In this podcast, we're joined by Portland Timbours T2 head coach Cameron Noles, not only as Cameron Noles, he's a top young coach on the rise in the US, but he's a close personal friend. It was fantastic to interview him and share some of his insights from his 18 years in the USA as both a professional player and now coach. We pick up the conversation discussing the terrible leg break that eventually ended Cam's career as a player and his transition into coaching, plus some of the challenges that went with it. We dive into a range of topics including player identity, the 2015 MLS Champions Championship victory, player integration and the importance of being able to adapt to the coach.
We hope you enjoyed the podcast and don't forget, head over to playdevelopmentproject.com and check out the Masterclass discussion section for the full interview and many more top coaches from around the world. And you mentioned earlier the injury that could tail your career, obviously a significant leg break which happened in a game for the timbers. It ended your career pre-30 and it left you in a position where there were decisions on the table in terms of where you would go next. What was it about coaching that attracted you to the industry and ended up with you being involved in the timbers again?
Yeah, I mean coaching is something that I'd always been involved in. You know, you'll remember Billy Harrison New Zealand, but he was a guy that got me involved in it when I was in high school and coaching kids and doing camps with him and I was involved with the youth club that we had at the school and coaching the first 11. And when I came to the States and I was in college I was doing the summer camp system there when I came to Salt Lake and Portland. I was involved in coaching in both of those communities.
So I'd always been coaching at some level and really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed that process of seeing young players develop and seeing them learn a new skill or be able to solve a problem. And then fast forward to getting injured. The injury happened, I never thought I'd be out of the game for as long as I was.
But it was, you know, complication after complication and surgery after surgery and before, you know, two years ago and so during that time I decided to go through the qualification process of getting my coaching licenses. So by the time I went back to playing, you know, I'd got my B license here in the States and went back and played with Montreal, you know, fortunate they gave me an opportunity, you know, after the Portland timbers that allowed me to train and do my rehab with them. And so I'd always been connected with the club throughout the whole process. And then I finished the season with Montreal, they were going into MLS the following season.
They made the decision not to sign me for the MLS team and I went home to New Zealand. I thought, you know, what do I want to do? And it was an interesting period because, you know, for that seven years or whatever it had been, my life had been defined by, you know, being the soccer player. And so I came back and I had arranged meetings with a number of people that, you know, I respected their opinion in terms of what's next, how do you even go about it, how do you as a, you know, former professional athlete now transition into the work world, whatever that looks like, whether it's in soccer or business, you know, so I was going to meet with an executive from Adidas.
I was going to meet with, I met with the general manager of the timbers. I met with the, he was a chief business officer at the time. My goal was to work with the club as the president of business operations. And you know, they had some really good advice and I just kind of fell into a good situation more through luck in timing than anything else.
There was a vacancy on the staff that they needed to feel really quickly, someone that they were wanting to hire fell through at the last minute. And it was sort of a try it out and we'll see how it go, you know, they were in pre-season, they needed an extra body on the field and they brought me in and said, we'll see how it goes and hopefully we can keep you on full time. So it was an incredible opportunity. You know, I always thought I wanted to coach in some capacity after I finished playing, but I never imagined it would have been jumping straight into being a assistant coach on MLS stuff at that time.
You know, I think I was, I was given the job, I was 29 years old, so you know. Yeah, certainly a sliding doors moment. And you touched on the idea there of the injury and sort of that identity where you've tied your identity as a young footballer and as a, knowing you through high school, obviously a successful athlete across a variety of codes before you really focused on your football. How much of that, I mean, for coaches who are working in the youth space, I think sometimes when you collect this, that kids can align their identity or players can align their identity with the sport they play.
How much of a sort of game changing moment in your life in your journey from play to coach was that and realizing how much of your identity was tied to being a football player? Yeah, I mean, a lot because it's all you focus on for as long as you can remember. And I think it's really an underserved, it's an underserved field of trying to help form a football especially here in the States because this is all relatively new. You know, we haven't had a thriving professional league for a long time.
We haven't had a thriving second division for a long time. You know, this doesn't go back decades and hundreds of years and whatnot. It's new. And so these players that are coming through the system that are finding themselves on the back end of a career not knowing where to go, it's a really challenging time and a really difficult time.
Now, I'm fortunate that I was able to get myself in a situation where I'm still around the game. You know, my life is fairly similar in the sense that I'm around the club. I'm in a locker room. I get to enjoy all those things that you associate with being a footballer without mistake fit.
So a bit I know from a lot of my friends and people that I played with, you know, how hard that struggle can be, trying to find out one, what you want to do and two, what you're qualified to do and what someone give you a chance to do because you play for 10 years. You've not made enough money to set yourself up, you know, we're just sort of all grinding it out for a lot of the game type thing. And you get to the end of that. And now you've got a prospective employer looking at you saying, okay, you've done that for 10 years, great.
