Weeks after quitting Notts County, Hans Backe was unveiled Wednesday as the coach of Red Bull New York. And even though the 57-year-old Swede inherits one of the worst teams in MLS history and comes to a league where foreign managers have struggled, he’s undaunted by what he admits is “a massive challenge.”
“I’m very excited to join Red Bull. It’s a massive challenge to build a team, and also working with an academy closely to improve the club. With this breathtaking stadium, the future looks bright for this club,” Backe said inside Red Bull Arena, the 25,000-seat, $250 million stadium opening this season in Harrison, N.J.
Just the gleaming stadium’s new presence is tangible proof of the organization’s determination to rebound from an MLS-worst 5-19-6 season last year. It was broken promises that Backe says led to him stepping down from Notts County after only seven weeks, nine games into his tenure under boss Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Still, Backe isn’t daunted by MLS’ byzantine rules. He says he’s been braced for the difficulty in navigating player acquisitions and briefed on the struggles foreign coaches have suffered; he says the former is sporting director Erik Soler’s providence, and the latter isn’t his problem.
“I can’t analyze what happened earlier in the past with foreign coaches,” said Backe, trying to become the first foreign coach with no experience either coaching or playing in the U.S. and win an MLS Cup. “I still have to learn a lot about some tricky rules, but otherwise I would say soccer is similar worldwide.”
One of those rules includes the salary cap, a modest $2.3 million ceiling that is a fraction of what a Premier League team or large la Liga side would spend. But Soler said the fact that Backe had won four titles in Denmark — a league similar in salary, style and quality — made him an ideal candidate.
“It’s not bringing in a European or not bringing in a European. It’s about building the best staff,” said Soler, who insists Backe was his No. 1 choice. “The first thing you do is start with coaches that are on a level that’s comparable. I’d be much more scared bringing in a coach that had worked for ten years in the Premiership or a big Spanish club, because there are differences.
“I have a very limited amount of money, but that’s similar to Scandinavia; the budgets aren’t $10 million, but more on this level. Hans is used to having to sell and buy players, having to be smart about it. The leagues are similar in level and a lot of things are alike from a cultural perspective. Scandinavians love to come to the U.S. and there are a lot of American players coming to out (former) league.”
Backe saw 20 or 30 MLS teams play in the SuperLiga tilts between U.S. and Mexican clubs back when he was Eriksson’s assistant for El Tri. He said he hadn’t seen his players enough to comment what areas need strengthening, and wouldn’t commit to a formation; but he said he’ll play with four in the back, and wants to get pace on the field and not get too bogged-down with negative possession.
“I like pace, of course. If you look at the Premiership, it’s the best in the world. They have the best players. So if you can find players with pace, technical skills of course, it would be a dream,” said Backe.
“Yeah, (I’d love to play like Barcelona) but I don’t think many teams can. But sometimes your Spanish team is a possession team, and sometimes possession can be boring. It’s about finding a balance between counterattack and possession. Now it’s about being very aware of the counterattack game.”