Martin Rennie

Martin Rennie

Personal information
Date of birth	22 May 1975 (1975-05-22) (age 36)
Place of birth	Thurso, Scotland
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Vancouver Whitecaps FC (head coach)
Teams managed
Years	Team
2005	Cascade Surge
2007–2008	Cleveland City Stars
2009–2011	Carolina RailHawks
2011–	Vancouver Whitecaps FC

Martin Rennie is a Scottish soccer coach and is currently the head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer. He was signed to a multi-year contract by Vancouver on 9 August 2011.^[1]

Coaching career

Rennie played in the United States and in Europe, but his professional playing career was cut short due to a cruciate ligament injury to his right knee.

Once Rennie decided to focus his attention on coaching he quickly rose through the coaching ranks and attained his UEFA ‘A’ License at the age of 26 making him one of the youngest candidates ever to receive this award. He then went on to gain his Youth License, and numerous other coaching and management qualifications through the highly regarded Scottish Football Association. Rennie studied for his coaching qualifications at the same institute as some of the most successful coaches in world football including Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and David Moyes.

Cascade Surge

He began his Head Coaching career in 2005 with the Cascade Surge in Oregon, USA. He took the Premier Development League team to levels of success that the franchise had never seen before and has never experienced since. In his one and only season in charge Rennie led the Surge to the North West Division Title, West Coast Championship Final, US Open Cup Qualification and the Fair Play Award. In a season where the team only lost two games it also scored more goals than any other team at that level of soccer in the country.

Cleveland City Stars

Following this immediate success Rennie had numerous coaching offers, particularly in the United States. Following some further coaching and psychology studies in Scotland and England he decided to accept an invitation to become the Head Coach of an expansion team in Ohio called the Cleveland City Stars. In the clubs first year in existence the levels of performance and the results recorded were nothing short of remarkable. The Cleveland City stars only lost one game in the entire regular season and drew admiration from all quarters of the US Professional soccer fraternity. Rennie won the coach of the year award in a season where the team only lost 13 goals in the entire season. This total represents a United Soccer League record that has never been bettered in more than 25 years of competition. The team finished its first season in existence as the runners up in the USL Second Division.

The only way that Rennie could build on the success of 2007 would be to win the 2008 Championship and that is exactly what the Cleveland City Stars Achieved with a 2–1 victory over the Charlotte Eagles in front of a sold out crowd at Krenzler Stadium in Cleveland and live to a TV audience throughout the United States. Again Rennie’s work was recognized in the shape of the coach of the year award. What made the Championship winning success even more impressive was the fact that many of the top young players that Rennie had recruited and coached in 2007 were transferred to professional teams at a higher level before the 2008 season began. Once again at the end of the 2008 season many of the most talented players were recruited by MLS and European teams.

Carolina RailHawks

These unprecedented levels of coaching success did not go unnoticed and this time the opportunity to coach the Carolina RailHawks from USL 1 was too much to for Rennie to resist. With the Carolina RailHawks he inherited a team that had only made the playoffs once in the history of the Franchise and had never finished above eighth place in a regular season campaign. Rennie decided to completely clean house and only kept 3 players from the previous RailHawks roster. He then completely changed the team culture and environment, introducing psychological, tactical and physical concepts that had never been implemented at this level before. The results were astonishing. In 2009 the team missed out on the regular season title by only 2 points finishing runners up to Portland who recorded one of the best regular season records in the 25 year history of the USL. Rennie was finalist for the coach of the year award and his team was recognized for the incredible turnaround that had taken place in just one season.

In 2010 the RailHawks established themselves as arguably the premier team in US Soccer outside of the MLS. The RailHawks won the NASL league title and continued their success all the way into the post season with a run to the Championship final. For a team that had never even scored a playoff goal far less recorded a playoff win throughout the history of the franchise this was an even more impressive achievement. For the fourth year in a row Rennie was recognized as a finalist for the Coach of the Year Award, a feat that has never been achieved before at this level of professional soccer. The RailHawks also broke every franchise record in the book for a single season including conceding only 14 goals and scoring 54.

Rennie attributes much of his coaching success to the leadership and psychological lessons he learned during a hugely successful career in the corporate world as well as the invaluable support he has had from assistant coaches Brian Irvine and Paul Ritchie, both former Scotland national football team players.

Vancouver Whitecaps FC

Rennie took over head coaching duty of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC on November 1 shortly after the Carolina RailHawks were eliminated from the NASL Playoffs. His first act will be to hold a one week training and evaluation camp to assess the players from the prior Whitecaps FC season.

External links

• Carolina RailHawks bio

References

1. ^ MacMahon, Martin (9 August 2011). "Whitecaps name Rennie as head coach starting in 2012". Major League Soccer. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2011/08/09/whitecaps-name-martin-rennie-head-coach-starting-12. Retrieved 16 August 2011. 

Persondata
Name	Rennie, Martin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1975-05-22
Place of birth	Thurso, Scotland
Date of death
Place of death