But what are your transferable skills to this industry? And I think that can be really challenging and really daunting for a lot of players. Yeah. And I think the system coaches have to keep in mind when working with young players as it's more than the technical skills or the tactical understanding you are trying to help kids understand life and there's an opportunity there for young players and for coaches who have those young players in their environments to really create a place where, you know, their life skills being taught beyond football.
Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. I mean, if you look at it realistically of youth players, the ones that are even going to get to having a professional career, not many, you know, the odds are sacked against that. So I think when working with young players and as a coach of young players, you've got to be invested in more than just the football. That becomes, you know, the icing on top of the kick.
If that happens, great. But know that they can leave and be in a better place. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned you've been part of the Tembers organisation for a long time as a player and a coach.
Can you share some insights around the clubs, philosophy, both in terms of playing and coaching and some of the common threads that are emerging through the organisation as it grows and gets more established and MLS? Yeah, it's been good to be involved with the club, especially seeing it go from being a U.S.L club to then stepping into Major League Soccer and then dealing with the increased demands that come with that, whether that's building out the infrastructure of a football club, scouting network, coaches, academy system, reserve team, you know, all things that didn't exist when I was first here 11 years ago. And I think, you know, the club, the owner, the general manager have done a really good job of making the club sort of a reflection of the community in terms of we are and always have been one of the most well supported clubs in North America, in the United States. And particularly in the Northwest, you know, there seems to be quite an appetite for soccer and Portland's always had a good following.
You know, we would get, as a low-division team, you know, average 8,000, 9,000 people at a game get 16,000, which was near enough capacity for us. Now they've renovated the stadium and, you know, they've sold out every MLS game that they've ever had. And I think when we look at the club and how that ties in to philosophy and whatnot, it's important first and foremost that we honour the history of the club because we're one of the few clubs here in the States that actually has a history that dates back to the NASL era of 1975. And also, honest, then, the community, because our supporters are critical in terms of what they give back to the community.
And part of our philosophy, holistically, is the club is we don't want players to just come in here and play. We want players that are going to be invested in the community and want to be here for a long time. I think if you look at some of our best players, they have been with the club for a long time. And the club has done a good job of investing in not just players, but also people that fit that mold.
And now, you know, in terms of how that translates on the field, you know, we all talk about the buzzwords of track it football and whatnot. And I do think we have a responsibility to provide entertainment for the supporters. And in terms of the players that have been brought in to do that, I think through the recruitment and coaching, we've been able to execute that because of some exciting dynamic attacking players. You know, we have players from all around the world and then we've got a team that's been able to be consistently successful, which has been really important.
Yeah, really interesting. That community feel a sample in any club. And obviously, any timbers game you see on TV, when you go to live, you see that presence of the crowd. So clearly, they're very invested.
Obviously, it's been the first part from that sort of sliding doors moment we talked about where you fell into coaching and sort of got this opportunity with the first team. You spent the first five years there, I believe, working with Caleb Porter, working as an assistant coach. And during this period, the team won an MLS championship. So can you tell us a little bit about how you developed in that environment, working alongside the likes of Caleb and obviously Sean McQuarley, who's a very experienced coach in that setup.
And some of the lessons you learned from the championship run a little bit about that experience. Yeah, so I got the opportunity to work with Caleb for five years. So I've been with the club for one season before he came. So I was on the job, manager got sacked after about six months.
We stayed on and then Caleb came in. And the interesting thing of that five years was we had a lot of consistency with the staff. And as you mentioned, Sean McQuarley had come over with a tremendous amount of experience from being with Shiffa Wednesday from his playing career as well. He had seen a lot of professional environments.
And the first year with Caleb, we had an incredible run. And then we went back out of the second year. And so we kind of had this real ebb and flow to the way things went. And we were going there in the year that we won the championship in 2015.
It was, we were getting towards the end of the season and a lot of people were counting us out. And are they going to make the playoffs? Was it just a flash in the pan? Was one good year?
And we had a lot of trust in what we were doing and how everyone's roles were contributing to that. Caleb was very detailed in the way that he planned trainings and the way that we analyzed the opponent. And he had a strong belief in how we were going to play and how well we were going to do. And that came down to crunch time in the season.
And we just went on an unbelievable run towards the end of the year to get ourselves into the playoffs first and foremost. Because that was essentially where the bar is set here in the States. You get into the playoffs and you have a chance to win. And we got ourselves in.
And then that run, we had probably one of the most memorable games in MLS playoff history where we had penalties go all the way to the goalkeeper at the end. And Kansas City probably had two or three chances to win the game on penalties. And the ball hit two posts and bounces out and then our goalkeeper smashes in the winner. And it just felt like this whole thing was building.
This sort of belief and the atmosphere and the locker room and that team spirit that then combined with the quality we had in the locker room in terms of on field ability, it all came together. And it was a lot that you need. The bounce of a ball. It's funny to look back on because if the video assistant referee existed, one of our goals in the final one to count at the ball and out of play.
The line's been missed it. We cross it. Next thing you know, it's in the back of the net. So we had all those things that have to come together in terms of good players, team chemistry.
