Charlotte FC has had a busy 2020 but still has much work left to do to prepare for their inaugural season in 2022. At the very top of the priorities for 2021 will be the head coach position. Zoran Krneta, sporting director, has stated in previous interviews that the club’s goal is to hire a head coach at the end of the European regular season. The goal is for the future coach to be at the club to provide his input for the upcoming summer and winter transfer windows. One could assume that this would mean the hiring will be announced at the end of May or early to middle June.
With four months left until that estimated deadline, there still have been no solid rumors surrounding who could end up being Charlotte FC’s first-ever head coach. However, there is an available coach out there who seems to tick every box for what Charlotte FC are looking for. His name is Peter Uneken.
Coaching History
Dutchman, Peter Uneken, is the current coach of Jong PSV, the U-21 PSV squad that plays in the second division of the Netherlands professional football pyramid.
Uneken, a former professional player, started his coaching career at NEC Nijmegen as a youth coach there for three years. Afterward, he began his 7-year coaching career at PSV at the helm of the PSV U-14 team. Then he went on to coach the PSV U-17 team for two seasons before taking charge of Jong PSV for four years starting as the assistant coach and becoming the head coach two years later.
His two seasons as head coach of Jong PSV have resulted in finishing in eighteenth place his first season and currently in sixteenth place in his second season. While these results seem to be alarmingly awful at first glance, Jong PSV can be extremely inconsistent due to the nature of it being a youth team playing in a professional league.
Players come and go at a constant rate and it makes it difficult to build cohesiveness and chemistry within the team. The best Jong PSV players are consistently either being moved up to the senior team or sold to clubs around the world. The high player turnover rate at Jong PSV makes the job of finishing at the top of the table that much more challenging. Fortunately, finishing high on the table isn’t what the Jong PSV head coach is judged on, but rather developing youth players into professional footballers.
But what about Peter Uneken screams perfect fit for the head coach position at Charlotte?
Availability
The first and most obvious question when it comes to hiring a coach is… are they even available for hire?
Uneken has already publicly announced his departure from the club after the end of 2021 season, “I had a great time here, but I feel I am ready to take the next step in my career.” His departure from PSV happens to align perfectly with the timeline that Charlotte FC has set for hiring the head coach.
Charlotte sporting director, Zoran Krneta, has mentioned in previous interviews that the club’s goal is to hire the head coach before the upcoming summer and winter transfer windows. The reasoning behind this is so that the coach can be a part of the recruitment process in those two crucial windows.
Speaking of recruitment…
Recruitment
If Uneken were to be hired, he wouldn’t be the only ex-PSV employee at Charlotte FC. Charlotte’s director of scouting is Thomas Schaling who previously was a senior scout at PSV and is also Dutch himself. But why does this matter?
With both Uneken and Schaling coming from the school of PSV their recruitment philosophies will align. They will have an understanding because of their past experiences at PSV. It could be very well possible that Schaling already personally knows or has met Uneken. This connection will help facilitate the entire recruitment process.
The chemistry between the head coach and director of scouting can’t be overlooked. The relationship between the two positions directly affects the team on the pitch. This will be especially crucial with the upcoming transfer windows where Krneta, Schaling, and the future head coach will be working closely together to build a competitive inaugural squad.
Part of the Charlotte FC recruitment philosophy that Krneta and the scouting department have prioritized is youth.
Youth Development
The club has consistently talked about how they want to make youth development a priority. Their goal is that the Charlotte FC academy continuously produces quality players who can contribute to the first team. This goal is something that Uneken is very familiar with coming from one of the most elite youth producing clubs in the world.
Uneken had the following to say about his work with the youth in his announcement on leaving Jong PSV, “At PSV U21, we play professional football but are secondary to the first-team squad. Our main duty is to deliver well-rounded footballers into the professional game. And that’s what we have done. We are half-way through the season but as many as six players have made their professional debut and Yorbe Vertessen has been promoted to the senior squad, which makes everybody at the PSV Academy very proud.”
Uneken’s entire job as head coach of Jong PSV revolved around taking raw, young prospects and shaping them into proper footballing professionals. PSV does this as well as anyone else in the world and Charlotte would be inheriting all their trade secrets in hiring Uneken.
With 7 years of experience within the youth system of PSV, Uneken undoubtedly has learned PSV’s strategy in producing world-class talent consistently. He would benefit the Charlotte FC academy massively and would be key in helping the youth players transition into the professional game.
His experience at PSV has also helped him in learning the best ways to communicate with youth players and create those connections that are so crucial to their development. Interacting with youth players requires a drastically different approach compared to veteran professionals. This not only benefits Charlotte academy players but any young players that Charlotte FC signs in the future.
Uneken would also have considerable contacts as PSV to organize loan or permanent moves to Charlotte for young players within the PSV academy system or professional teams. Charlotte FC could utilize this to acquire some of the best young talents at PSV and throughout the Netherlands.
Developing youth is easily Uneken’s biggest strength. You could call him a specialist in that department. He would have no problem trusting the youth and integrating them into the first team at Charlotte.
Playing Philosophy
“We will play attractive, attacking soccer that our fans will appreciate,“ Zoran said. ”And, of course, we will try to win every game.” These are the words of Zoran Krneta early on in an interview when asked about the playing philosophy the club will have.
PSV plays an attacking, possession-based football from the academy levels to the senior team. Uneken’s playing philosophy would line up with what the club is looking for. He would bring that attractive PSV style of play to Charlotte.
While Charlotte has only signed three players thus far, those players fit this style of play, hence why they were signed by the club. Sergio Ruiz, the club’s first-ever signing, said in an interview with Regal Soccer that he prefers playing in a vertical, possession-based system.
With that said, how well he could implement that system in the MLS would remain to be seen.
Conclusion
Peter Uneken may not be the flashy signing fans would want but he ticks every box that Charlotte FC is looking for in a head coach. The only concern, a significant one at that, would be his lack of substantial head coaching experience. It is also for this reason that a head coaching job for Charlotte FC would be a realistic possibility.
His lack of professional coaching experience wouldn’t make him an attractive coaching option for any team within the top 5 leagues. Leaving perhaps a small team within the Eredivisie or the other smaller European leagues to take a chance on him. While that is plausible, none of those opportunities would seem as attractive as the Charlotte FC job.
Charlotte FC would be offering an incredibly unique experience and more exposure for Uneke as a head coach. He would be leading a brand new team in a new country but working within a familiar environment alongside a majority Dutch scouting department. With the Charlotte FC front office leaning towards hiring a European coach, on the surface, this hiring makes perfect sense.
Uneken looks to be a remarkably compatible option for the Charlotte FC head coach position. With the grand puzzle of Charlotte FC slowly coming together, Peter Uneken could be a piece that fits perfectly into it.
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