For better or worse, many coaches come with a ton of baggage when they join a new team.
Juan Carlos Osorio? He brings his own unique baggage -- tons of books.
Just ask former MetroStars coach Octavio Zambrano, who hired the current Red Bulls coach to be his assistant and fitness coach for the 2000-2001 MLS seasons. Zambrano remembered Osorio bringing training and fitness books on road trips.
"I am not talking about one or two books but enough that the equipment manager had to carry an extra bag," Zambrano said via an e-mail from Hungary, from where he coaches Tatabanya in the country's first division. "He was constantly reading and referencing what the best minds in the fitness field had to say about this or another aspect of the game. Constantly learning."
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And from that learning -- past, present and most likely future -- Osorio has been able to tackle problems, especially this MLS season.
"I believe therein lies his strength, when confronted with a problem, immediately looking for solutions, rather than wallowing in the crisis," said Zambrano, who directed the MetroStars from 2000-2002. "There is no wonder to me that he overcame so much adversity and finally got it right. It was not by chance but rather his commitment to find solutions when confronted with problems."
Osorio certainly has seen his share of adversity as first-year coach of the Red Bulls, from the substance abuse suspensions just before the start of the playoffs to a pair of key starters -- goalkeeper Jon Conway and defender Jeff Parke -- to the retirement of his team captain, former national team skipper Claudio Reyna, to the sale of teenage prodigy Jozy Altidore to Villarreal of Spain.
Despite these headaches and obstacles, Osorio has managed to guide his underdog Red Bulls into the MLS Cup Final against the favored Columbus Crew Sunday.
Always a student of the game, Osorio has been a master teacher. When his colleagues and players talk of Osorio, the words meticulous, organized and fitness comes up a lot.
It shouldn't surprising that the 47-year-old stressed fitness when he played with the Brooklyn Italians in the Northeastern Super Soccer League and then with the New York Centaurs of the A-League. Osorio was an attacking midfielder and could run all day, according to former Staten Island Vipers coach Adrian Gaitan, for whom Osorio was an assistant from 1998-99.
"He was very skillful," Gaitan said by telephone from Long Island Thursday. "He never got tired. He was fit. He would run all over the place."
Howard Rubenstein, a long-time Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association official, felt Osorio was relentless as a player.
"Hard-working, very hard working," he said. "At that time I thought he was more concerned about the team than himself individually.
"I guess he's gotten the message to the Red Bulls. They have gone further than they have before. I thought they have had better talent in the past."
Gaitan, who coaches the Albertson Soccer Academy in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, got a glimpse of the future Osorio while he directed the Vipers (Staten Island stunned the MetroStars in the U.S. Open Cup in 1999).
"I knew then he was a good coach," he said. "He ran a lot of the practices. He was the type of person who wanted to better himself.
"He was very meticulous, very good at what he did. He was a student of the game. He was such a great player and he knew the players so well. He always knew what the right things to do."
No MLS coach has emerged as a great writer, at least not yet. But Osorio has forged a reputation for his, ahem, short stories -- keeping notes on papers and notebooks during the games. You can see him squatting down writing down some idea or thought that he wants to use as reference for his halftime talks.
Osorio said he has not copied anyone in particular.
"Just my way of trying to be as objective as I can at halftime," he said. "Writing notes allowed me to decide what was the most important thing to tell my players at halftime. It is 15 minutes.
"The way we break it down, the first five minutes the players can hydrate and have it as their own. The next five minutes I talk so it has to be down to the nitty-gritty and just the most important things. If you don't write things down, I think some of those things get confused, you misplace them or you don't time it well. It's just my way to be very objective."
So, what does Osorio exactly write down?
"Really, specifically, what my emphasis has been that week during that specific game, meaning if they have good players, how many crosses they manage to do. If they attack centrally, how many combination plays they do in the attacking third and how we defend them. It varies from game to game."
Some players would pay money to know what Osorio writes down, but they are grateful that he does.
"He's very, very meticulous. That's evident," defender Chris Leitch said. "He goes over every detail. He tries to exploit every weakness of other teams and tries to improve a weakness our team may have. It's almost a military-type strategic approach to his daily training sessions, his game plans every week. He definitely puts a lot of thought into it."
Leitch has played for two of the most prepared coaches in MLS history -- current U.S. national coach Bob Bradley, who directed the MetroStars from 2002-2005 and Osorio.
"I would say Bob was prepared as a coach," Leitch said. "You know how Bob Bradley was. He went over every single thing. I'd say they're similar in that regard. I would say more so. He [Osorio] knows the game so well. He obviously thinks about the game a whole lot, even more than it's healthy, which is good for us, though. You even go into a game feeling you are unprepared.
"He plans for every single situation, be it the run of play, deadball situations, they start of game, middle of the game, the end part of the game. he covers all bases. It's a good feeling coming into games knowing you are well prepared."
What do you expect of the MLS coach who has done it by the books for so many years?
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