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Two years ago, with Orange County SC set to end short of the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time, general manager Oliver Wyss fired Braeden Cloutier, the longest-serving manager in team history, and replaced him with Richard Chaplow. Under the interim coach the club went unbeaten over its final nine games and not only made the playoffs, but won its only USL Championship.
This May, with OCSC following the worst season in team history by winning just one of its first eight games, Wyss fired Chaplow and replaced him with Morten Karlsen. Under the interim coach, the team has won a Western Conference-best 15 games and last week was rewarded with a berth in the playoffs, which begin at home Oct. 21. If history repeats, Wyss’ club will again be playing for a national championship next month.
“A lot of similarities,” Wyss conceded.
Midfielder Dillon Powers notices them too.
“Definitely, a lot similarities in the storyline” said Powers, who started in the national championship game two years ago. “We have good character in the locker room. The same in 2021. So even when things weren’t going right, all we needed was a little shift to make it happen.”
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But there are differences too — enough to prove that OCSC’s success has been more than simply a case of déjà vu. This time the turnover in managers didn’t immediately spark a turnover in results; the team was almost as bad in its first six weeks under Karlsen as it had been under Chaplow, losing twice as often as it won and scoring more than a goal just once in seven games. Since then, the team is 13-3-2 and has ranked as one of the highest-scoring teams in the league.
“We always knew we had a good team, it was just a matter of putting the right pieces in the right place,” Dillon said. “Karlsen has done a good job kind of finding an identity for us, which is most important. Now we can rely on that.”
It was that lack of identity that forced Wyss to act in the first place. This year’s team, on paper, was better than the one that won the national championship in the second-tier league, but it wasn’t playing that way. And with Wyss knowing the typical USL Championship roster churn would cost him about a third of his players this winter — among them leading scorer Milan Iloski, the league’s reigning Gold Boot winner, and teenage forward Bryce Jamison — he couldn’t afford to be patient.
“When the coach fails, we all take responsibility because we’re a team. We collectively felt that some of the players were absolutely underperforming,” he said. “A change was just going to be what was needed to get us back on track to get us into the playoffs. We needed a little bit different kind of approach and enthusiasm to get the best out of the team.”
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Wyss didn’t have to go far to find a new manager. In February he had added Karlsen, 44, an assistant for Denmark during the 2022 World Cup, to the OCSC staff as a kind of head coach in waiting — the same role Chaplow, a former English Premier League player and OCSC captain, served under Cloutier.
“I came in as an assistant coach. But also knowing the business, there’s always going to rise an opportunity,” said Karlsen, who said he remains close to Chaplow.
The fact he was already with the team, knew his players’ strengths and limitations and had been involved in coaching decisions under Chaplow made Karlsen’s transition to manager smoother. He also had a good idea what needed to be done.
“My analysis was that needed a clear structure. And then, of course, trying to get some belief into the players from the structure,” he said. “I think we’ve succeeded in that.”
OCSC owner James Keston said the ability to bounce back from oblivion twice in three seasons is proof that the team is sound and not dependent on just one person.
“Ultimately, it’s a reflection of your entire organization and the culture of it,” he said. “Sometimes there’s just one specific issue that needs to be corrected. You’ve got the right players, you’ve got the staff behind them, you’ve got an assistant coach people have to respect. Oliver and [sporting director] Peter Nugent did a great job of deciding what the decision was and when the right time to make that decision was.”
Earning a playoff berth wasn’t the only good news the club got in the last week, however. The Irvine City Council, which last year nearly expelled OCSC from its home at Championship Stadium in Orange County’s Great Park, has done an about-face, proposing a new five-year lease agreement that includes naming rights and an option for a five-year extension. The council is expected to approve the proposal Tuesday night.
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Karlsen may not last as long as that lease agreement. Although Keston plans to soon reward the coach by removing the interim tag from his title, he also expects Karlsen’s pedigree with the Danish team and his success in getting OCSC into the playoffs to earn him some attractive offers this winter.
“We’re not going to hold our coach back from going to coach at a higher level,” he said. “That’s the culture we’re built on.”
If he does come back, he’ll always be one long losing streak away from being sacked, just as Cloutier and Chaplow were. That, too, is part of OCSC’s culture, one that’s paid off with one national title and a shot at another this fall.
“Of course, I know the history about the club,” Karlsen said. “I’ve been told many times that this happened two years ago. We’ll go for it again.”
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the Corner of the Galaxy podcast.
