Suddenly, the question of whether Colin Miller can juggle his responsibilities as head coach of FC Edmonton and interim head coach of the men's national team seems positively quaint by comparison.
Yes, the latest shenanigans in TFC Land have largely overshadowed Miller's appointment in the public eye -- but that's not to say his situation hasn't raised questions of its own. The foremost among them is whether this announcement is simply a precursor to Miller being named the full-time national-team head coach at some point down the road.
"That's the million-dollar question I seem to be getting asked all the time," Miller told the media Tuesday in his first public comments since being appointed. "When I spoke with (CSA general secretary) Peter Montopoli about the position, it was strictly for these two games (friendlies against Denmark on Jan. 26 and the U.S.A. on Jan. 29).
"As soon as I'm finished with the national team, I then head off to the NASL combine down in Ft. Lauderdale and my focus then will totally be on FC Edmonton."
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Miller, of course, is on his second go-round as interim head coach, after heading the team during its transition from Holgier Osieck to Frank Yallop in 2003-04. And given that Canada's last full-time head coach, Stephen Hart, earned the job after a pair of stints with the interim tag attached, Canadian fans can be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu.
Miller, though, stressed that while he was delighted to be back with the national team, there is no reason to believe at this point that it's anything more than a temporary assignment.
"Whether it was for two minutes or for two games, I would have taken this opportunity for sure. We'll cross any bridge when we get to it at a later date," he said. "But I'm totally committed to the two games and just as committed to being the FC Edmonton head coach. If the CSA see me as a possibility, that hasn't even been discussed. Peter Montopoli, as I said, totally stressed that it was just for these two games, and that's all I'm looking at, at the moment."
So FC Edmonton shouldn't be worried about their new head coach having prolonged split duties... or even splitting entirely?
"I've been absolutely delighted with the response from FC Edmonton," Miller said. "I actually got a call from Tom Fath, FC Edmonton's owner, saying he was 100% behind me being selected as the interim head coach. He thought it would be a win-win situation for everybody.
"They've gotten terrific press out of this in the last couple of days, and rightly so. It's a fantastic club that has great ownership and I'm very proud to be the FC Edmonton head coach."
Well, at least one of the teams Miller is a part of can enjoy some positive press, as the CanMNT continues to reel in the ongoing aftermath of its disastrous exit from World Cup qualifying in October. While the roster for this month's friendlies won't be revealed until next week, Miller confirmed what most fans had expected: There will be plenty of new faces.
"It'll be an entirely different group than we saw in Honduras with Stephen. I think one of the key things for myself during these two games is to try to look towards the future and give these young players a real chance," said Miller. "The most important thing is that we try to take steps forward from our last game, which we know was not a good performance and not a good result -- one of those freak results, in my opinion."
As for who those youngsters will be, Miller declined to offer any names, though he did say that the "vast majority" of the squad had been pre-selected before he was brought on board, presumably by Canadian Soccer Association technical director Tony Fonseca and his staff. Miller said he would make "one or two little tweaks", but also declined to say whether we should expect members of his other club, FCE, to feature for the national team.
Fans, though, shouldn't be under the impression that Fonseca will actually be coaching the team by proxy.
"Tony Fonseca will be there the whole trip but will have nothing to do with any of the coaching or any of the sessions being put on. He'll always be a great guy to bounce ideas off of. He has a wealth of knowledge, and he's somebody I'm looking forward to working with, for sure, because we'll all be working in the same direction."
Indeed, Miller's heart is with the Canadian program, having earned 61 caps as a player before taking coaching stints with the national team as well as in Victoria, Vancouver and now, Edmonton. As such, he's developed a good idea of the talent pool available to him -- and whoever his eventual replacement with the CanMNT is -- and says the future looks bright.
"I think we're in a healthy position. The U23s have some very strong players in that group, Nick Dasovic has got a good squad of U20s and I know that (U17 head coach) Sean Fleming has done a terrific job with the younger players over the year," he said.
"It's going to take a bit of rebuilding for sure, and the more games we can get this new core of players together, the quicker that transition will happen. ... "(October's result in Honduras is) history now, and now is a great opportunity to move forward. I see it as an exciting time for the national-team program."
Miller sees his responsibilities for this month's friendlies as putting the players at ease and creating a positive environment, traits which he saw in spades when he briefly worked with women's national team head coach John Herdman ahead of last summer's Olympics.
"Herdman was one of the best coaches I've worked with," Miller said. "(His) attention to detail with those players was absolutely fantastic. He left no stone unturned with the preparations, and you could see that, the way the girls performed in the summertime. Not only on the park was he terrific, but his one-to-one relationship with the players, and dealing with people, he's absolutely first-class."
He believes he and Herdman both learned from each other during their time as colleagues, and Miller now hopes he can get the ball rolling for the men's national team to perhaps (over the long term) have a similar turnaround as the women have had over the last 18 months.
"For me to come in and try to reinvent the wheel would be the wrong approach to this thing. What I'm looking for, to be perfectly honest with you, is two performances that will give people, the fans, our national-team program a real stability, something we can really get our teeth into, looking forward to the future.
"I'm not a babysitter. I'll come in there and put demands on players. But it'll be, hopefully, two performances that will get us over that massive hump, not qualifying for the final six (in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying). It'll give us hope that the future is going to be bright for the national team."
At this point, that's about the best that fans and followers of the men's national team can hope for. And it's tough to think of a better person than Miller to get that transition in motion.