Phoenix Staff

Hmm. I think he's much more of a head coach than an assistant coach.

I especially don't think he'd work well with Darije, seems to have a very very different way of coaching in terms of how he deals with players.

Perhaps he'd be able to work as an assistant to a different coach, but I'm not convinced.

Think the best point made is you’d have the same clash of styles. I’m sure Jose would be more professional than Rado in that he wouldn’t undermine the coach, but Darije would probably rather avoid the possibility of a clash altogether and bring in an assistant who shares his vision of a playing style. 

I’d also guess Jose would rather build on his success as a head coach at TW than be an assistant at the nix. 

Turn it up he’d take a nix assistant in a heart beat

Depends if the assistant's job is to be consigliere like perhaps Brian Turner was or to provide different kinds of preparation and analysis like Luca Trani was?

New assistant coach Dario Pot:

Croatian who has coached in USA and Holland.

Formerly was Darije's assistant at De Graafshap when they won the Dutch second division and had a season in the Eredivisie.

Favorite Quote: "The key is to stay FLEXIBLE, keep it COMPACT, and OUTNUMBER the opposition = SUCCESS"

Qualifications:

• UEFA "Pro" License
• USSF "A" License

Bachelor of Sport Science in Sport Coaching and Sport Management 2001 – 2002

MSc in Sport Coaching 2002 – 2002

Coach at:

First Team Coach DeGraafschap B.V. 2010 – Jul 2011, Netherlands, Eerstedivisie, Eredivisie

U.S. Soccer Developmental Academy Head Coach: California Odyssey Earthquakes 2014

U.S. Soccer Developmental Academy Head Coach: Prince William Courage 2015 

Other coaching:

• FC Odzak, FC Modrica-Maxima, Syracuse FC-Salty Dogs
• Former College Coach | Oxnard , SUNY-Corland, Bryant & Stratton 

Worked tonight.  Like his tactics. ;)

It might have been Darije, or it might have been Dario.  In any case it worked.

And AK should have been credited with our second goal, although technically it went in off Milligan.

Another one gone at Nix HQ. 

Richard Parkin offski.

Culling the bearded hipsters....a re-brand on the way ;-)

Probably was a Darije hire... ;)

all of DK's hires have gone bar the gk coach.

It's a shame, seemed good but a really tough job

I thought the way the club communicated to the outside world was an issue? Or am I being naive and the Head of Communications doesn't oversee this and is something else. 

He's only going to communicate what the club let's him id imagine. A part from that one mistake about the rescheduling I thought the club had been really really good the last year. Their twitter banter especially was top notch.

Twitter and the like - all very nice but he needed to do much more with the good old standard communication. Like cheque books, some people still prefer that method and you miss out communicating with a whole generation of people if you use social media to the detriment of evrything else.

to be fair to Napier I think we he talks about cheque books he is in fact referring to email 

I thought he meant the telegram.

did that come before or after fax?

We actually sent a telegram maybe ten years ago when we were backpacking through Russia, still a thing and the quickest way to communicate with people when you only know an address and not a phone number or email in a place so vast.

So, i get Napiers point and there's still a niche for the old ways. But social media is the most important way of reaching their audience I also think the Phoenix clearly learned their lesson about email.

Also where do you really draw the line? Do you really want them emailing you every little thing? What about the people that still use snail mail?

Ryan I think his role was examined in detail in another thread so I don't think rehashing it all again is appropriate today.

If you can't recall refer back to that one

And here i thought I was just sharing an anecdote.

Thanks I may fart and send it down to Ryan 

Shattered to hear of the passing of Russell Gray. An absolute gentleman and lover of football. Journo, media liaison, kitman, story-teller supreme. An iconic part of Wgtn Phoenix. Time spent with him was never wasted. My thoughts with Barb and family. Rest well now, Russ. pic.twitter.com/TZN5AHM2uJ

— Jason Pine (@pineyzb) April 2, 2018

???

Very sad news. 

Gutted. Legend.

Very sad news,he was looking forward to doing a couple of things with the Phoenix again. Was always ready to stop and have a chat. He was  in the proess of writing a book about his journalistic career and football. He had some great stories about Best and some of the characters  of that era.

Quite heart wrenching. A very approachable gentleman. Would do anything to help a friend. You will be missed Rusty.

And who could forget...Russell,  Russell,  give us a wave......

Black armbands for Auckland and a minutes silence is the least we can do.

Absolutely devastating news :-(

Over the last few years I’d gotten quiet friendly with him and his wife ,  usually chatted with him at length a couple of times a week regarding the Phoenix , football and life in general. He was a real charector and could be very straight up ,underneath it all he was a genuinely lovely guy and passionate as anyone I’ve ever met about the Phoenix. He always had an opinion on NZF or the Phoenix , he had some bloody hilarious yarns about the club and players and was always willing to give some top secret Phoenix news out. 

RIP Russell I will miss our chats :-‘( thoughts are with his wife and family. Will be having a Stella or 2 for him at some point 

https://www.wellingtonphoenix.com/news/wellington-...

I wondered if this was on the cards when Gothard quit the national setup

Any word on what he's like?

EDIT: It just occurred to me that he might also rank as our number one contracted keeper right now

Paul is an excellent chap.

Another appointment with a good knowledge of the local scene. Keep them coming. 

anyone else get a Nix newsletter that came addressed from a Tom Bray and had poor grammar?

I couldn't even read the text in it because I just saw the Base64 decoded version of an image appearing as thougnt it were a massive link in the email instead. Weird.

Yeah me too. Then I clicked through and it was OK. Formatting was fudgeed.

some dumb kid who has named the nix account as his own - pretty shoddy really?

Looks like a  new signing, and a poor one  - his Linked In profile is full of capitalisation and other English errors.

The Nix 'Marketing and Communications Executive' needs someone with good written English to check all his written communications before they go out. Can someone organise this?

Wondering if the Phoenix back-room is working as well as the team management seems to be under Rudan.