The Philadelphia Union's tumultuous season has reached its breaking point.
Peter Nowak is out as the Union's coach and vice president of soccer operations, club CEO Nick Sakiewicz announced at a press conference at PPL Park on Wednesday afternoon. The dismissal, which was first reported by the Philadelphia Daily News, has made way for assistant John Hackworth to take over both of Nowak's roles in the interim for a club that has failed to meet lofty expectations in the opening portion of its third year of existence.
"Peter is an incredible coach," Sakiewicz said. "But over a period of time we determined that we were no longer on the same page between ownership and Peter's philosophy of managing the team."
Nowak's future with the club came under the spotlight in recent days, with reports out of Scotland stating that Nowak applied for the opening with Scottish Premier League club Heart of Midlothian — reports that Nowak vehemently denied to the Daily News.
Nowak was also under plenty of heat for personnel decisions that have not panned out, with the 2011 playoff team off to a 2-7-2 start in 2012, including becoming then-winless Toronto FC's first victim this season. Trades of Sebastien Le Toux and Danny Califf have not gone over well with the Union's rapidly souring fanbase, and the club's young, complementary pieces have yet to put it all together to achieve consistent results.
Nowak, the only manager in the Union's young history, becomes the second MLS coach to lose his job in the last week after Aron Winter was ushered out of Toronto FC in favor of Paul Mariner. Nowak was supposed to coach the MLS All-Stars against Chelsea next month, but those plans will have to be altered.
Nelson Rodriguez, MLS executive vice president of competition and game operations, issued a statement regarding the All-Star Game, saying, "As we only just became aware of the Philadelphia Union coaching change, we will take the appropriate time to consider who should lead the MLS All-Stars against UEFA Champions Chelsea FC on July 25 at PPL Park.”
——————-
What do you think of this development? Are you surprised? Did you think it was inevitable?
Share your thoughts below.
Philly should be relegated.
it doesn’t make any sense Novak had contract till end of dec. 2012
I think midget has job already
nothing much about that schmuck
Best news all SEASON so far. Get RID of an ARROGANT, BIG HEADED so called manager, who was completely clueless. He did not know what he was doing. It took to long, to say the least.
This circus is in need of a conspiracy theory… what if the Union FO orchestrated all this from the start because of a lack of funds? Nowak wanted to leave, so they tell him to clean house for a few months, they would blame him, but let him go with a handsome severance. They know the fans will come, and they save a ton on salaries.
Good riddance Nowak-a$$
Can we have LeToux back now?
Philly fans, question: How come we would see tifo displays of Nowaks face every home game this year? I was always surprised to see them on the tv, did he still have a lot of support?
i thought he’d go before nowak.
EVERYONE CAN DO THIS
you kidding right? Alecko and Brendan who are they?
he is moving to a real city..
Piss off.
Awful big mess to clean up and not many hands to help. First order of business is getting a quality veteran centerback.
The guy is one half a great coach…and one half a complete dunderhead. It’s really a shame.
Maybe…I don’t know. Hack played some players that Nowak wouldn’t, when Hack was on the bench for some games. Something tells me Hack might do this. I guess we’ll see now that he’ll have to make those decisions himself…
guardiola? We have freed up some money…
In fairness, we only assume that LeToux and Califf were coaching decisions and not financial machinations by the front office.
Nevertheless something had to give. The wheels fell off the bus a while ago.
Article says no.
Rumor has it he’s heading to Leeds…
I fear Nowak’s Napolean complex got the better of him. I think he just went a little crazy in the last year. Too bad, really. He was a great player and MLSer. I think he had some good ideas for the Union, the youth players he has brought in have all deserved the chance. But I think egos, personality, and the lack of communication just caught up in a bad way.
This is Richie William’s chance. Smack dab in the middle of hi NJ home and his DC spiritual home. Good luck Williams.
Adu is his own massive anchor. I was in DC while he was there, and now am in Philly and have seen plenty of his games. He has flashes of brilliance, and has showed well for the U-20’s, but disappears in MLS games. He just seems lost out there sometimes. Until he focuses himself and his game, he’s just going to keep hopping from team to team.
Is Leeds looking to bring him in? I saw an item on his wiki page that was unsourced, but stated he might go on trial there.
Jon Maisano in Italian means Peter Nowak.
New coach, Adu gets playing time, Adu gets called up to national team, Adu fits as the misses piece of the offensive puzzle, USMNT are 2014 Champions.
Yep. I predict.
Hackworth in for Nowak. Out of the frying pan, into the fire for Philly.
Spencer’s next
This firing is about bad trades and poor play of the Union. People need to relax about Freddie Adu. He is NOT a National Team player and he is not lighting up MLS. He is a journeyman player that from time to time shows small flashes of good play. Most of the time he is missing on the field. Freddie stills needs to grow up. If Nowak and all his other coaches could not get him to mature the problem is Freddie, not all the other coaches and teams. In order for Freddie to become part of the Nats he will need to start tearing up MLS defenses week in and week out. I personally do not see him becoming that consistent.
What that guy said.
Anyone have suggestions on who the next coach should be? I think Richie Williams deserves a shot.
stop the Colombian invasion fire gutierrez as well, and let Alecko and Brendan pull the rest together you still have hack and rob to father the movement….
He should have been fired for losing to the terribad Toronto FC.
In fact, that loss alone should be a lifetime ban.
Can only help Adu…Nowak has been a massive anchor on his development
Disappointed?
Fine manager??
Union as an organization looks really bad right now… They blew up this team, Coach seemed to only give the Farfan bros confidence, No Dp… it’s a shame bc the fanbase deserves a playoff team, or at least a DP
Who will coach the All-Star Game now? The new coach? Someone else? Interesting…
It seemed like his personnel decisions were more personal decisions than anything . . . obviously no one in his position is responsible for justifying or explaining every move, but there weren’t even the objective performance of some of the other players he went with to add any credibility to his strategy. His ego seemed pretty outsized, who knows . . . i can’t imagine the Hearts situation, whatever it may be, helped
He couldn’t leave before screwing over Philly in a massive way lol. It will probably take a season or two to undo the damage he’s done.
Not really surprised at all. I can put up with a lot. Moving the veterans and what not is part of the business and didn’t bother me. It was when they started losing to the likes of Toronto where it was obvious it was time for a change.
Pretty disappointed but seems understandable, no question some (all?) of decisions with personal didn’t go down well with administration and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a case of the team quitting on him. Nowak will be missed as he is a fine manager but we’ll move on.
FM is more professional than Nowak. Most FM players have a better idea of what they’re doing too!
What an ending. Shipping off their best players from a playoff side, then applying for a random post and denying it, then finally getting fired.
It’s straight out of Football Manager.
The inevitability of this has been building since Le Toux was traded. It is unfortunate that Philly allowed him to dismantle the team before they fired him.
…yup.
as an RB fan, this upsets me.. his horrible job made us smile.
is he still going to coach the MLS ASG?
Don’t forget Mwanga
Gonna miss having him around. There were so many jokes left I never got to make at his expense.
Trades Le Toux and Danny Califf and gets fired. He got the lucky end of the deal…Union fans are gonna have to live with watching this team for the rest of the year regardless of who the coach is. Disgraceful from him AND upper management. Hope the team improves before the season ends, but I’m not optimistic.
what about adu?!?!?!