Rumor: Reports are pointing to Caleb Porter as next Head Coach

he could be the next Jason Kreis.

He could be the next John Spencer

Just remember that 3 of the best coaches in MLS history were former college coaches; Bruce Arena, Sigi Schmidt, and Bob Bradley. I would argue that it’s not too much of a risk, if you are getting a good college coach.

and knows what to do with young talent.

I wanted Nicol, but I’m OK with this hire.

Didn’t GW say as much a week or two ago?

“I’m thinking that recent formations and tactics have been Porter influenced.”

Yep, you’re right! ;)

And while I doubt Porter has pulled many strings behind the scenes, I DO think GW has anticipated him or someone else of similar mindset, and has gotten feedback from those guys as to how he could best prepare the team in the interim. He seemed to even indicate that, after the Perkins trade.

If a coach turned down the position because of TA?? Especially after the #GWOUT flags flew on Saturday.

Anytime you are hiring someone, you want to hire someone smarter than you in whatever role. GW wants to be a GM, not a coach. I’d leverage Caleb Porter all day long if I know he’s going to be my guy. It’s great strategy, and based on recent weeks has been paying off handsomely.

Props to both GW and MP for weathering the storm, righting the ship, and hopefully making a good hire at coach.

“Timbers have been in contact w Caleb Porter for weeks. Team source says Timbers ran Perkins trade by Akron coach prior to executing. #rctid” – @JohnCanzanoBFT

Get his advice, see what happens and go from there. If they have been consulting with him over the last three games then I would say he’s done pretty well. If we had tanked, maybe they move on.

I’m not suggesting he is really having that much of an effect, but maybe a few gentle suggestions here and there. It could be a giant coincidence that Nage’s (re?)emergence has happened during the same time period. But it might also not be.

and his 4-3-3. Not mobile enough.

I’m not knocking Boyd, who I like. I just see us moving to a more dynamic set like what we’ve seen the last couple weeks and there is no place for Boyd in that.

He’ll probably go be successful somewhere else, and I wish him the best.

as we’re currently playing, Boyd is better off in the 4-3-3 than it’s more defensive metamorphosis, the 4-2-3-1, and probably even better in the 4-4-2.

they just didn’t know how to make it work.

I mean being in that company, why wouldn’t more MLS franchises hire college coaches? It seems kind of preposterous. This is why, if this rumor is true, I’m welcoming Porter with open arms, and saying let’s take the MLS by storm in 2013!

Spencer didn’t turn out as MP and GW had hoped——-both in effectiveness AND playing and development philosophy. The divergent directions of GW and JS seem to be very visible, in hindsight.

But was it MP and GW who changed or Spencer who just couldn’t work the plan? My guess is that it was a little of both. I think GW wanted an attacking style, but one that was more direct in the middle with overlapping wingers being the one area that was more flexible. When it didn’t work, and we started getting more conservative, GW and MP started to think more fluidity was going to be the only way to play attacking football effectively in MLS and JS refused and/or couldn’t make the adjustment.

Here’s to wild speculation (but hopefully a little education to my guessing)!

but never heard anyone mention a figure.

Knowing GW was planning on Porter when Mtl approached us about the deal, isn’t Ricketts a definite upgrade over Perkins based on the style of play we were planning on moving towards?

We flame GW for foot-in-mouth, but his honesty is actually refreshing in this era of canned interviews. Looking back over the past month or so, it’s GW revealed a lot in his comments. Not always the most tactful, I admit, but would rather get something honest and with meat than a bunch of canned fluff.

And if they play with aggressive style I can wait

would he still hold the U23 job?

You missed a biggie-Developing players to sell. We are starting to see more players use MLS as a starting point instead of an end point to their careers. If Porter can develop guys who has European aspirations we not only get more talented guys, we get a nice little cash pipeline.

If they are attached to an academy already you still need to get them to sign here as opposed to a foreign league. I would imagine that the contacts that Porter has would increase the ability of the Timbers to make that signing.

As for call ups… Zizzo and Alexander got looks before stalling out. Bear with me here. I am not by any means claiming either of those guys are going to get looks again, but they did before and they might again. As for others… who knows. All I am saying is that two things might happen. The first being that Porter might develop young players well, much better than we have seen in the past, and that Porter might facilitate their integration into the national team.

and see if some of our players don’t develop into national team prospects.

I definitely see Nagbe eventually becoming eligible and also getting to the level where he’d get a call.

Hopefully we can get 3-4 more years out of him before he jumps to Europe.