TUCSON, Ariz. – The New England Revolution have made significant changes to their backline ahead of the 2017 season, but one of the club’s biggest additions in that department won’t ever take the field.
Carlos Llamosa was added to the Revolution’s coaching staff in December – joining head coach Jay Heaps and fellow assistants Tom Soehn and Remi Roy – and the 47-year-old brings a wealth of defensive acumen after a 21-year playing career and seven more years in the coaching ranks.
That experience will be critical as Llamosa goes about the task of helping to solidify a once-leaky Revolution defense that conceded 54 goals last season.
“It’s a big challenge, and I like that,” Llamosa said from the Revolution’s preseason training camp in Tucson, Arizona on Tuesday morning. “I like the tough challenges.”
Perhaps the toughest challenge comes in trying to seamlessly slot two brand new center backs into the middle of the Revolution’s backline. There’s little question that January signings Antonio Mlinar Delamea and Benjamin Angoua have the pedigree to perform in MLS, but helping the duo adjust to a new club and a new playing style in just five weeks is undoubtedly a tall task.
But it’s a task that Llamosa and Heaps would appear to be perfectly-suited to perform, having once formed a center-back pairing themselves with the Revolution in 2002 and 2003.
“We have two new guys, two new center backs,” Llamosa said. “This is a lot of work to make sure those guys adjust to the team, to the backline, with the goalkeeper, and they sync into the team right away before the season starts.”
“We added two big pieces in terms of center backs,” Heaps said. “It’s kind of like when [Carlos and I] played together in the sense that we’re working in tandem to put together the backline, working together on where we see we might be weak and where we can improve, and what our strengths are across the back.”
That prior relationship between Heaps and Llamosa has made for an easy transition for the Revolution’s newest assistant coach, who’s very much enjoying working with his former teammate.
“It’s been a good relationship,” said Llamosa, who also played with Heaps briefly in Miami. “He’s the one who played next to me, so we keep that good relationship and energy.”
