On Tuesday, Sacramento Republic FC announced some changes to the titles and responsibilities to certain members of their staff. Those particularly affected are: Paul Buckle, Graham Smith, and Chris Malenab.
Buckle will be taking on the responsibility of Technical Director, the position that Graham Smith held since founding of the club. In the release, Republic President Warren Smith spoke of Buckle’s experience as both a head coach and a “coaching educator” as reasons for the coach’s new title. Smith also mentioned that Buckle’s experience and new role as Technical Director would be a benefit to the Republic’s Academy program, which will be able to draw on that experience and coaching knowledge. According to the press release, Buckle will now oversee all first team roster changes, academy development and call ups as part of his new position.
Former Technical Director Graham Smith will be taking on the title of Director of Football. From the release it does not seem as though much will be changing for him, since he will “continue many of his current responsibilities as director of football, including overseeing football personnel.”
Chris Malenab is the probably the one man of the trio who will be going through the biggest job change. He first came to the Republic as an assistant coach prior to the inaugural season but will now transition to a Video Analyst position where he will “break down film of Republic FC matches and practices as well as prepare film studies of opponents.” We hope for his sake that he gets a bit better video quality than the average USL viewer.
Although Malenab is the one in the trio who is likely going through the biggest change, the decision to add Buckle as Technical Director is the most interesting change. Previous head coach and international man of mystery Preki was not given the same kind of power over and responsibility for the club’s soccer operations, although it should be mentioned that he’s still not the top dog in that regard since Graham Smith is still the Director of Football. However, it certainly seems to show that the Republic like Buckle’s extensive experience with all levels of the game, from academy to first team.
Installing him as Technical Director gives him a significant amount of control over the future identity of how the club plays the game. In fact, some of his specific responsibilities are “academy development and call-ups.” Him being responsible for call-ups is particularly interesting. If Buckle can be successful in implementing Buckleball from the academy level all the way up to the first team, we may be seeing him utilize some particularly skilled academy players in future Republic first team matches. USL currently allows teams to register up to 5 academy players in addition to the 30 players allowed on a team’s master roster.
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