FC Cincinnati hired former Manchester United defender Jaap Stam as its head coach on Thursday, although the Major League Soccer team bungled the online announcement.
The club sent out a tweet welcoming Stam, but the accompanying photo was of Ajax youth coach Tinus van Teunenbroek.
After catching heat across cyberspace, FC Cincinnati deleted the faulty post and tweeted a photo of the real Stam with the playful caption, “ICYMI: Join us in welcoming our actual new head coach, Jaap Stam. #FCCincy”
According to Yahoo Sports, the photo snafu originated with photo service Getty Images misidentifying a 2013 photo of van Teunenbroek as being Stam. FC Cincinnati used that photo with its original tweet.
Stam, 47, becomes the fourth person to coach FC Cincinnati in its second year of MLS play. Alan Koch remained on the job when the team moved from the United Soccer League to MLS, but he was fired last May after the team opened 2-7-2. Yoann Damet took over as the interim coach, then was replaced by Ron Jans in August, and the team completed a 6-22-6 year.
Jans resigned in February as the team was conducting an investigation into whether he used a racial slur. Damet again became the interim coach, and he led the team to two losses before the MLS season was suspended in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Stam most recently was the head coach of Feyenoord in the Netherlands last year, but he did not complete a full season before resigning in October. He previously coached Ajax’s reserve team and PEC Zwolle, both in his native Netherlands, and Reading in England’s second division.
In his playing career, Stam was a center back whose most notable teams were the Netherlands’ PSV Eindhoven (1996-98), England’s Manchester United (1998-2001), Italy’s Lazio (2001-04), Italy’s AC Milan (2004-06) and Ajax (2006-07).
He also made 67 appearances for the Dutch national team from 1996-2004, participating in the side that finished fourth at the 1998 World Cup in France.
–Field Level Media
