Puerto Rico FC coach Adrian Whitbread looks ahead to new season

Head coach Adrian Whitbread will hope this NASL season is as perfect as that faux-hawk. Credit: PRFC/NASL

This is part three of our series covering Puerto Rico FC’s preparation for the upcoming season. Check out part one — Soc Takes’ interview with PRFC president Tom Payne and part two — Soc Takes’ interview with striker Sidney Rivera.

Having spoken with Adrian, Tom and Sidney, and observed their movement in the transfer market, at this stage, PRFC are the only real challengers to Miami in the NASL. Sure, Cosmos are going to make some moves, and are going to announce a new player (Amauri?) on Tuesday, but PRFC is a club with a vision, a good owner, the best GM in the league and a brilliant head coach. Barring unforeseen events, it would be a surprise if they didn’t make the playoffs. But first, their focus is the CFU championship with an attempt to qualify for the Champions League.

Nipun Chopra: Thanks for taking the time, Adrian.

Adrian Whitbread: Good to speak with you.

NC: You’ve been drawn against Portmore United, Scholars International and the historic Transvaal team. What’s your reaction to that draw?

AW: As you might imagine, it’s not as easy from the analytical side with some teams. We’ve talked to a few contacts about those teams, and the bottom line is, teams have improved. But, so have we. The Jamaican team (Portmore United) will be up there, and we have to get ourselves prepared for what will be a difficult group.

But, we are confident and have to concentrate on ourselves. As the competition goes on, we’ll up against even stronger teams.

NC: What brought you to Puerto Rico, Adrian? You played in England, coached there briefly, but once you left Leicester City and moved to Puerto Rico, you’ve never gone back. What do you love about Puerto Rico and PRFC?

AW: It goes back to 2008; I was told about an opportunity to work with the Puerto Rican national team. Around the time, things had fallen apart with Leicester and I thought it was an interesting challenge to move and bring up soccer here. At the time, soccer was less popular than baseball and basketball. A lot less popular, actually. It’s developed since then, and it’s an incredible place this. With passionate people.

NC: You guys have made some terrific signings – Gentile, Quintilla and others. What was the thought process behind signing the players that you did?

AW: Signed Giuseppe Gentile. He’s coming in very, very fit. He’ll be one the players will get really excited about. He’s played in the league in the last couple of seasons with Ottawa and Fort Lauderdale and he brings something different – he has a lot of raw pace. That’s something defenders obviously don’t like so it’s a good addition for us. Yuma, having come across from Spain and played for OKC last year. It’s no coincidence that when they went on their unbeaten run towards the end of the season, he was an integral part of their team. That’s one of the things we lacked last year was experience. Conor Doyle – we picked him up from DC United – I think much like Jordi, people were surprised when we picked him up. Walter Ramirez is another one – wide player, very athletic, and has been around the league a long time. He’s come in and gel in very quickly.

We’ve had about 8 days of training, focused on some small-field work, and the new guys seem to be bedding in well. We’ve also invited 5 trialists to come and train for a week. I think there’s a chance we’ll pick one or two of them up as well (Note: Since we recorded this interview, PRFC have signed defensive midfielder Seth Moses, one of the trialists Whitbread referred to). We’re not the finished article yet, we still got some room in our squad.

Photo credit: Rob Kinnan/Carolina RailHawks

NC: Lets talk about Jordi Quintilla. In my opinion, one of the things NASL hasn’t done enough is develop young, talented players to have a future in the game. Even though Jordi isn’t American, I think it’s a good sign PR has moved for him. Explain the thought process behind moving for Jordi.

AW: Yeah, I think if you look at his technical capability — and when we sign a player, it’s not just based on that alone — but, Jordi has bags of talent. We reached out to our contacts in various places, such as Sporting Kansas City, to talk about Jordi. We got good feedback, we watched all the clips available to us. You could really sense that his character came through.

Obviously, with him speaking Spanish, it makes it easier for him to bed in. He has a lovely left foot and that’s one thing we struggled with last year. Jordi will be a help to us unlocking defenses next season.

NC: That’s interesting that you say that. From what I’ve read and watched, Jordi’s one of those attacking midfielders whose asset is his short-passing. But, he only has one assist and no goals in his brief career. So, why do you think he will be able to unlock defenses for you?

AW: Well, the stats don’t give you the whole picture. We have to look beyond it. Perhaps Jordi needs to be at a club that will give him some time and opportunity to play. And that’s what we believe will happen for Jordi here.

NC: You’ve had a few days of training. Have you and the coaching staff figured out how you might set up tactically this season?

AW: Our goal is to be able to play multiple systems. We’ll mostly play with a flat back 4. But, we can set up in a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 etc as the situation demands. The focus is to play a good style of football that the supporters can enjoy. We played a back 5 last season after the Miami game, but that was more out of necessity. I do believe that in our first full-season that there will be squad rotation, but we should be able to play multiple styles in this league.

