Steve Ewen -
The Province
A championship season didn't buy Bob Lilley the usual two or three years' grace.
He was ousted as Whitecaps coach after the USL First Division campaign in September. His three-year tenure sandwiched two first-round playoff exits around that 2006 league championship.
It's obvious that the team brass wanted a more upbeat style than Lilley was promoting, what with all the banging of the entertaining, attacking drum that team president Bob Lenarduzzi's been doing of late.
But Lilley did come with a reputation for a defensive focus from other stops in the USL, didn't he?
"We were on the receiving end of a 4-0 thumping from one of Bob's teams," said Lenarduzzi, pointing to a playoff game in 2001 between the Whitecaps and the Hershey Wildcats.
"I knew he was tagged as a defensive coach and knew he paid attention to defence, but I always felt that he was quite prepared to attack then, too. I felt the tag he got then was wrong."
New skipper Teitur Thordarson was saying all the right things Wednesday:
"We hope that we can play a very ... attacking football That's what we like. Football is about results. There are different way to get results. But my philosophy has been to play attacking football. That's what we'll try to do."
Lilley was named head coach of the Detroit Ignition of the Major Indoor Soccer on Nov. 6.
© The Vancouver Province 2007
