New on Sports Illustrated: FC Cincinnati Hires Jaap Stam as New Manager

Stam replaces countryman Ron Jans, who was fired over his use of racist slurs in February.

With MLS on hold, FC Cincinnati has taken the opportunity to find a new manager. 

Former Manchester United and Netherlands defender Jaap Stam has been tabbed to replace countryman Ron Jans, who resigned in February after

an investigation into his use of racist slurs. 

Stam most recently managed at Feyenoord in his native Netherlands, where he also coached at PEC Zwolle and Ajax's youth team. That sandwiched a two-year stint at Reading in England.

He figures to arrive in Cincinnati when travel conditions make that plausible and will take the reins from interim manager Yoann Damet, who filled that role for a second straight year after doing so following the firing of the club's inaugural MLS manager, Alan Koch.

Stam, who also played at Lazio, AC Milan, PSV and Ajax among the clubs he represented in his decorated career, has a previous working relationship with FCC general manager Gerard Nijkamp. When Stam was at Zwolle, Nijkamp was the technical director (Nijkamp had also hired Jans to be Zwolle's coach back in 2013).

When FCC resumes play remains to be seen. MLS is in a holding pattern, though the league is reportedly attempting to bring all of the league's 26 teams to one location to resume in some capacity this summer.

After a brutal 2019 expansion season in which FCC conceded an MLS-record 75 goals, won just six games and earned a league-worst 24 points, the club began 2020 with a pair of one-goal road losses to the New York Red Bulls and Atlanta United (which is coached by one of Stam's former Netherlands teammates, Frank de Boer). The club made a splash in the transfer market over the winter, bringing in the likes of Jurgen Locadia, Yuya Kubo and Siem de Jong in an effort to improve. 

It will hope for vast improvement and positive momentum over the next year, as it prepares to move into its new West End stadium in 2021 after playing its home matches at the University of Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium.