Ex-coach Hudson talks about firing, future
The Anthony Hudson era did not go as planned.
With just eight wins in a little more than a year, the ousted Rapids coach’s time in Colorado ended shortly after it began.
Still, if things go as hoped moving forward, Hudson will have laid the first few bricks of a rebuild that was desperately needed.
“It didn’t work in Colorado, it failed and I’m more determined than ever,” Hudson told The Denver Post in his first comments since his May 1 firing. “I have more experience in the league and I know how MLS works now and I don’t want to waste that knowledge. I love working in the league and I believe the knowledge I got that I can be successful in the future.”
Newcastle United F.C. was rumored to be interested in Hudson. Despite managing the New Zealand and Bahrain national teams, as well as assisting in England with several clubs prior to Colorado, he maintains he wants to stay in Major League Soccer.
“I’ve had an opportunity to manage back home in England and the Middle East but I’ve loved my time in MLS,” the 38-year-old said. “My dad played here, I love the league, I think it’s an exciting and growing league. I’m at the age where I want to stay and build in one place. I want to be here and I have a point to prove.”
Hudson was hired by the Rapids in November of 2017. The hope was that he could breed a winning culture that outlasted him.
He succeeded in identifying a core and developing several teenagers to the senior team, but poor results took away the opportunity to leave a lasting footprint.
“There were a lot of changes, probably too many changes on the roster,” Hudson said. “Every foreign player is a gamble coming to MLS because of the adjustments and I think we probably had too many too soon. These are the things I learned deep into the job. That’s probably the biggest thing that contributed to the problems but ultimately it didn’t work and I come away with the experience of the job and how the job ended and I’m a better manager for it.”
The tone of Hudson’s comments were not as pointed as those in the days before he was let go — when he called out ownership, players and other issues.
“We are fighting at the bottom with a bottom group of players and we have to find a way to pick up results whilst also being a team that tries to play a certain way,” Hudson said after a late April loss in Atlanta.
“Culturally in England managers talk like that a lot,” Hudson said about his “bottom group of players” comment. “There was part of it that came out wrong. A lot of what I said I felt was fair and my objective was to protect the team because I felt like we were being attacked every week.”
Hudson has taken a step back since being fired. He was recently spotted at a Chicago Fire match and spoke over the phone from Orlando, Fla., where the league has gathered this week for All-Star festivities.
His time away has been spent self-reflecting and evaluating himself, he said. His next job might not come as an MLS head coach, but given his young age, there will likely be more opportunities down the line for the youngest Rapids coach in club history.
“This is the nature of the sporting world, people when it doesn’t work they say that’s that and it’s the way it is,” Hudson said. “But underneath it all there’s a lot more and I walked away with my head held high because not one day did I show up trying to hide. I never ever shied away from the responsibility.”