A Common Man's Fanfare

The problem in sports, as in life, is that most grounded, authentic people wind up behind the scenes. The only measure of nobility ascribed to their worker-bee existences -- "What you see is what you get" -- often hurts their progress. They commute, raise children and remain loyal to their companies, only to be passed over for the exotic candidate from abroad or the self-promoting careerist. When does the lifer who wants and deserves the job ever actually get it?

Tom Soehn was that guy. He is a 41-year-old father of four (including a 6-week-old daughter) who spends about two hours every day driving between Ashburn and the District. Passed over for a half-dozen head coaching jobs in Major League Soccer, without the pedigree or outsized personality of the people who led D.C. United before him, he was beginning to believe his lot in life was humble assistant.

Until Vladimir Putin left office.

Okay, Peter Nowak isn't Putin. He is a very competent, cocksure coach who led United to one MLS Cup and many impressive wins in his three seasons. He had the guts to sit Freddy Adu when the instant-gratification yahoos wanted the dinky, teenage prodigy thrown to the manly men.

But Nowak didn't always drive his players as much as he mushed them. His communication skills fell somewhere between fair and monosyllabic. Polish-born, a former prodigy himself, Nowak put up the façade of the unfeeling, autocratic Eastern European coach and hoped the outside world would buy it. Soehn knew better and grew to like and respect Nowak, who one day last December called his friend and top assistant to say he was leaving United to become an assistant coach with the U.S. national team.

For once, a big-time club did not big-time a lower-level employee. United didn't compartmentalize Soehn; he got the job.

Just like that, a straight-shooting Midwesterner -- whose German-immigrant parents met at the Chicago Kickers Soccer Club -- became coach of the most successful franchise in the league's 11-year history. Soehn had never played overseas. He never made the U.S. national team. He came from a modest college program (Western Illinois). All of which gave him one attribute most of his United predecessors lacked: Soehn could relate to the everyday player.

Soehn relates to the grinders, the scrappers -- the marginally gifted athletes who worked and worked so they could stay on the field with the improvisational, free-roaming stars. He knew from his own MLS experience that salary and stature could be trumped by passion and purpose.

"One thing I always prided myself on is being honest with guys," the United coach said yesterday, the day before his team faces the L.A. Galaxy. "I played for coaches who haven't communicated well. I decided if I was going to be any good at this, I was going to let you know where you stand. The player might be hurt initially, but at some point they were going to understand your reasoning and make the changes they needed to."

Beyond refurbishing the real only dynasty MLS has known, Soehn has to gracefully managed the end of Jaime Moreno's career. Moreno is 33. He has 108 goals in his career. His next goal will make him the league's most prolific scorer. But Moreno is slowing down, unable to sustain the long stretches of exhilarating play he once produced in his prime. His three goals this season have all come on penalty kicks. Nine of his 11 goals last season came before July.

When United began 0-3, Soehn benched the most decorated player in team history for a game. Moreno, the team captain, did not appreciate it. But he dealt with the demotion and moved on in a way a lot of stars might not. Since then, United tied New England and has won three straight. Soehn's club was unbeaten in May and has begun to plug the defensive holes that led to end-of-season meltdowns the last two years in the playoffs.

"With Jaime, those are hard conversations to have, and how a player responds is so important," Soehn said. "There are two ways players usually go, in my experience. Jaime just bucked up and did everything I've asked of him. One thing people don't know about Jaime is how much he cares for the organization. That side of him isn't show, but it's not about Jaime Moreno. It's about United."

United undoubtedly lost talent and character when Adu, Alecko Eskandarian, Nick Rimando and Brandon Prideaux were moved in the offseason. But the turnover has produced some impressive offensive talent, including Brazilian striker Luciano Emilio and the artistry of young Guy-Roland Kpene. Where there once was Freddy, there is now Fred.

Gone is some of the clowning and mischief. In its place might be a little more cohesion. "We lost so many big personalities I had to pick up my talking volume," Ben Olsen said, laughing.

Olsen has been around for the better part of nine seasons. He has seen most of them come and go.

His mentor, Bruce Arena, the acerbic, Brooklyn-born coach in United's first three seasons; Thomas Rongen, the charming European from the Netherlands who played in the North American Soccer League; Ray Hudson, the batty, outspoken character who dropped Dickensian lines in his postgame speeches; Nowak, the brooding former European star who had a chip that seemed to be surgically implanted atop his shoulder (if Napoleon were alive today, he would have had a Nowakian complex). Now, of course, it's Soehn, whose act is that he has doesn't have one.

"Tommy is detail," Olsen said. "He's actually a lot more type-A personality than Peter was. He's sizing up the team constantly. He's got his finger on all the buttons."

"It's really funny, the perceptions of Peter as a taskmaster," Olsen added. "He was more of a guy that wanted to be around the team and joke with the team more than any of the coaches I had. He got excited being in the locker room. Tommy is more focused and more business than Peter was. They're very different personalities.

"Not to say either coach is right, but I think there is an advantage to being an American coach in an American league with American players."

He is not one of those exotic fútbol managers from abroad. Nor is he a coach with a national-team pedigree. Tom Soehn was merely a 40-something career assistant, the common man slugging away at the office, commuting from Ashburn, waiting for a promotion that, astonishingly, came.