Who is Dean Smith? Charlotte FC’s New Head Coach Brings Premier League Pedigree and Playoff Expertise

Charlotte FC announced the Club’s new head coach today, bringing in Dean Smith to lead the charge into year three.

The name Dean Smith already holds plenty of weight here in the Carolinas. When you search “Who is Dean Smith?” in the States, you’ll most likely get the late, legendary basketball coach at UNC Chapel Hill.

So, to acknowledge the elephant in the room… no, Charlotte FC clearly did not hire that Dean Smith. The Club didn’t go down the Ted Lasso route, although the jokes will surely keep rolling in on social media.

Charlotte FC’s Dean Smith has plenty of pedigree of his own, both as a manager and as a player in England, most notably leading Aston Villa to Premier League promotion and establishing them as a mainstay in the league.

On the Carolina note, though, he does have some significant connections to the community through his son Jamie, which Caleb Adams dove into earlier this week.

Related: Dean Smith's Connection to the Carolinas Runs Deeper Than Just His Name

Before that, however, let’s dive into Smith's coaching pedigree to see how his journey in England has led him to the Queen City.

Aston Villa Success

First, the headline. Smith became a household name in England for his exploits with Aston Villa in the Premier League.

The Englishman took over Villa in October 2018, with the club sitting in 15^th place in the English Championship (the second division). It was a homecoming of sorts to the club that he supported as a boy growing up in England. He quickly revitalized the team, leading them in a charge up the table to the promotion playoff places.

The team broke a 109-year-old club record on the way as they cruised to 10 consecutive league victories in the spring. A young Jack Grealish was the centerpiece, and Smith made the dangerous attacker his captain late in the campaign.

Once they got to the playoffs, Smith orchestrated an effective knockout run, as they took down West Brom in the semifinals before defeating Derby County 2-1 in the Playoff Final – known as the most expensive match in the world because it delivers the riches, glitz, and glamor of the Premier League.

It was undeniably the crowning achievement of Smith’s rise as a manager. He went from League One with Walsall, to the Championship with Brentford, and ultimately to the Premier League with his hometown club. It’s a classic Hollywood story of a local boy leaving to make his name and returning to lead his team to glory.

Smith translated his lower league success to the bright lights of the Premier League. Their first year in the top division saw Aston Villa go on an impressive knockout tournament run, winning five games to advance to the EFL Trophy final at Wembley Stadium, which they ultimately lost 2-1 to Manchester City.

Despite their success in the cup competition, they were threatened with relegation back to the Championship as the season wound down. However, Smith and the team pulled off a miraculous rescue to keep the club in the Premier League on the final day of the season.

With first-year survival secured, the club invested heavily in the squad to strengthen the core of the team. Matty Cash, Ollie Watkins, Emiliano Martinez, and others all arrived that summer under Smith’s guidance, ultimately leading to an 11th-place Premier League finish in Smith’s third year at the helm.

While Smith and Aston Villa parted ways early the following year, the core of the team he helped build remains intact and is riding high near the top of the table.

Jack Grealish did depart for Manchester City for a then-English record transfer fee of over $100 million in Smith’s final offseason, but players Smith guided to breakout seasons – like Cash, Watkins, and Martinez (who became a World Cup winner with Argentina), alongside John McGinn – have fired Aston Villa to the top four in the Premier League through the first half of this year.

Early Coaching Foundation

Long before his return to Villa Park, Dean Smith started his managerial career in 2005, serving as an assistant manager at Leyton Orient for close to five years and helping lead them from League Two (English fourth division) to League One (third division).

However, he really made a name for himself at Walsall in League One. He originally served as the Club’s Head of Youth starting in 2009 before becoming caretaker manager in January 2011 with his side nine points below the relegation line and in last place. Impressively, he guided the team to safety by the end of the year by a single point.

From there, Smith became a club stalwart. Over the course of four more full seasons, he kept the team in League One on a tight budget and pushed for promotion behind a fiery start to the 2013-14 season. They also reached the EFL Trophy final in 2015, which was Walsall’s first-ever appearance at Wembley Stadium.

Despite the club wanting to keep him in their long-term plans, Smith made his move to the Championship with Brentford in 2015. At the time he left Walsall, he was the fourth-longest-serving manager in the Football League.

