Advisors

Bill Manning has a wealth of experience on the soccer field and in the sports business. He currently is President of Major League Soccer 2017 Champions Toronto FC.

Bill has enjoyed a successful 20-year career including executive positions in the NFL (Philadelphia Eagles) & NBA (Houston Rockets) as well as a General manager of MLS club Real Salt Lake.

Under Manning’s guidance, Real Salt Lake won the MLS Cup in 2009 and was the first MLS team to advance to the finals of the CONCACAF Champions League in 2011. Since his arrival, RSL has vaulted into the League’s elite in virtually every metric, including winning percentage, sponsorship & ticket sales revenue, merchandising and media coverage. Most recently, Manning was named the 2012 MLS Executive of the Year.

An All-America soccer standout at the University of Bridgeport, Manning later won a U.S. Open Cup with the Brooklyn Italians and played in the United Soccer Leagues with the Penn-Jersey Spirit, Valley Golden Eagles & New York Fever. 

A former Beachside player and Gatorade National Player of the Year for Staples High School, Kyle was ACC Player of the Year at the University of Virginia and 2002 MLS Rookie of the Year. He had an 8-year career in the MLS with the Columbus Crew and the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Martino is a studio analyst and color commentator for NBC Sports coverage of the English Premier League. Martino previously served as a color commentator for MLS on the ESPN family of networks.

In his first season with the club, Giovanni Savarese led the Timbers to 15 regular-season wins in 2018, tied for the third-most victories for a first-year head coach in MLS history. Under Savarese’s guidance, the Timbers won their second Western Conference Championship and advanced to their second MLS Cup in 2018. Registering 18 wins overall including an impressive playoff run, Savarese became one of three head coaches since 2000 to register 18 or more wins, including playoffs, in their first year as a head coach in the league. He also became just the second head coach in the last 14 seasons to advance to MLS Cup in his first year in MLS.

Appointed as the Timbers’ head coach on Dec. 18, 2017, Savarese brings over 25 years of professional experience as a player and coach to the Timbers organization. Spent the previous five seasons as the head coach and sporting director of the New York Cosmos, where he developed one of the most successful clubs in the NASL, compiling a 65-26-44 record in 135 regular-season games.

Savarese enjoyed an 18-year professional playing career, including five seasons in Major League Soccer, scoring 159 goals in 322 games played in various leagues in the United States, Venezuela, Italy, and England.

Darren is one of the sport’s most recognized mental performance coaches providing support to Olympic and World Champions, athletes and teams who have competed and won at the highest levels of the sport. He has consulted with Nike’s Oregon Project since 2007 and has had the opportunity to work with some of the world’s finest distance runners including Olympic Gold Medalists Mo Farah and Matthew Centrowitz and Olympic Silver & Bronze Medalist Galen Rupp.

In addition to his work with the Oregon Project Darren currently consults with athletes competing in the NFL and NBA and at the University of Oregon. Previously Darren has worked with USSF, FIFA, NSCAA and provided support for players in the NWSL, MLS, and EPL.  Beyond his practical experience, Darren has held faculty positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Southern Illinois University and was a tenured Professor at Arizona State University with appointments in the Departments of Kinesiology and Psychology.

He has published over 60 scientific articles and book chapters on motivation and performance psychology and made invited keynote presentations in Croatia, France, Norway, Finland, USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He recently accepted an Honorary Professor position at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom where he will continue his research focused on understanding and optimizing human performance.

Manager and Technical Director Peter Vermes oversees all soccer operations for Sporting Kansas City, including head coaching duties, roster management, scouting and oversight of the Swope Park Rangers and Sporting KC Academy. Vermes became the club’s technical director in 2006 and took the helm as manager in 2009.

Vermes is the longest-tenured head coach in MLS and the fifth-winningest coach in MLS history. During his tenure in Kansas City, he has won four major trophies – the 2012, 2015 and 2017 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cups and the 2013 MLS Cup – and finished atop the conference standings in 2011, 2012 and 2018. He is the first coach in club history to lead Sporting KC to eight straight postseason appearances, as well as the only person to ever win the MLS Cup as both a player and a coach with the same team.

Vermes was also an integral part of a young U.S. team at the 1990 World Cup in Italy, marking the first time the U.S. had qualified for the World Cup in 40 years.

‘Cuco’ is a Spanish retired footballer who played as a center forward, and managed Athletic Bilbao from 2016 to 2018.

He played in 381 La Liga games over the course of 12 seasons (111 goals scored), representing Osasuna and Athletic Bilbao and made two appearances for the Spanish National Team.‘Cuco’, from Larraintzar Spain, is a product of CA Osasuna’s youth system. After a two-year coaching stint with Osasuna’s B Team, Zigande managed Osasuna’s full team into the Semi-Finals of the UEFA Cup and a Quarter Finals appearance in the Spanish Kings Cup and later managed La Liga side Xerez CD during the 2009-10 season. Has worked with various levels of Osasuna’s Youth Academy.