FC Cincinnati named their fourth head coach in club history Sunday night when Ron Jans was appointed to replace Interim Head Coach Yoann Damet.
Jans is the club’s third head coach in MLS and has a contract that runs through the 2020 season. If his appointment is successful, General Manager Gerard Nijkamp has mentioned previously that Jans could lead the Orange and Blue into their first season at the West End Stadium and beyond.
So, who is Jans?
He’s a 60-year-old Dutchman who will coach in MLS for the first time. His first match is Saturday against Columbus Crew SC in the first #HELLISREAL Derby in league play.
FC Cincinnati will be the ninth club he’s coached at and his first outside of Europe. (One of these stints was as an assistant at BVO Emmen, which is now FC Emmen.)
His previous coaching stint was at PEC Zwolle in the Dutch Eredivisie. That tenure ran from 2013-17 and paralleled Nijkamp’s time as Zwolle’s technical director. Most recently, he was the Technical Director at FC Groningen.
While the two were at PEC Zwolle, Jans led the side to the 2014 KNVB Cup for the first time in the club’s history. The KNVB Cup is the equivalent to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
In 2015, he led the club back to the cup final and won the Johan Cruijff Schaal (the Dutch Super Cup) – the trophy for the winner of a preseason match between the previous Eredivisie champions vs. the KNVB Cup champions.
Before that, his most successful stint was as FC Groningen, where he coached eight seasons and led the usually mid-table club into UEFA Cup qualifications in 2005 and 2006. He was at Groningen from October 2002 to June 2010, where he coached 300 games.
Overall, Jans has coached 546 matches, winning 220 of them.
Before coaching, Jans was a striker and made 389 professional appearances, scoring 76 goals. His career started at PEC Zwolle, where he made 157 appearances and scored 44 goals between 1976-1983.
The Dutchman played for two clubs he ended up coaching: PEC Zwolle and FC Groningen.
