Brian Haynes reacts to the sudden end of his tenure as Atlanta Silverbacks manager
By Neil Morris (indyweek.com)In a surprising move, the Atlanta Silverbacks of the North American Soccer League announced yesterday it was declining to exercise their option to extend the contract of head coach Brian Haynes. A month after Haynes’ Silverbacks lost the NASL Soccer Bowl 1-0 to the New York Cosmos, the league’s 2013 coach of the year now finds himself out of a job.
Originally brought to Atlanta in July 2012 as an assistant to interim manager Eric Wynalda, Haynes assumed the managerial reins a month later after Wynalda left to resume his Fox Soccer television duties.
In 2011, the Silverbacks finished last in the league standings with a dismal record of 4-4-20. In 2012, prior to Haynes and Wynalda’s arrival, the team was staggering along with a mark of 1-5-8.
After taking over as interim manager on Aug. 16, Haynes guided Atlanta to a 3-3-1 record over the remainder of the 2012 regular season. Haynes was named full-time manager in the offseason, and his Silverbacks raced out to a record of 6-3-3 over the NASL’s spring season, part of the league’s inaugural split regular season format. As a result, Atlanta was crowned spring season champions and awarded both a berth in the Soccer Bowl and the right to host the league final in November.
Over the intervening months, however, Atlanta struggled during their otherwise meaningless fall campaign, mustering only a 4-4-6 record. Although the team regained much of their early season form for last month’s final, the Silverbacks ultimately fell a Marcos Senna golazo short of a Soccer Bowl championship.
Triangle Offense spoke with Haynes by telephone Monday afternoon, mere hours after he was informed his tenure as the Silverbacks’ manager was over. Since the Soccer Bowl, Haynes says he had been going about preparations for next season, including an open tryout last weekend and a planning session about three weeks with club officials, including Wynalda, currently the Silverbacks’ technical director.
Haynes says that during this time, no one associated with club management expressed displeasure to him over his job performance or indicated he would not return as manager in 2014. However, at no time did the subject of his contract extension arise, an omission that Haynes did not find alarming, perhaps naively he now admits. There were also no discussions about renegotiating his contract or compensation.
“My option stated that the second of December was the day they were going to let me know if they weren’t going to renew my contract,” Haynes says. “And when they didn’t say anything, I thought, ‘Maybe I’m OK.’”
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