And then that little bit of luck as well was critical to that run. And in terms of the journey, that five-year spell as an assistant, were there any sort of key lessons that you learned in terms of how to be an effective assistant coach, how to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team. We've got a couple of assistants in head coach, sports science, all these kind of ingredients being thrown together. What advice do you have for coaches and what experience can you pass on around that particular journey?
It was good because we had a lot of the same people. And so everyone kind of grew to understand their role. And then initially with Caleb coming in, we didn't know. We didn't know what he wanted.
We didn't know how best we could support him because we didn't know how he worked. The two of three of us actually that had been that stayed with the club when Caleb came in. So I would say the biggest thing is be adaptable because it could change very quickly. And to also be open-minded because what we understood was what we had done before didn't work.
So we had to listen and we had to say, right, okay, let's try this. And then figure out a way to communicate effectively when we thought something needed to change or we needed to change something into just a slightly different direction. And when you talk about all those other components of integrating sports science, throughout that process over the five years, our whole staffing department grew. So we had more people coming in, we had access to more technology, and it was trying to figure out who's skillset best suited at what we did with player recruitment, what we did with scouting of the opposition, what we did with reflecting on our own performance and everyone just being willing to take part and become a bit of a jack of all trades really and not really turning their nose up at doing anything because in having a piece in all of those different parts of performance, we all got better as assistant coaches.
Now you've been promoted in a sense to the head coaching role with the T2 team, which is the second team at the club feeds into the first team. You mentioned the age range of players that you work with in terms of 18 to 22. And a lot of players probably trying to fight for an email is placed in a Git Pro contract and it can be quite transient, I'd imagine, as well, in terms of the playing roster. Can you elaborate a little bit on the role that you're now in within the organization and some of the challenges that go with that particular position?
So there's a number of challenges. First, coming into being a head coach the first time, there's a number of things that I hadn't considered because much like a player complains about things that are going on within the club. You said there is an assistant coach and you don't have an appreciation of what the head coach is going through and how many decisions they have to make. And so for me, that was very challenging to begin with was just being in this position where I had to manage a staff and so many people want a piece of your time.
They want you to answer a question to make a decision and getting on board with all of that whereas before I was just a cog in the wheel essentially, a cog in the machine helping it turn. So that's a challenge. I think another challenge is the fluidity between the first team and our team. We look at signing probably 14, 15 players to USL-specific contracts and then on any given week from the first team, we might have no players, we might get eight players that need a game and usually it's somewhere in that range of 4 to 6, 4 to 7 players.
So trying to balance out what that looks like and also then integrate a game plan on match day when we've not had a lot of those players in training. So with all those moving parts, how do we keep enough of it consistent so that when players come in, they understand their role even though they're not really trained with us. So maybe up until the day before the game. And then also how do we continue to have our players that are signed to USL contracts?
How do they stay motivated? How they could have an unbelievable weekend training and look for all money like they're going to start the game? But then the night before, someone with the first team is coming back from injury or just needs minutes to stay sharp, they need to play instead. And so there's a lot of moving parts within that integrating the first team players and also managing the players that are on our roster and in training with us every day.
Yeah, look, I mean, I've previously interviewed the likes of McPeal who was the 23's manager at Liverpool and he's now at Rangers as an assistant. The same with John DeSouza who previously managed the 21's at Brimford and is now at Cultures United. And those guys always talked about the challenge of the first team where you might be training and the first team managers is I need four players and they're just somewhere you've got to adapt. So that idea of adaptability is obviously crucial.
But you've touched on integration in terms of players coming and going. I mean, in terms of the dynamics between the team, between the players, how hard is it to manage the social dynamics and to make sure that this is camaraderie and quality integration with players being so fluid through the two squads? I think a lot of that for us got driven by the club and the club essentially taking responsibility for it rather than the first team just saying, right, we're the first team, you're the second team, the academy's the academy. And you know, vertical integration is very much a buzzword.
But I think the communication that we had between the first team staff and our staff, the fact that we share a workspace, the fact that we train side by side at the same time, we share a same facility, all the players eat lunch together in the same facility. There's a lot of social interaction that takes place off the training field and outside of the game. And so the players are familiar with each other in that sense. Now they sit in different locker rooms and whatnot and they are on different teams.
But for us, there was a lot of crossover with that. And I think once the first team gave a lot of value to playing with our team, once you know, once Geo said, you know what, you need to go and you need to prove yourself with T2 and we're going to be watching and that's going to be important. And they follow through by watching and giving the players feedback on those. So as soon as they assign value to that, then it makes the job of us much, much easier.
And then we can focus on the day to day and we can do the same with the academy and say, you know what, we're watching the academy games. We want the best players to come in and train with us. And if you've been doing well, we're going to have a line for the academy manager and we would have players in with us, we would put academy players on the bench, we'd play academy games to supplement our roster. So I think for being year one of that, from my end, I think the club, the way the club drove that was really successful.
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