On Monday, Austin FC announced three new coaches are joining the club, bringing the sort of transition you expect a new head coach to bring.
But among the news of the three new coaches who will start their work in January — all in their 30s (if my internet research is correct), all hailing from Spain — came the announcement that Verde’s recent interim head coach, Davy Arnaud, will remain with the club.
Arnaud will provide some institutional knowledge, and was an able steward of the team in the one-match window he got to coach them — a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Colorado in which some unlikely heroes emerged with stoppage-time goals to turn potential suffering into joy.
Terry Boss recently moved from Austin’s assistant ranks to coach USL League 1 side Lexington SC, so we knew there would be at least one vacancy, but this announcement does mean that Preston Burpo, who has been Verde’s goalkeeper coach since the inaugural season, will move on (and would certainly be a good pickup for a team looking to improve its goalkeeping). (Has Bruce Arena brought a new goalkeeping coach to San Jose yet?)
They all have LinkedIn accounts, which I’m linking to below, and I might have shared those with a Los Verdes Slack channel called “Handsome Boys Modeling Football Club,” where various attractive Austin FC-affiliated people are admired. (I did not say ogled. I considered saying ogled.)
