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Report: Timbers to announce Porter as head coach on Wednesday

Caleb Porter 1 (ISIPhotos.com)

The Portland Timbers wanted Caleb Porter, and the second-year MLS club has reportedly gotten the coach they set out to hire as their permanent replacement for John Spencer.

Portland radio station KPAM 860 reported on Tuesday night that Portland would announce Porter as the team's new head coach on Wednesday. There are no details yet on when Porter would take over as Timbers head coach, but there is a possibility Porter will be allowed to finish out the current 2012 NCAA season as head coach of Akron, the current No. 1 team in the SBI College Soccer rankings.

Sources have told SBI that Portland considered some other veteran options, such as Preki, Mike Lapper, and some other familiar names such as Claudio Reyna and Richie Williams, but ultimately settled on Porter. Sources say Timbers owner Merritt Paulson was the driving force behind the selection of Porter over more experienced options.

What do you think of the hire? See Porter succeeding with the Timbers? Who would you have hired if you were making the decision?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. As good a coach as Porter is, I think he’s going to have a hard time adjusting to the professional structure.

    In college, it’s just a matter of selling your school’s program to a talented high school student.

    In the pro’s, money talks. Money, contract length, bonuses, league standings, family matters (moving to a different city), trade security, etc. — all of those factors, and more, factor into a professional’s decision to go to your club or not.

    We shall see.

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  2. With an MLS team you can only draft guys who are available at your spot in the draft order.
    It’s NOT the same thing as recruiting, where Akron end up with the country’s top draft class…

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  3. You forgot Zarek Valentin.

    Valentin and Sarkodie, two guys who have done next to nothing in MLS, over guys like Okugo and Sheanon Williams…. nothing like filling a roster with guys who played for you in college….

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  4. What’s worse?

    – Finishing third in a group with Canada, El Salvador, and Cuba.

    – Doing so at home in front of a pro-US crowd, like say in Nashville.

    – Doing so after having won your first of three games by a 5-0 margin.

    But Porter has already done all of that!

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  5. PORTER himself publicly said it was the deepest U-23 team we have ever had!

    So is he a liar, and idiot, or a poor evaluater of talent??

    Or just a college coach who has no idea how to manage a roster and rotate players, when faced with three games in the span of one week?

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  6. MEX (vs. US, friendly): 1-Liborio Sanchez, 2-Israel Jimenez, 4-Nestor Araujo, 5-Darvin Chávez, 6-Ricardo Bocanegra (17-Javier Aquino, 46), 7-Javier Cortés, 9-Jeronimo Amione (19-Alan Pulido, 64), 10-Marco Fabian, 14-Jorge Enriquez (8-David Cabrera, 78), 16-Miguel Ponce (18-Hector Herrera, 46), 21-Ricardo Mier (capt.)

    Subs not used: 11-Nestor Calderon, 12-Antonio Rodriguez, 13-Diego Reyes, 15-Jair Barraza, 20-Hugo Rodriguez

    MEX (vs. Brazil, Olympic final):
    1 GK CORONA J (C); 2 DF JIMENEZ I; 3 DF SALCIDO C; 4 DF MIER H; 5 DF CHAVEZ D; 6 MF HERRERA H; 8 FW FABIAN M; 9 FW PERALTA O; 11 MF AQUINO J; 13 DF REYES D; 14 MF ENRIQUEZ J.

    Subs:
    7 MF CORTES J; 10 FW DOS SANTOS G; 12 FW JIMENEZ R; 15 DF VIDRIO N; 16 MF PONCE M; 17 DF ARAUJO N; 18 GK RODRIGUEZ J.

    (a) Do these teams look all that similar to you?
    (b) Should I really favor a team’s friendly performance over its tournament embarrassment? “Akron sure put up a great conference record before getting showed the door in the first round of NCAA…” so to speak.
    (c) In terms of personnel and scouting, what does it say that he did not seem to react to the poverty of his backline? Didn’t face the music. Went with a Zip (as well as others) who can’t even get decent PT in MLS (Sarkodie). I start to worry about “roll out the ball coach” when a coach’s fortunes seem to wax and wane with the entering classes. The guy at UCLA would be my example. You could hand him Feilhaber and others and he’d look just good enough to keep his job.

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  7. I disagree with that…Friendlies don’t count. Also if Akron has such amazing players that can beat the Spanish Youth teams why don’t we do well internationally? Why aren’t more of our players in top teams around the world? It just doesn’t make sense. Were any of the Akron players after that invited to camps in Europe? Nah because they weren’t really competitive situations, they probably faced a C team of the Youth or something.

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  8. I’ve seen nothing to indicate the TA will not show up. They know they can outlast a GM. Do you realize the TA suffered through being owned by a baseball league? I think they can handle this.

