GOAL caught up with the newly-minted permanent sporting director to talk transfer moves, playoff hopes, and recovering from a slow start
The New England Revolution are in the process of recovering from a nightmare start. The team opened the season with just two league wins from the opening three months of the season.
Yet, in June, the Revolution won four consecutive games, including victories over strong teams like the Red Bulls and FC Cincinnati, showing potential under new manager Caleb Porter. These performances likely influenced a busy summer transfer window aimed at a playoff push. Once far from contention, the Revolution are now just five points out of the final playoff spot, with two games in hand.
For Sporting Director Curt Onalfo, a season lost suddenly looks rife with opportunity. He brought in four new additions, headlined by new star Luca Langoni, brought in from Boca Juniors. Langoni is already off to a bright start, tallying a goal and assist in two matches and just 46 minutes played. All of the sudden, the Revolution look to have a real chance at a wild card playoff spot.
In the Wednesday Convo, a weekly Q&A with central figures in the American soccer scene, GOAL U.S. caught up with the first-year sporting director to discuss all things Revolution, including working with a new head coach, transfer strategy, and what constitutes success this campaign.
New England RevolutionPromotion to full-time Sporting Director
Question: Congratulations on your promotion to permanent Sporting Director. Can you walk us through that change?
Curt Onalfo: Well, I've been technical director for almost five years prior to being promoted. So they're definitely different roles. In my role as technical director, I wore a lot of hats. I ran our scouting department, I was responsible for our entire pro pathway, and really spent a lot of energy transforming that.
When we got here, it was just an OK program, and we were able to transform it into one of the better ones in the league.
Once you become sporting director, everything is below you, except for the President and the owners. It ends up being a little bit different. But my management style is such that my job is trying to get the most out of people. I don't have a huge ego, so I enjoy building people up and doing whatever I possibly can to help give each and every employee the tools to be successful. So that's kind of the approach, and it's been an incredible opportunity. And I'm very grateful to the Krafts and [President] Brian Bilello. We're working really hard to make sure that we have are an outstanding franchise.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportRebounding from a slow start…
After a slow start, what's been driving the team's recent progress? How do you plan to push forward and make a statement, especially with the recent transfers and acquisitions?
CO: It was a very congested start for us. When you have a new coach [in Porter] who's implementing a new style of play and game model, we continued [to adjust]. We advanced early on in those Champions League games, and it just meant more games early on and less time on the field being able to train the way that Caleb wanted to. That was part of it, and that affected our results early on, and then obviously the results affected our confidence for a little bit. It took us a little while to adapt.
The big thing that we preach is that, we have a really good training environment, and we continue to get better every day. It's not how you start, it's how you finish. So we want to do whatever we can in these last games to position ourselves to make the playoffs, make sure we end the season strong and just continually position ourselves to be better and better, not only this year, but next.
USA TodayAn aggressive transfer strategy
Your transfer activity seems to reflect a commitment to staying competitive. What drove the summer transfer strategy, and how do you see it impacting the team's future?
CO: First of all, whenever you have a new coach, it's going to be a period of time where the team becomes the coach's. You have a group of players, but then with each window, you make changes. And having done this a long time for me, it's like three to four windows is when you’re really able to make those changes.
This was the second one, and we knew exactly what we were looking for, and what we needed to add. On top of it, there was a league rule change, with the U-22 initiative. So that gave us the ability to go get Luca Langoni, and get a game changing player.
Part of it was driven by the new rules of the league, and then the other ones was driven by that we're a big club, and we want to continue to get better, and we were not happy with the position we're in, and we want to do whatever we can to make sure that we are in a much higher position. It's just making sure that we're active, and we're going to add players every window to get better. So this one made a lot of sense.
@GettyDefining success
What constitutes success, both now and then going forward?
CO: Our goal is to make the playoffs. It's not an easy task. We're only five points out of playoff contention, but seven of our 11 games are on the road. We all know that it's harder to get points away than it is at home.
We're going to do everything possible to make the playoffs and make sure that we end the season on a real positive note, with a positive trend. For me, success will be ending the season on a positive trend and making the playoffs.