NC: You’ve obviously gone attack-heavy with your transfers. You have Rivera, Gentile, Jordi, Doyle in attacking areas. You have a strong goalkeeper in Spangelberg. What area are you looking at improving at this point?

Returning GK Trevor Spangelberg. Credit: PRFC/NASL

AW: Well, it’s funny, about 10 days ago, when all these attacking signings were coming out, obviously social media went crazy on the island. People like yourself saying that we are going to be an attacking force. But, obviously, we are currently a little short defensively and that’s what we are trying to address at the moment. We conceded some late goals last year, and I think we learned from that. There are offers on the table for some defensive-minded players at this time and hopefully in the course of next 10 days, we’ll get those players done. It’s important that the chemistry of the team is in place so that we can get down to playing some football.

NC: Do you expect to have a finished squad by the time CFU championships kick off?

AW: I would say we will be there or thereabouts. We might be 1-2 players short, but we’ll be very close. We plan on taking 21-23 players, depending on our budget. But, it won’t be very different from that number. We’re going to make sure we don’t spend silly money, based on financial troubles elsewhere. It’s funny, you and I were talking last week about – I don’t remember the exact stat – but there have been very few players that have gone into MLS from our league.

NC: Only 8-10, I think.

AW: Yeah, that sounds right. I want players to come here, gain experience, and I tell them – “I don’t want you here, I want you to get better and go make some money with your talent. You have a fantastic opportunity, and don’t leave a stone un-turned to get there.”

I was just reading an article about Brendan Rodgers at Celtic. And he said that ‘the player that is 25 years old has got probably 10 years left in his footballing career, and that accumulates to about 125 pay packets in his career.’ I thought that was incredible he was saying that because some people forget that we have 4 fewer teams this season, which means there are about 80-100 players who have had to find opportunities elsewhere. And, it’s not that easy.

NC: It’s great to hear you analyze it like that. It’s easy for us fans to treat players like commodities and it’s important to remember they need to make a living.

AW: Nipun, I know that first hand. I was talking to someone about this the other day. It’s like any other job, except you know you have a short amount of time to do it. When I finished playing, I took up coaching, because that’s all I knew. It’s different in America, because players get their education — which I am in full support of — and it gives them the possibility of other livelihoods outside of football.

NC: In 2017, PRFC will be traveling great distances. As a coach, this is problematic as you have to cope with changes in training patterns, jet lag, fatigue, etc. How are you planning to deal with what is going to be a strenuous season?

AW: Well, it comes down to planning. We’re not going to use the travel as an excuse. We know it’s not ideal, but, we know people are out there working jobs at crazy hours, and we get to just play football. But, yeah, we’ll take into account player fatigue and rotate appropriately. That’s my job. It’s a question of planning. The players have to know there aren’t excuses, if they’re going to use it as a crutch, we’ll bring someone else on the trip who is ready to play. Let’s put it in perspective. We know people who are working 11 hour days after waking up at 5am. We get to sleep on a plane. It’s all relative.

NC: I love that answer. There was a FIFPro study last month that revealed that NASL is one of the oldest leagues in the world, in terms of average age of players. Is Puerto Rico, based on your initial signings, trying to break that mold?

Whitbread expects big things from 20-year-old Jorgi Rivera this season. Credit: PRFC/NASL

AW: It’s difficult. There’s been a void since I was on the island the first time, in 2011-12, where a majority of the squad comprised Puerto Rican or had Puerto Rican connections. At that time, it hurt my squad because players were being called up for friendlies during the middle of the season. While I was trying to get them ready for a game against Edmonton, they were all focused on a friendly against Spain, which would have been a highlight of their career. We ended up going to Edmonton with 13 players that week. So, back then, we had many young Puerto Rican players because there were a handful of professional teams.

Unfortunately, since then, there’s been a void. I’ve watched a lot of the Puerto Rican soccer here, which are amateur teams. They aren’t training every night because the younger core is in college, so they have classes to attend during the day. I think in the long-term, we’d love to get a second string team in the local leagues. But then, we have to remember that we are limited on resources and time needed to groom that team. I’ve spoken to Tom (Payne) about this. I hope in time that does happen, and you become an U-23 PRFC team which broods players that can move up to the first team. But, it takes planning, it takes time.

We have a fantastic young player in Jorgi Rivera — 20 years old — who I believe, in time, will be the future of this team. But, it will take time. He wants to go in and play immediately, but you have to learn your craft, and it takes time.

NC: Thank you for taking the time, Adrian. As a soccer nerd, talking playing styles with you has been a pleasure.

AW: Enjoyed it.

You can follow Nipun on Twitter @NipunChopra7.