May 7, 2009 SUPPORT, BUT NOT FINAL WORD Agoos: Results not indicative of Osorio's hard work; Stover would have final say
Jeff Agoos: "I don't think the results that we've got is indicative of how hard not only Juan, but our coaching staff has worked." Linda Cuttone/Sports Vue Images
By Michael Lewis
BigAppleSoccer.com Editor
Prefacing his remarks that managing director Erik Stover would have the final say on the future of Red Bulls coach Juan Carlos Osorio, sporting director Jeff Agoos on Wednesday night, gave the coach some support on Wednesday night.
The Red Bulls enter Friday's MLS encounter with the San Jose Earthquakes in the Eastern Conference cellar with a 1-5-2 record, the worst start in the club's 14-year history. The Red Bulls reached the MLS Cup final last year.
Asked what sort of job Osorio has done this season, Agoos replied, "I know a lot of the coaches around the league and I would say that Juan is one of the hardest working coaches in this league. I don't think the results that we've got is indicative of how hard not only Juan, but our coaching staff has worked. I think you have to remember that we just got our full complement of players together in the last couple of weeks, due to injuries or visa issues. So I think it's a very short term reaction to a long season.
"We aren't happy with the results. But we think they will still turn around and they'll go our way. The other thing to remember here is outside of the Seattle game every game that we have lost have been one-goal games."
The Red Bulls dropped their season-opener at the Seattle Sounders FC, 3-0, on March 19.
When asked about Osorio's job security, Agoos responded, "I think that would be a better question for Erik than it would be for me. So I'll defer that to him."
Agoos said that he and Stover would discuss any coaching-related matter, but that "Erik is one with the final decision."
Asked if he and Stover had talked about Osorio's performance, Agoos replied, "We've had some difficult issues that we have had to go through in the last couple of weeks. It's not something at the forefront of our conversations. We are focusing on trying to win games and get results on the field."
Agoos said that if the right player came around, the team would pursue him.
"We are always looking to strengthen the team," he said. "We need to be strategic on who and where. One of the issues we had last year is that we brought in a significant amount of players in the middle of the season. As you can see, it took several players a long time to acclimatize to this culture, our league. We felt it was very difficult for players to come in mid-stream. So we made a concerted effort this year to try to identify our targets and bring them in as early as we could. And I think that's what we did with several of our players. We're still looking to strengthen our team. If there is a player that we identify who can help us and we have room, we would certainly move in that direction."
