Football
Jeff Carlisle, U.S. soccer correspondent 7y

New York Red Bulls' Hamlett: Good working relationship with Jesse Marsch

Denis Hamlett, the newly installed sporting director of the New York Red Bulls, said he's not daunted by the challenge of moving into the front-office ranks, and that his long-standing relationship with manager Jesse Marsch will be an asset in his new role.

Hamlett was officially named as sporting director on Tuesday, after serving in a variety of coaching roles in MLS over the past 19 years. He said his experiences have left him well prepared for what lies ahead.

"I feel like I'm ready for this challenge," he said on a conference call with reporters. "Life is all about challenges, so I look at this as a big challenge and a big opportunity. I'm confident in my abilities and I'm looking forward to taking this club to new heights.

"For me, it was just a matter of perfect timing, where I'm at in my career."

Hamlett has spent the last two seasons in New York serving as Marsch's assistant, but their relationship goes back to 1998, when Marsch was a player with the Chicago Fire and Hamlett was an assistant coach.

The two also worked together when Marsch served as manager of the Montreal Impact, with Hamlett serving as his assistant.

"Jesse and I have the utmost respect for each other, and I think it starts there," said Hamlett. "For me and for us, that's the key. In the end, I'm the sporting director, and I'll make the decisions. But the most important part is that we have a good working relationship and have respect for each other."

Hamlett added that even though he has gone from being Marsch's assistant to being above him on the organization chart, he expects the dynamic between the two to be collaborative in nature.

"I think the important thing is that it's a partnership, that for us we sit down and we have discussions, we put things on the table, and at the end we make the right decisions of what we think is best for the club, the organization, and for the team," he said. "As far as those specifics, the key thing for us to make sure that there is always communication with him and the support staff because I think that was something we did when I was assistant coach."

Hamlett replaces Ali Curtis, who was surprisingly let go two weeks ago after two highly successful seasons with the Red Bulls. Hamlett declined to get into the circumstances of how he was hired, or when he was first approached about taking the job.

He did say that the team's overall approach to building a team, influenced heavily by parent organization Red Bull Global Soccer, won't change.

"Our philosophy is in place," he said. "We're going to play younger players, we're going to get the right players that fit the style that we want to play. The one thing is I would give credit to our coaching staff.

"They're always challenging and coming up with different ways to expand our players, so now when they step on the field they're always going to be one step ahead of our opponent. That doesn't change. We're going to constantly be raising the bar."

New York has one open Designated Player spot, as well as plenty of financial flexibility after trading captain Dax McCarty to the Fire for $400,000 in targeted allocation money (TAM). But Hamlett indicated he'll take a wait and see approach to adding more high-priced players.

"I think we're open to filling the [DP] spot," he said. "We feel we have a good starting point with the group we have right now. We will see how things play out, but we have the assets in terms of the [general allocation money], the TAM that we can use if we want to go out and get another DP."

New York will play the Vancouver Whitecaps in the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal on Thursday. The Red Bulls will then open the MLS regular season at Atlanta United four days later.

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