The New England Revolution have found their new head coach.
Marko Mitrovic has been named to the role, the Eastern Conference club announced Friday. Mitrovic brings over 15 years of coaching experience into his new role in MLS.
“We’re really excited to welcome Marko Mitrović as head coach of the New England Revolution,” Sporting Director Curt Onalfo said. “During the interview process, Marko’s tactical acumen and modern coaching philosophies set him apart. It’s crystal clear that he shares our ambitions to compete for trophies in 2026 and beyond. His extensive coaching experience at both the club and international levels, including on some of the world’s biggest stages, have prepared him well for this pivotal role.”
The 47-year-old Mitrovic arrives in New England fresh off coaching involvement at the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile. He led the Americans to advancement out of the group stage, as well as a Round of 16 victory over Italy.
Prior to becoming USMNT U-20 head coach, Mitrovic served in the same role with the Under-23’s in 2023. He led the program to the quarterfinals of the 2024 Olympic Games in France. Mitrovic also worked as USMNT U-19 head coach from 2022-23.
This will mark Mitrovic’s second MLS stint after previously serving as an assistant coach for the Chicago Fire from 2016-19. He also worked with then-English Championship side Reading from 2020-22.
New England failed to make the MLS Cup Playoffs in 2025, missing out on the final playoff spot by 17 points.
Nkh: your thoughts?
Wary. I guess I’m guardedly hopeful, but it’s almost impossible to be worse than Porter was.
I think one thing I am hopeful for is that he’ll bring back and further develop the focus on young players and the connection between Revs II, the academy and the first team. The former two have produced a lot of really interesting young prospects who got stonewalled or sent away by Porter. And even though Porter did bring in some young-ish players with Feingold and Turgeman, he didnt show any ability to help players improve. I put a lot of the blame on Porter for derailing Buck. Esmir has a lot of talent, but he never showed real improvement on his tactical weaknesses before he started getting called in by B&H. Miller probably has more upside than all of them, but he still has a lot to work on and it seemed pretty clear that Porter’s approach to that was “he’ll learn from game time”.
I would love for the Revs to finally win a cup (another shield would be great, too), but I’d actually be more than happy if they turned into a consistent upper-mid-level-sometimes-better playoff team as long as they’re doing that by being an exciting team, developing a bunch of young players through the pipeline that I can then watch playing at bigger clubs in Europe.
So, if Mitrovic can help with that, I’m fine with it.
Although, I’d note that Porter was also a complete tactical disaster and poor game manager. So I’ll want to see how Mitrovic handles that. I didnt get to see the Marocco game at the U20s, but it seemed like the team went out because they had no ability to adjust to a pretty obvious and predictable Moroccan tactical approach (tbf Argentina couldn’t either), and i have no idea how much that was on the coach failing to adjust vs on the players not being able to implement.
Overall, willing to give him a chance. He’s not Porter. Thank God they didn’t go with Josh Wolff.
Oh, yeah. So far as I know, Mitrovic isn’t famed for a complete inability to take personal responsibility for his actions. If he can manage to avoid throwing his players under the bus every time something goes wrong, that’s already an improvement.
Now who will be the new U20 Head Coach?