Troy Lesesne will step in as head coach for New York Red Bulls after former manager Gerhard Struber and the club mutually agreed to part ways.
New York Red Bulls hierarchy knew that they had to shake things up after Struber led the club to a disappointing start to the 2023 MLS season both on and off the field. But sporting director Jochen Schneider revealed it was the 1-0 loss against the Philadelphia Union that forced a change.
“We came to the decision now after the Philly game, together with Gerhard, that we need to do something," Schneider stated.
The Eastern Conference team currently sits at the bottom of the table in their respective standings with just nine points in 11 games, their lowest points total at this juncture in the season since 2009. Now, Lesesne will be trusted to save the season.
“It's an ongoing process that you evaluate: Where are we? How do we play? How do we perform? We couldn't be happy with the outcome,” Schneider said on Monday after Struber's exit.
"Lesesne had nothing but gratitude for the ex-head coach, claiming that Struber is the reason he has the opportunity to be head coach: "Gerhard is the reason that I’m here. He's the one that hired me, he's the one that saw something in me, and I learned an incredible amount from him," he said.
Lesesne has nearly 20 years of coaching experience, most recently serving as head coach at New Mexico United in the USL and an assistant at both the Charlotte Independence and the Charleston Battery.
"Oliver Mintzlaff, Mario Gómez, Jochen, Denis [Hamlett], Marc [de Grandpré], they see something in me and they see something in my coaching profile that I don't think that a lot of other clubs at the first-division level probably would look into. I'm not a household name," said. the new coach. "But as Jochen just said to you, 19 seasons I’ve been working as a coach and honing my craft to be prepared for an opportunity like this whenever it comes along."
Schneider stated that the club feels confident in Lesesne's abilities as he's been with Red Bulls since 2021 and knows the ins and outs of the club. Red Bulls aren't actively looking for a new permanent head coach but instead focused on supporting Lesesne until the end of the season.
“... it's totally focused on Troy and giving him and his coaching team all the support they need to be successful,” Schneider said. “I’m quite experienced, a long time enough in this business – many coaching careers have started like this. So we are totally focused on supporting him and the team and that’s it."
The first task for Lesesne will be to figure out how to put the ball in the back of the net as the Red Bulls have scored just seven goals this season.
“We want to make sure to never lose the identity of Red Bull, but continue to take steps forward to be more creative, to be able to hopefully create more chances and more goals. And that's going to take some time. It's the hardest part of the game," he asserted.
This article was originally published on 90min as New York Red Bulls "totally focused" on supporting interim head coach Troy Lesesne .
