Charlotte FC recently appointed Dean Smith as the club’s newest head coach, making a splash hire by bringing a former Premier League boss to Major League Soccer.
Smith’s hiring makes him the third coach in as many seasons for the Crown, as the Eastern Conference side have failed to stick with one boss for more than one season.
Charlotte began play as an expansion side in 2020 with Miguel Angel Ramirez but then opted to go down a different path with the hiring of Christian Lattanzio. Lattanzio guided Charlotte to a ninth-place finish in in the Eastern Conference table in 2023, which was good enough for a Wild Card spot and more importantly the club’s first-ever postseason appearance.
The Crown were dismantled 5-2, and owner David Tepper once again decided to make a change despite Lattanzio guiding the team to the playoffs. In comes Smith, a 52-year-old Englishman with loads of coaching experience in the Premier League.
Before standing on the touchline in the world’s most competitive league, Smith worked his way up with Walsall and Brentford before going toe-to-toe with the world’s best in the English top flight. With Walsall he compiled a 85W-91D-84L record in 260 contests and went 57W-35D-51L with Brentford.
Smith has worked his way up from the lower divisions in England to take on coaching duties in the Premier League, going from Walsall in League One, where he began his playing career, to the Championship with Brentford before reaching the heights of English football later on.
There’s been plenty of ups and downs in Smith’s time as a head coach, so what can fans of Charlotte FC come to expect in 2024?
In October 2018, Aston Villa sat in 15th place in the EFL Championship and looked destined to go another year without achieving promotion to the Premier League. However, Smith stepped into the frame that month, and from that point on, everything changed at Villa Park.
Roughly seven months later, Smith had the Villans flying. As the season concluded, Aston Villa finished in fifth place in the Championship and went on to win the playoff final, defeating Derby County 2-1 at Wembley Stadium to seal promotion to the Premier League for the first time since the 2015/16 campaign.
Smith’s debut season with Villa saw him total a record 20W-16D-10L record, establishing a dominant goal difference with 61 goals scored and just 21 conceded. Things were looking up for Smith and co after a…
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