COLUMBUS, OHIO – Toronto FC’s Greg Vanney and his Columbus Crew counterpart Gregg Berhalter are part of the new breed of coaches in Major League Soccer.
While some teams in the league have looked overseas in hiring international managers, both Toronto and Columbus went a different way, taking a chance on young men who had experience playing in MLS, as well in the European club game.
Vanney was 40 when TFC named him head coach in 2014, his appointment coming a few years after retiring from the game spent mostly in MLS, but also included a short stint in France. Berhalter was also 40 when he took over the coaching reins in Columbus in 2013 shortly after he hung up cleats, having played in MLS and several European nations.
Though they never played with or against each other in MLS – they missed out on being teammates at the L.A. Galaxy by one year when Vanney retired in 2008 – they often featured in the same back line for the U.S. national team. Vanney earned 37 caps for the U.S between 1996-2006, while Berhalter made 44 appearances for the American team from 1994 to 2006.
[relatedlinks]
They’ve crossed paths many times in regular season play as MLS coaches, but the two young managers will finally get a chance to trade tactical wits in a playoff setting when TFC and the Crew meet in the Eastern Conference final. Columbus hosts Toronto in Tuesday’s first leg. The teams will meet on Nov. 29 at BMO Field in the return match.
Vanney often played next to Berhalter in central defence for the U.S., and remembers him as a very good centre back, someone who was very comfortable on the ball and a very good passer.
“He was very calm, very much in control of [the defence] when he was running it. He played with an edge, we call it, so he was always on the fine line between [defending a high line] and conceding space. Like some of us, he was not the most athletic centre back, so he was very intelligent and very good about how high he was in controlling the back line,” Vanney recalled.
Toronto topped the Eastern Conference and the overall MLS standings during the 2017 regular season with an impressive 20-5-9 record and a league-record 69 points. Columbus (16-12-6) finished fifth in the East, 15 points adrift of Toronto. The Crew did, however, hand TFC one of its five losses, earning a 2-1 home win on April 15. The Reds returned to Ohio the following month and beat the Crew 2-1, and then hammered Columbus 5-0 on May 26 in the final match of the campaign between the two sides.
In direct coaching matchups between Vanney and Berhalter, the teams have evenly split their nine matches, with three wins apiece and three draws.
Vanney described recent matches between the two sides as tightly-contested, and tactical battles.
“Every game has had adaptations within it. So if ever one team is gaining an edge there’s usually a shift in tactics [from the other team] that can maybe disrupt the balance of power for a little while, and it goes back and forth. In that way, it’s never a straightforward matchup. It always has little twists and turns,” Vanney offered.
In many ways, the Crew are a reflection of Berhalter the player – controlling, intelligent, and cognizant of the space around them while in possession.
“His team plays in the vision of how he liked the game as a player, and how he sees the game. In some ways, we were quite similar as centre backs, but I always found him to be very vocal and in control of the things that were going around him, and very smart about how he positioned everybody around him,” Vanney said.
TFC captain Michael Bradley also has experience playing with Berhalter.
Bradley trained with the U.S. national team ahead of the 2006 World Cup, and while he didn’t travel to Germany that summer, he did earn his first cap and played in a number of pre-tournament friendlies. Bradley fondly remembers Berhalter from their brief time as teammates.
“I like Gregg a lot. … He was a veteran on that team, and I was younger guy who was in the group just before they left [for the World Cup]. From the beginning, his mentality, his professionalism, his leadership, how much he loved the game, you could see it right away,” Bradley said.
Vanney, too, has nothing but kind words for Berhalter.
“It’s a friendly relationship for that goes back many years. There’s lots of respect back and forth,” Vanney stated.
NOTES
Toronto will be without top scorers Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore for Tuesday’s first leg, as both players are suspended. They’ll be eligible to play in the second leg… Giovinco (16 goals) and Altidore (15) accounted for 41.9 per cent of TFC’s league-leading 74 goals this season. Together, they combined for nine game-winning goals (five from Altidore)… Should Toronto beat Columbus in this aggregate series, it would host the MLS Cup final at BMO Field on Dec. 9. The Seattle Sounders and Houston Dynamo are facing off in the Western Conference final.
[snippet id= 2943445]
