLS Cup there are restrictions on your roster which makes it hard to go and win it again. These owners pay a lot of money for the franchise so they don’t want to be getting relegated. “I’m known as the Edward Scissorhands of DPs at the moment because we’ve had three designated players and I’ve got rid of all three and they were all forwards. We’re keeping it tight at the back until we can get more offensive players.”
He has set up Charlotte to play 4-2-3-1. They build from the back and are not a high-pressing team because he wants space for his players to run into. “We are a mid-block team and we’re quite patient but when we win the ball we attack really quickly. We are very good defensively at the moment. “Physically they are all very good, tactically you’re teaching them new things. The hardest part is dealing with those who have come through college who will take you literally. I will say, ‘I want you to press out to him’, and then they press all the time even when it’s impossible. The hardest part is to make them better decision-makers.” This may sound slightly twee but far from it. The catchment area is huge with the closest club, Atlanta, a four-hour drive away. There are 65,000 spectators at each home game and for Smith’s first there was a military flyover. The Hispanic locals add vocal
intensity and flares, and there is already an established tradition of a guest singing the first line of the national anthem, leaving the rest to the crowd. This began after the microphone failed soon after the main singer began and so they have made it their trademark. “America is a very patriotic nation,” Smith says. I note that he has not let his Brummie accent slip at all and he laughs and points out that Ashley Westwood, the team captain from Cheshire, formerly of Aston Villa and Burnley, and who he spoke to before deciding to take the job, “has turned American already, I’ve seen him in an ice hockey shirt”.
Westwood advised Smith to embrace the differences but that did not stop Smith from expressing his incredulity at his first MLS coaches’ meeting. The league had introduced a rule which means an injured player who is seen by a physio has to leave the pitch for two minutes unless there has been a booking or a head injury.
“I’m like, ‘What a crazy rule that is’ and I voiced my displeasure at it and got told it’s staying. I think if you want to be classed as one of the top ten leagues in the world then don’t have silly rules. Lionel Messi [captain of Inter Miami] had to come off last week and he spoke against it. If a player gets fouled and injured you shouldn’t get handicapped. I’m sitting in this meeting with all the other coaches and thinking, ‘Is this real? Why is no one else speaking up about this?’ so I voiced my displeasure.”
He is also coming to terms with the need to fly to every away game. “I remember Frank Lampard saying to me, when he was at New York City, that on the day of the game players are going shopping in the new cities they are visiting. It’s about creating professionalism and the standards you want.” English coaches in the MLS do not have a WhatsApp group but he had a drink with the Portland Timbers head coach, Phil Neville, after the game between their sides. He also had a long chat with Gary Smith, who lost his job with Nashville a week ago; a surreal moment because they had previously faced each other as the managers of Walsall and Stevenage. So far Smith has found two English-style pubs nearby. He will be back in England in early June for the sad task of taking Charlie, his 14-year old-beloved cocker spaniel, to the vet to be put down after he ruptured his ACL and developed cataracts. “Charlie was the one who used to pick my teams for me,” Smith says. “I’ve changed a couple of teams when I’ve been out dog walking. We thought we’d lost him a couple of years ago but he’s in pain now and we’ve got to take him out of that pain.”
Smith remains a big fan of Villa, his boyhood club and the team he managed for three years up until November 2021, and is delighted they have qualified for the Champions League next season. “I’ve messaged both the owners [Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens] and they came back and said, ‘The process started with you’ which they didn’t have to say. I messaged Unai Emery as well. I’m really pleased for everyone there. It’s a big club and I still support them. The owners had a five-year plan to get to the Champions League and this is their fifth year, so they’ve done what it said on the tin. And I’m looking forward to watching them over the next five years. “I’m really chuffed for Ollie Watkins because he’s a good lad as well as being a really good footballer. I still keep in touch with him and am gutted he didn’t get his 20th goal of the season but he’ll continue to impress Gareth Southgate in England training and get minutes at the Euros.”
In the meantime, Smith is looking at which players in Britain and Europe he can bring to Charlotte.
“We’re coming to the stage where there is a Premier League player who is good but not playing who is tempted because the MLS is becoming more attractive now,” he said. “We know it used to look like a retirement league but we’re getting younger players coming over. And Messi is here.”