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  9. Well lucky for Portland that they don’t have a very talented roster because then he might start the wrong players and cause us not to qualify for the Olympics. Oh, sorry I got off track there, anyways, good luck Timbers.

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  10. As a die hard University of Akron soccer fan this really hurts my heart. We did everything we could to keep him, but sadly his star shined to bright in our little city. I know he’s going to do well in the MLS. It’s just hard to see him do well with the team he is inheriting. At the very least we can say that Portland will never have a bad draft.

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  11. Straight up- the U23s were playing very well for Porter. Reference the showing against Mexico. The team was definitely hurt by injury and club call-backs. Porter’s mistakes and shortcomings in the Olympic qualifying had quite a lot to do with his lack of experience in a condensed tournament format. I am sure he learned quite a bit by that humbling experience. I think the Portland job is a perfect fit for him, and that he is a great fit for Portland. They are going to have to have some patience though as there just isn’t much to work with on that roster. Porter’s scouting and development of talent is going to be a great asset. Personally, I really enjoy the way he sees and coaches the game. Although I’m from SoCal, I look forward to seeing what he does up there.

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  12. I think he is going to have to adjust to rely more beyond his starting 11 which I think was one of his flaws. Nevertheless, I like what he brings to the game and hopefully he can adjust and be as successful as before.

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  13. Also excited.

    I’m not buying he’s the worst Olympic Manager we’ve ever had. I think our squad quality was grossly overrated, to be honest.

    He’s been successful as a manager. We can all fairly question the level he’s been successful at but he HAS been successful.

    Excited to see if that translates to this level.

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  14. This is a good hire if you are a Timber fan. However, lets be honest that roster is not good. They need more stars in a very bad way. He is going to have a hard time winning with that crap.

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  15. Because if it doesn’t work for you in MLS you can go right back to college and get the same or better deal at an even bigger school. Like Nick Saban in college throwball.

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  16. I actually think it can have a bearing, sometimes coaching college and building a program over and over that wins suggests a pro program builder. Arena and Bradley were pretty good at building teams whereever they went.

    Hyndman. SMU. Is another college coach of less success. There are probably others.

    It splits between college coaches and former pro players usually. There are some Kreises and Olsons and some Arenas and Bradleys, etc. They both have their merits. Pro coaches know that level and may understand the pro mentality better. But some are too much of the player’s coach. Sometimes college coaches with more experience ruthlessly carving teams out of recruiting classes are better at putting together an 11. No Arena team sucks for long.

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  17. I hope this is like a “pre-signing” a la Richards to Burnley because leaving a college program in August would be obnoxious, the kids he recruited to the random school of Akron deserve at least one season of what they thought they signed up for, and it’s too late to transfer by now, they’re already in the regular season.

    I’ll be interested to see how he fares at Portland, and I think the Olympics underlined the quality of the CONCACAF sides. However, he didn’t even make it to the level of the ones qualified, and his personnel and tactical choices seemed questionable. Beyond the usual offensive critiques (Gyau?), I’d throw in the inability to come up with anything to win Canada, the inability to come up with a strategy to close out or even slow down ES, and the fact that he seemed oblivious to the lack of quality in his defense. With all the quality he had on offense, the inability to patch together a better defense capable of even emerging from group play (given months to do so) makes me wonder if he can transition from college recruiting to the pro game.

    But he’ll get this second chance to prove himself and we’ll see what happens.

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  18. Does anyone know how many college coaches have moved to MLS ranks?
    Arena, Bradley, …?
    I’m just curious at how successful the transitions have been.
    Not that it has any bearing on Porter.

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  19. Louis, I think the three subs rule will actually benefit Porter’s teams, which play possession soccer and control the ball. The team that defends and chases the ball will be tired at the end of 90 minutes and won’t be able to sub more than 3 players.

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  20. You are right, but the big question is whether there are enough players on Portland’s current roster who are capable to play possession oriented soccer that Porter teaches? If there are enough good spare parts on this roster, Porter will do well.

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  21. Great hire for Portland. He’s going to be a very good coach in this league. If anything, the Olympic qualifying experience is probably a plus for him. You learn more from failure than success quite often. Good luck to him. I really want him and his style of football to succeed in MLS.

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  22. Possibly an improvement over Spencer, based purely on his reputation. For me, Reyna was the most interesting coach mentioned in the article.

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  23. MLS is not weak, you lost all credibility. When a bad, and I mean really bad TFC CLUB. pushes a good Santos team in the CCL, I think it shows MLS is not weak, but getting better. I have issue with that a team like TFC, can get into this tournament, when they suck, but this is CONCACAF.

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  24. Good hire. Now Porter will have to step-up and demonstrate that he can be successful on a professional level. This is kind of a make-or-break assignment for him.

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