July 23, 2010 NEW COACH, NEW IDEAS Sky Blue's Stainton promises some stability
Rick Stainton is the fifth coach in the two-year history of Sky Blue FC. Photo courtesy of Sky Blue
By Dan Lauletta
BigAppleSoccer.com Writer
Sky Blue FC enters the weekend in third place, good enough to host a playoff game, but they also find themselves wading through unfamiliar waters that have become all-too-familiar at Yurcak Field.
That is the same Yurcak Field where Sky Blue has scored only twice — once in the run of play — in six matches this season. They were most recently shutout there by the Atlanta Beat, who entered that match with only one win, and the dreadful performance sealed the fate of Pauliina Miettinen, who was dismissed a day later, barely halfway into her first season as head coach.
As part of a statement released by the team on Monday that was complimentary of Miettinen, general manager Gerry Marrone said, “Sometimes, a situation simply does not work out.”
And so Sky Blue heads to Philadelphia this weekend (Saturday at 7 p.m. on COMCAST) with Rick Stainton calling the shots. It will be the franchise’s 36th match — including three playoff games last year — yet Stainton will be the club’s fifth head coach.
As Marrone pointed out in comments published in the Newark Star-Ledger, Miettinen is the first coach to be fired strictly for the performance of the squad (Ian Sawyers was fired for cause, Kelly Lindsey quit and Christie Rampone elected to continue as a player.) But despite the magical run to the WPS championship last August, two things that have yet to permeate the club have been continuity and consistent goalscoring.
Asked what might change over the last 10 games of the season, one of the first things Stainton said was, “You’ll see a little bit more familiarity in terms of our lineups. A little continuity within our shape and the way we attack.”
Developing more defined rolls was something players credited Lindsey with accomplishing between the time she took over from Sawyers and the day she walked off the job at the start of a practice with a week to go in the season. But that consistency did not carry over to 2010. Miettinen cannot be blamed entirely for that since the team never found its offensive rhythm. She also had no answers for what ailed the league champions.
In her last game, one in which she promised a new wrinkle, the team started so slow that most observers assumed she had started in a 4-5-1 and switched to a more aggressive 4-3-3 lineup at halftime.
“Nothing changed,” she said about any perceived halftime adjustments. “It should have been like that all the time. Three forwards. We had a plan to pressure higher up and (it didn’t work out) in the first half.
“Two different teams tonight, first half second half. I don’t know why that is.”
Stainton said his vision is to play 4-4-2 and that he will avoid the carousel of personnel that have tried their luck at forward so far this season.
“It keeps us well balanced,” Stainton said. “I think that’s been part of our problem. We’re either sitting back too much allowing the pressure to come to us. Or we’re so top heavy that one pass bypasses us and puts the immediate pressure on us. I think we need to be balanced and have numbers going forward together to really generate that attack.”
Stainton stopped short of criticizing Miettinen, who he says he has great respect for, but he did say Sky Blue will focus more on what it does well instead of over preparing and overreacting to their opponents.
“We have been very reactionary,” he said. “Everything from our movements to the way we respond is always just reactionary. I think it’s because we had so much pressure on us that we feared going forward and having the team capitalize on us. What you’ll see is a team that is going to be more proactive because we’re going to become sharper and we’ll talk about some of the little details that can get us there.”
Miettinen may have shuffled the lineup too often, but she hardly had a full complement of players to work with. Goalkeeper Jenni Branam broke her knee in pre-season and has yet to play, and free agent signing Carli Lloyd broke her ankle early in the season and has not been a factor. Branam’s replacement Karen Bardsley was probably the best goalkeeper in WPS this season before a broken collarbone during a All-Star training session called a premature ending to her season. On the backline, Christie Rampone began the season on maternity leave and Meghan Schnur has battled ankle and knee issues.
This weekend, Tasha Kai (chest) and Laura Kalmari (ankle) will stay behind in New Jersey. Branam will be rostered for the match but will more than likely back up Kristin Luckenbill—who is leaving the team and retiring from soccer after the match to begin business school in Virginia. And the opponent, the Independence, drilled Sky Blue 4-1 at Yurcak in June.
“It is quite motivating to go back into their place and try to get our first win against them,” Stainton said. “They’re a very organized team.”
Stainton dismissed any notion that having Rampone, who heroically stepped in to coach the last two games and playoffs last season while keeping her pregnancy a secret, in the locker room was a deterrent to Miettinen. But he did suggest the captain will have a larger role in club management.
“Christie is a valuable resource and she is one that we definitely did not use to capacity this year thus far in terms of her intellect and knowledge of the game and things of that nature.”