His coaching stock continued to rise at Brentford through 2018, where he guided the Bees to two 9th-place and one 10th-place finish over three seasons and played an attractive style of soccer on a small budget in a notoriously unforgiving league.

With his early stops at Walsall and Brentford in the third and second divisions, respectively, Smith showcased his ability to build a holistic long-term project. Both of his teams were able to consistently refresh their rosters and achieve outsized success compared to their level of spending.

Latest Coaching Stops

After parting ways with Aston Villa in November 2021, Smith joined Norwich City weeks later. Norwich, a team that typically bounces back and forth between the Premier League and Championship, hired him for his proven experience as they fought to survive in the top division for more than one season.

When he took over, Norwich sat in dead last with only one win and two draws from 11 matches, five points adrift from safety. Their -21 goal differential was by far the worst in the league (Newcastle had -12 and the next closest was Burnley with -6).

Without a doubt, it was a reclamation project. He immediately won his first game in charge, and the team clawed their way out of the relegation zone in January with their fourth win of the season to spark belief.

However, their -32 goal differential was still the worst in the league at that time, and the limited roster ultimately regressed back to the mean over the rest of the season and were relegated back to the Championship.

Smith could not galvanize a very similar group of players the next year in the Championship, and he left Norwich after 13 months in charge.

After that, another desperate Premier League club looked to Smith for a rescue from dire circumstances. In April 2023, Leicester City hired him for the final eight games after sacking Brendan Rodgers as they sat second-from-bottom.

Smith injected belief in the squad. They only lost three of those final eight games, with two of those losses coming to heavyweights Manchester City (champions) and Liverpool (fifth place). He led a key victory over Wolves early on and achieved a home victory on the final day of the season with the pressure on, but other results on the final day doomed Leicester to relegation by a two-point margin.

Ultimately, the Englishman’s last two stops were unsuccessful, but the context of the extremely limited budget (in Norwich’s case) and the circumstances in Leicester (a desperation play with a mere eight games remaining) are important to consider when evaluating Smith’s coaching credentials.

Playing Career

Before coaching, Smith carved out a long and very successful playing career. A defender by trade, he made his debut in 1989 with Walsall (where he later made his name as a head coach).

Each of his first three stops as a player looked similar to his first three stops as a head coach – longer-term, multi-year projects. At Walsall, he made 142 appearances over five years. At Hereford United, he spent three years and made 146 appearances. Then, at Leyton Orient, he spent six years racking up 309 appearances in all competitions.

Smith finished his playing career with a season each at Sheffield Wednesday and Port Vale before retiring in January 2005.

Over the course of his 16-year career and 566 league games, he scored 54 goals.

The Case for Smith

Smith’s coaching journey shows some pretty clear trends. As he rose to prominence through League One and the Championship, he was always invested in a longer, multi-year project, ingraining himself with each club’s culture and community in the process.

More than three years each at Walsall, Brentford, and Aston Villa shows just how well-liked and well-respected he was in a notoriously fickle and tumultuous coaching market. Teams in those leagues are famous (or perhaps infamous) for pulling the trigger on coaching changes very quickly when results turn for the worse.

Additionally, Smith consistently outperformed expectations relative to the budget and rosters he was given to work with, especially in his early stops. Later on at Aston Villa, he guided their spending of Premier League riches extremely well, identifying and developing now-top tier players like Matty Cash and Emiliano Martinez.

He also developed young and inexperienced players from pure potential to consistent quality.

He handed Ollie Watkins his debut back in 2017 for Brentford; Watkins is now on his way to a fourth consecutive year of more than 10 goals in the Premier League.

He named 23-year-old Jack Grealish his captain while in the Championship; Grealish vaulted into superstar status with a $100 million+ transfer to Manchester City.

He made John McGinn his midfield centerpiece in Aston Villa’s promotion-winning season; McGinn now runs the engine room for the club in the top four places of the Premier League.

In his last two stops, he had clearly proven himself as a high-level coach and was trusted with some extremely tough relegation fights in the Premier League. No one, especially Smith himself, is hiding from the lack of success in those projects. However, the context of those jobs is still important to consider, alongside a holistic look at his entire career.

Overall, Smith has the credentials to manage the locker room well and help Charlotte FC step up to the next level in Major League Soccer. Now, it’s on to preseason and year three as the Club looks to build on last season’s first-ever playoff appearance under Dean Smith’s guidance.