Hear from interim North Texas Head Coach John Gall

With the dismissal of Javier Cano, assistant coach John Gall has been given the reins to turn North Texas' season around.

On Thursday, media had an opportunity to hear from new interim head coach John Gall for the first time. Of course, Gall is no stranger to this team, having served within the FC Dallas organization since 2017 and as assistant coach this season.

Gall’s first order of business is to find some ways to relieve the pressures of the poor run of results that led to the ousting of Jaiver Cano, previous head coach.

“First and foremost, nobody is happy when somebody is removed from a position. We all got a long great with Javi. He had a great relationship with all of us in the club. At the end of the day, the club has made that decision,” Gall said. “Overall, the response from the team has been absolutely fantastic. We have a lot of young guys in the group. We have some players that have been around the team for a few years. At the end of the day, the guys are excited about playing football. The last three days of training have been very good. We can’t change the past. What we can affect is what we do moving forward.”

The coach emphasized the need to give the group of players a sense of confidence, that they had the trust of the coaches. With their struggles weighing down on them, no doubt that is the first order of business.

Fans of North Texas can expect some tactical tweaks, though the coach and staff will be looking to build upon what is already in place.

“I don’t think it would be smart of us to completely change. It’s a slow drip feed to try to implement somethings that didn’t quite work well for us in the past. We are certainly not pointing fingers at anybody,” Gall said. “At the end of the day, a lot of good things happened over the past fifteen or so games. You’ll certainly see some differences with and without the ball.”

Sporting Kansas City comes to Choctaw Stadium on Saturday, and it is an opportunity to kickstart the second half of the season, get a big win, and start building something new. Maybe the transition period will remind all of the players that in a professional club, showing up for every moment is what is required to come away with the crucial goals and points to move forward.

I asked Gall about how the team is prepping for SKC II.

“We certainly know Benny does a great job there in Kansas City. They have a lot of quality on the field. Give them too much time and space they will make things difficult for you,” Gall said. “We want to make life difficult for Kansas City. We want Choctaw to be a fortress. It’s something we discussed with the boys and worked on in the last few days of training. We are super confident we can turn things around. What we can guarantee is that we will have an upbeat team, we will push forward.”

This has been a hard week for North Texas SC. John Gall represents their third head coach in two years. While questions linger about the long term goals of this side and what kind of coach FC Dallas desires to get the most out of these young players, the most important date is the next one on Saturday night. Get a win, and maybe things begin to look a bit brighter.