Your Tuesday Kickoff: Who are MLS Coach of the Year frontrunners? | MLSSoccer.com

Inter Miami sign goalkeeper Ustari

Inter Miami CF have signed goalkeeper Óscar Ustari through 2024. The former Argentine international was a free agent, making him eligible to sign before the Roster Freeze Date (Sept. 13). He occupies an international roster slot. Ustari adds depth to Miami’s goalkeeper group. Drake Callender is the established starter, while CJ dos Santos is out following hand surgery.

Normally, the Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year Award just goes to the Supporters’ Shield winner and everyone calls it a day. I’m not sure it’s that simple this time.

Tata Martino

Inter Miami are your Supporters’ Shield winners-elect and may be on pace to set the all-time points record. Per the MLSPA salary guide, they’re also the team with the largest salary spend in the league by nearly $10 million. It would be more remarkable if they weren’t in the running for the Shield.

To be fair, they’ve done it with Lionel Messi only playing 1,035 minutes. To take a cynical view on that though, that’s still 1,035 minutes (and 12 goals and 13 assists) from Lionel Messi that the other teams didn’t get. And if you keep looking at salaries, taking Messi’s $20.4 million salary out of the equation entirely would still leave them with the fourth-highest salary spend in the league.

Salary spend, of course, isn’t everything. Just ask the three teams below Miami in total spend. Toronto, Chicago and Nashville haven’t seen the same rewards for splashing cash. But, in the end, we’re just talking about a way to quantify the fact Miami have one of the most loaded rosters we’ve ever seen in MLS. Maybe the most loaded roster.

To be fair again, it’s also been an injured roster. There’s an argument they’ve had worse injury luck than anyone this year. There’s also a (very clear) argument they’re the luckiest on-field team of all time. We’ve said it here a few times, so we won’t rehash it. But man. We’re talking unbreakable record levels of finishing luck. I think we can call it a wash.

If it’s a wash, then we’re back to “highest spending team in the league finishes in first place.” That’s still a heckuva accomplishment for Tata Martino. But how much stock should we put in a manager maintaining the status quo?

In the end, Martino might end up with the award. That doesn’t mean people should take to the streets for protests or anything. He’s great at his job. It’s just that it’s pretty clear other managers have done more with less.

Wilfried Nancy

Nancy and the Crew are Exhibit A in MLS of doing more with less, right?

The problem is they aren’t going to finish at the top of the league and they may not even finish second in the East. That’s not the kind of optics that lead to Coach of the Year votes. In Wilfried Nancy’s defense, the Crew have been busy.

In the last 10 months, they’ve played in every game possible. They’ve followed up their 2023 MLS Cup win with a trip to the Concacaf Champions Cup final and a Leagues Cup title. They’re the top-ranked team in the region and they’ve done it all while ranking 21st in salary spend. Their turnaround from mid-table side to juggernaut starts with and will likely end with Nancy.

There’s also an additional lifetime achievement angle here. Nancy should have won this award in 2022 when he helped guide CF Montréal to a 65-point season and finished two points behind the Shield winners. Maybe it’s time to make up for that. Even if this year’s Crew won’t finish with the same total.

Pablo Mastroeni

The only team that’s technically done more with less this year in MLS than the Crew is Real Salt Lake. They were 27th in salary spend and are sitting sixth in the league in points per game. That’s a 21-spot difference. Columbus are next with 18 spots between their spend and place in the standings. And then it drops down to LAFC and Vancouver with 13 spots. What Mastroeni and RSL have done is extremely impressive.

It took a little humility to get it done, too. RSL brought in an entirely new coaching staff to work with Mastroeni this year. As Joe Lowery outlined for Backheeled.com, those moves led to tactical changes and those changes (plus Chicho Arango going turbo-nuclear at the start of the season) have led RSL to their best season in years. Mastroeni deserves to be in the conversation here.

Dean Smith

There’s one more case to make for a coach who’s done more with less. Dean Smith came into a Charlotte FC side that had been mediocre at best their first two seasons. They were especially poor defensively. The Crown allowed 52 goals in each of their first two seasons.

The changes seemed to happen overnight once Smith got in. This season, they’ve allowed 29 goals over 27 games. Only the Crew have a better defensive record in MLS this year. They’re still working things out in attack now that they have three DPs and they aren’t going to end up with enough points for Smith to make the final cut for this award. But Charlotte are far better with Smith than without him. That kind of change merits putting him in this discussion.

Good luck out there. Check in on your neighbors from time to time.