New England Revolution, it was announced on Tuesday, Sept. 19 that the club was relieving Jay Heaps of his managerial duties.
This was mainly due to the poor performance of the team for the majority of the season.
Assistant Coach Tom Soehn will take over as interim head coach for the last five games of the 2017 Major League Soccer (MLS) season.
After an abysmal away trip to play Atlanta United and Sporting Kansas City respectively, the New England Revolution decided to part ways with Heaps after the team was outscored 10-1 in both games.
The Revolution lost 7-0 against Atlanta United and 3-1 against Sporting Kansas City.
The General Manager of the New England Revolution Mike Burns said in a MLS club statement, “Jay has done a great deal for the club over the years and had considerable achievements. I have great respect for him and wish him well in the next steps of his career. This decision has not been taken lightly, however, we need to do better than the results have shown from the last couple of seasons and this season left us convinced we need to go in a different direction.”
Despite the team looking great on paper, with superstars like Lee Nguyen, Kei Kamara, Juan Agudelo, and recently acquired Krisztián Németh, the team just did not perform as well as they were expected to.
Perhaps Heap’s most memorable moment was when he guided the team to a MLS Cup final in 2014, where the Revolution unfortunately lost 2-1 to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Ever since then, the team has not been able to replicate that form.
The fans were skeptical at first when the Revolution hired Jay Heaps back in 2011, considering he was a former Revolution player and he had little managerial experience.
Even though fans have not been too happy with the way he has conducted the team this season, it’s hard to deny that he did great things for the club.
As for Tom Soehn, it will be interesting to see how he conducts the team during these last five games of the 2017 MLS Season.
They won’t be able to make the playoffs, as they currently sit in eighth place with 32 points in the Eastern Conference.
But things are starting to look up as they defeated Eastern Conference leaders Toronto FC 2-1.
The Revolution do have a tough schedule, as they face Orlando City FC away on Sept. 27, then play Atlanta United three days later at home.
We will just have to wait and see how Stoehn carries this team through the last games of the 2017 MLS season.
Luke Stergiou can be contacted at lstergiou@kscequinox.com