When asked about the recent prevalence of coaching changes in Germany, SC Freiburg coach Christian Streich gave an impassioned five-minute long response at a pre-match press conference in April.
Streich has held his post for more than twice as long as any other current head coach in the league. The most tenured manager in the Bundesliga, Germany’s top football league, expressed at length that the current pressure on coaches and clubs is immense, as it is throughout society as a whole.
“The sporting directors are also under enormous pressure,” Streich said. “The club loses two, three games, and then people lose their minds and spread things on social media, it’s terrible. That wouldn’t have happened in the past.”
Clubs and managers are feeling that stress now more than ever, evidenced by an increase in coaching changes in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States and across three of Europe’s top five leagues since 1996.
While Serie A, Italy’s top league, and La Liga, the premiere Spanish league, have had consistently high turnover rates since the beginning of the century, the MLS, England’s Premier League, France’s Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga have all seen those rates rise — apart from a drop in coaching changes across all six divisions in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically shifted league schedules.
La Liga and Serie A had by far the most coaching changes since 1996 due their constant high turnover with 561 and 551 moves, respectively. The Premier League, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 have all had between 323 and 380 changes in that span. The MLS had the least amount of coaching changes of the six leagues, with just 192 since the division’s first season in 1996.
The latest manager to be sacked in the Premier League embodies the desperation and pressure many clubs and coaches presently face, with Javi Gracia being dismissed on Tuesday after 11 games with Leeds hovering just above the relegation zone.
Gracia lifted Leeds from 19th at the time of his hiring to 17th in the league at the time of his departure. The club opted to replace him after just 67 days in charge to bring in the experienced Sam Allardyce in a bid to avoid relegation. Allardyce will be the fourth manager to oversee a Leeds match this season.
The decision to part ways with Gracia also caused sporting director Victor Orta to depart because he opposed the move, according to The Athletic.
“It’s been a very intense period. It hurt me a lot to lose my job, but I have to say [Orta’s] exit is just as difficult for me, if not more,” Gracia told The Athletic.
The average head coach’s tenure isn’t as short as Gracia’s abbreviated stint with Leeds. However, each of the six divisions have multiple coaches without much experience at the helm of their current team.
The median tenure of coaches in the MLS and across Europe’s top five is less than two years.
Despite its historically high turnover, a majority of current Serie A coaches were appointed at the beginning of the 2021-22 season or earlier. The MLS held the second longest median tenure of the six leagues with its lack of general coaching turnover.
The average managers in the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Premier League were all appointed at the beginning of the current season or later, with median tenures of 307 days, 304 days and 207 days, respectively.
The European leagues that showed a rise in manager changes over time — the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and the Premier League — now hold the three lowest median coaching tenures of the six divisions.
With little time to lay a foundation, many coaches are now expected to get results from the day they’re hired or be shown the door.
“I only entered because another coach lost his job, but now I have left and another manager replaces me,” Gracia told The Athletic. “I do think to be able to do a good job, greater stability is needed. It is more healthy and you are able to show your best work.”
A glance at some of the shortest managerial exploits in the U.S. and England
The quest to stay competitive or remain in a division means soccer clubs sometimes have to quickly acknowledge their poor decisions.
Managerial lifespans are already shrinking in the MLS and across some of Europe’s top five leagues. Taking a deeper dive uncovers some of the briefest and most reckless managerial appointments of the 21st century in England and the United States.
Les Reed
Les Reed was promoted from his position as assistant coach to the first head coaching role of his career at England’s Charlton Athletic in 2006.
Reed was relieved of his duties more than a month after he was hired, boasting just a single victory in eight matches. His 0.5 points per game mark is the joint-second worst of former Premier League managers since 1996.
Reed earned the nicknames “Les Miserables” and “Santa Clueless” by the end of his reign and has yet to take another head coaching job in the 17 years since.
“Would I change what happened at Charlton? No,” Reed told The Athletic in 2021. “Charlton is still my club … I dived into something because I thought I was doing the right thing for the club in the worst circumstances.”
Frank de Boer
Frank de Boer signed a three-year contract with England’s Crystal Palace after a troublesome spell at Inter Milan.
De Boer coached only 14 games during his short term in Italy before he was fired in November. His time in England went even worse as he managed only five matches, the lowest number of matches of any non-interim or caretaker manager in the Premier League since 1996.
Crystal Palace lost its first four Premier League games of the season without scoring a goal, and the only win of de Boer’s tenure was a 2-1 victory over lower-league side Ipswich Town.
De Boer served a short stint as Atlanta United’s head coach before he took charge of the Dutch national team in 2020. The Netherlands topped their group of the European Championship in 2021 but lost in the opening round of the knockout stages. De Boer was let go after the tournament and has not held a head coaching role since.
Chris Armas
After six-year head coach Greg Vanney stepped away from Toronto FC, the Canadian club turned to Chris Armas to fill his role.
Armas earned only 0.6 points per game, the second-worst mark in league history, during his 15 games as Toronto’s manager and suffered a humiliating 7-1 loss to D.C. United in his last game in charge.
Armas went on to become an assistant manager at Manchester United and Leeds over the last two years. Armas drew criticism during his time in the first role, with ESPN reporting that Manchester United players likened him to Ted Lasso, the fictional coach.
Thomas Rongen
The inaugural head coach of Chivas USA didn’t fare much better than the franchise did over the next decade.
Thomas Rongen recorded just one win in the franchise’s first 10 games before getting the ax, recording 0.4 points per match — the worst mark of any non-interim or caretaker manager in MLS history.
Rongen’s successor, Hans Westerhof, didn’t do better. He ended up with the third-worst managerial spell in the league’s history to cap off Chivas USA’s tumultuous inaugural season.
Rongen’s future would end up being more intriguing than Chivas USA’s, a club that was dissolved at the end of the 2014 season without a trophy.
The Dutch coach would become manager of American Samoa, a team that was the focus of the 2014 British documentary “Next Goal Wins.”