Martí Cifuentes has plenty of ideas for the Timbers. His first move may be patience.
After seven months away from coaching, Cifuentes arrives in Portland with new ideas — and the awareness that the surging Timbers may not need much fixing right away.
It wasn’t the worst seven months for new Timbers manager Martí Cifuentes.
No, it didn’t start ideally — he was fired by Leicester City of the EFL Championship in January — but in retrospect, he called it a period of growth. Cifuentes base camped at his home in Barcelona while traveling around Europe, taking in training sessions with different clubs in different leagues and enjoying a little time to himself.
“First of all, gaining too much weight,” Cifuentes said Tuesday, after Portland’s training session, about his time away from the sideline. “…It’s been an interesting moment. There were some opportunities to be back in the game earlier, but I wanted to take that time because it’s been quite intense over the last year for me and I wanted to take that time to take in new ideas, to stop and reflect about my last experiences.”
The welcome back from that break in intensity is dropping in with a Timbers club that’s suddenly found itself in the heat of a playoff race.
In the six games since the club and former manager Phil Neville parted ways, the Timbers have gone 3-0-1 in MLS play and split a pair of Leagues Cup matches. Cifuentes will make his debut with the club Thursday against Tijuana in what will most likely be Portland’s final Leagues Cup match, then it’s off to Chicago for the first of the final 16 MLS matches of the year on Sunday.
There will be new things Cifuentes wants to install. There will be players who fall in and out of favor under a new set of evaluating eyes. There will be different faces around the building — the Timbers announced earlier Tuesday the departure of longtime assistant, and former captain, Liam Ridgewell.
There’s going to be a lot of change — but Cifuentes is also aware that the Timbers have a pretty good thing going right now.
“It’s not only the new ideas, but as well a new way of training, new way of coaching, new training methodology, so that can take some time,” he said. “So we need to find a good balance with the rest of the staff on how we want to do things, how quick we can introduce certain ideas and as well, be smart, because like I said, this transition period has been good for the team and the team is responding.
“So in the beginning, probably will not change too many things.”
Cifuentes watched matches from Barcelona while the visa process played out, then got to see the club firsthand at Providence Park during Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Club América. He would have liked to have been here earlier, and the calendar hasn’t been doing the club any scheduling favors — Tuesday was not technically Cifuentes’ introductory press conference.
That’ll happen next week.
Until then, Cifuentes is enjoying shaking off the rust.
“I got a lot of energy,” he said. “So, ready to push. It’s very good to be back on the pitch and back with the players. It’s where you feel you belong.”
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor