Tampa Bay Rowdies

The Tampa Bay Rowdies announced the hiring of Thomas Rongen as head coach on December 3, 2014. Rongen became the third head coach in modern Rowdies history, bringing nearly 30 years of experience, an MLS championship and player development expertise.

Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Rongen played for Ajax Amsterdam before moving to the US to play in the NASL where he won Rookie of the Year, Defender of the Year and other honors. Rongen was the original head coach of the Tampa Bay Mutiny, leading it to earn the Supporter’s Shield in the league’s inaugural 1996 season (awarded to the Major League Soccer team with the best regular season record). He was awarded the MLS Coach of the Year Award that season and was appointed coach of the Eastern Conference All-Star Team, which included six of his own Mutiny players. Rowdies President and General Manager Farrukh Quraishi was President and GM of the Mutiny at that time.

Rongen’s other MLS experience includes stints as head coach for D.C. United, where he won the 1999 MLS Cup, the New England Revolution and as the first head coach and sporting director for Chivas USA in Los Angeles, California.

Additionally, Rongen has extensive experience developing young players, serving as head coach of the United States Under-20 Men’s National Team for nine years. He was recently the head coach for the long suffering Men’s National Team in American Samoa, which lost 30 consecutive games in their 17 year existence prior to Rongen’s appointment. Most recently the subject of an award winning documentary “Next Goal Wins,”  the feature-length film highlights his remarkable turnaround of the team in what Esquire magazine calls “the most rewarding, gutsy and rather magnificent sporting story in recent cinematic memory.”

In addition to his coaching experience, Rongen also served as the Netherlands’ team liaison at the 1994 World Cup in Orlando, and most recently spent the last three seasons as Academy Director at Toronto FC.  He has provided color commentary for Comcast, Fox Soccer and Sportsnet.