As of June 5th 2026, the Portland Timbers have named current Timbers2 Head Coach Jack Cassidy as Interim Head Coach of the first team. The club announced that Cassidy will take over until the search for a permanent head coach is completed.
In the same press release, the Timbers announced that they have released assistant coaches Dave Van Den Bergh and Alex Dodgshon, Director of Scouting Nacho Leblic, and Timbers2 goalkeeping coach Steve Reese. Current Timbers2 assistant coach and former Timbers player Andres Flores has been named T2 Interim Head Coach while Cassidy is in charge of the first team.
You can read the club's full announcement here.
Cassidy arrived in Portland in January of 2026 from Danish side Aalborg BK, where He had served as First Team Assistant Coach and Head of Individual Development. Prior to His time in Denmark, Cassidy had served in a wide variety of first-team and developmental roles across the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates.
With the players returning to Portland next week, and with the current first team coaching staff consisting of Liam Ridgewell, Shannon Murray, and Memo Valencia, having Cassidy to stabilize the ship until the Timbers name their next man in charge makes complete and total sense.
Luukas Ojala
I had the unique opportunity to sit down with Cassidy a few weeks ago and interview him for STF. When a club decides to part ways with its Head Coach, one of the most important tools for helping re-establish a course in the right direction is realigning on the basics. In my chat with Cassidy, one of the things he emphasized the most was what he called "World Class Basics." Speaking on his "World Class Basics," Cassidy said,
You can't always control the outcome of a football match, because you've got referee decisions, you've got the bounce of the ball one way, the bounce of the ball the other way. But we can control how hard we work. We have certain metrics, which we call our world-class basics, and we aim to beat the opponent on those metrics every single game, and that's what we focus on. And I think that's a brilliant starting point for young players, because young players now, they can have all the ability in the world, but if they're not going to do the basic things well, they won't get anywhere near first team football.
Great football teams, and subsequently great football players, aren't necessarily great because of collective talent. They are great because they execute the simplest aspects of the sport at the highest possible level. For however long Cassidy is in charge of the first team, if the priorities can be brought back to the fundamentals and done well, I am a firm believer that the Timbers will be set up for future success, no matter who the next head coach might be.
