if the caps fit...

Published on Sunday 4 March 2012 05:15

PAUL Ritchie has experienced a few rivalries in his time. At Hearts, the traditional enemies were just across the city. At Dundee United, they were across the street. At Vancouver Whitecaps, where he is assistant coach, they are on the other side of the continent, 2,295 miles away. “It’s not exactly the Dundee derby,” he laughs.

The visit of Montreal Impact on Saturday will give Ritchie his first taste of Major League Soccer. While it is Vancouver’s second year at that level, it is their opponents’ first, which is why the two Canadian clubs have been chosen by the league’s marketing department to open the 2012 season. With a shared history in the lower divisions, their rivalry already exists.

Ritchie knows all about Montreal. Last year, as assistant to Martin Rennie at Carolina Railhawks, he was up against them in the North American Soccer League. Having followed Rennie to Vancouver in November, Ritchie is preparing to confront them again, only this time it will be under the national spotlight.

Some 25,000 spectators are expected in Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium for a gala occasion that will kick off not only the season, but an exciting new chapter in Ritchie’s career. “It can’t come quickly enough,” he says. “We played them in a pre-season friendly not long ago, and it was a little bit timid to be honest, but come Saturday, it will be a fantastic atmosphere. On the same day, the [Vancouver] Canucks play Montreal Canadiens in the ice hockey, so you couldn’t ask for a better start.”

Montreal are the third Canadian franchise to join the MLS, which is expanding geographically as well as numerically. While Toronto will provide the Impact with their local derby, the trip to Vancouver requires either a two-day drive or a five-hour flight. “The distances we have to travel between games is difficult to comprehend at times,” says Ritchie. “The league is being restructured this year, which will cut down on the travelling, but Vancouver will still have to go to places like New York. For that, you’re talking about two or three thousand miles. It’s like a European match. It’s something that players coming into the country find very, very difficult to deal with.”

Not that Ritchie is complaining. It could hardly have worked out better for the Kirkcaldy-born former Scotland defender since his decision two years ago to join Rennie’s coaching staff at Carolina, a club for whom he briefly played at the end of his career. Together, they turned the Railhawks into one of the best teams outside the MLS. When Vancouver’s first season at that level did not go to plan, they head-hunted Rennie, who in turn asked Ritchie to go with him. At 36, Ritchie is already making up for the frustrations of his playing days. He set his standards high at Hearts, with whom he won the 1998 Scottish Cup, but his early promise was never properly fulfilled in a career that took him from Rangers – for whom he didn’t play – to Manchester City, Walsall and Dundee United.

He admits that one or two bad career decisions cost him, but the one he took two years ago, to uproot his family and relocate to the US, has paid off. “You’ve got to take your chances in life. When you see how many coaches are out of work now – and I don’t mean young guys, I mean proven coaches like Jim Jefferies and Jimmy Calderwood – there are not a lot of opportunities in Scotland. So you have to look elsewhere.

“It’s becoming more difficult to break through as a young coach, but Scottish managers have a fantastic reputation worldwide, which has a lot to do with the education they get from the SFA. The one thing Martin and I don’t have is experience, but coming here, where there is maybe not as much pressure as there is back home, was a big learning opportunity.”

In Carolina, where Ritchie says there was sunshine for nine or ten months of the year, and no shortage of facilities, his two boys – Jordan (now 13) and Dylan (eight) – were able to play more football than they ever could have in Scotland. “There are so many opportunities for the kids, so many new things for them to sample, and the education system is fantastic. I would say, if you get a chance like this, you’ve got to take it.”

In Vancouver, the weather is more like Scotland’s, but the lifestyle is different again. Ritchie, who has taken up ski-iing and is getting into ice hockey, talks about its cultural diversity, about the surrounding snow-topped mountains that give the football team its name and about the proud history of soccer in the area.

He says that Willie Johnston, who played for the Whitecaps in the late 1970s, is still remembered there, and not just for the moment, now on YouTube, when he took a swig from a beer can while sizing up a corner kick. Those were the days when Vancouver, whose team also included Alan Ball, won the NASL title, beating New York Cosmos along the way.

He is honoured to be charged with restoring former glories, albeit only as assistant to Rennie, the 36-year-old Thurso-born coach whose studious approach to the job has won him many admirers in the US. “His story is phenomenal,” says Ritchie. “He came over here six or seven years ago, married an American lady, and started at the lowest level. Now, he is coaching an MLS team. He doesn’t really have a football background, apart from playing junior and training with Partick Thistle, but his knowledge of the game, and his man-management skills, are incredible. He’s a thinker, and I want to learn from him.”

With Kris Boyd signing for John Spencer’s Portland Timbers, and Barry Robson committed to joining Vancouver in the summer, Ritchie expects the MLS, and more particularly its teams in the Pacific NorthWest, to intrigue Scottish fans during the months ahead. There has also been speculation that Carlos Bocanegra will swap crisis-hit Rangers for Rennie’s team. “You’re always on the lookout for quality players, and obviously Bocanegra has an American background,” says Ritchie. “It’s different here because it’s the league who own the players, but Vancouver tried to get him before he went to Rangers.

“I don’t want to talk about players with other clubs, but we’ve got our eye on a number of players in different countries, and if they become available, we’ll be interested.”

Ritchie keeps in touch with plenty of former colleagues, including Allan McManus, Neil McCann and Billy Brown. Every two or three months, he has been back in Scotland, doing his pro coaching licence alongside David Weir, Jim McIntyre and Gary Locke. He wants to be a manager in his own right, maybe even in his homeland.

“I’m building a new life for myself and my family, but Scotland has a massive place in my heart, and you never know what can happen down the line. I miss home. I miss my family and friends, but at this moment in time, I’m very, very excited about the challenge we have here. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Taken from the Scotsman