Friday marked the two-year anniversary of Adrian Heath feeling as if the rug was pulled out from underneath him in his surprise firing as Orlando City’s head coach.

“That was a blow,” Heath told the Pioneer Press during a half-hour interview in his office this week. “I think it makes you a little bit more cynical.”

Heath coached 50 MLS games at Orlando City, going 16-18-16 from the start of the franchise’s 2015 expansion season to the halfway point of 2016.

Heath has coached 51 MLS games for Minnesota United, and heading into Saturday’s match at Houston, the Loons are 16-28-7 since the start of their 2017 expansion season.

Like he did in Orlando, Heath set out at the beginning of his Minnesota tenure with a three-year master plan that accounts for the time he feels necessary to take a growing club from the lower levels of U.S. soccer to success in the top flight.

On June 15, Orlando City sacked Heath’s replacement, Jason Kreis, less than two years into his stint there. Seeing that, Heath knows his proposed timeframe is not guaranteed in Minnesota.

“You always hope for time, and time is the priceless commodity. … I’m not stupid. If we keep losing every week, it will be the same for me, and people will question my job. But I can’t worry about that,” Heath said days before the Loons ended a three-game MLS losing streak with a 4-3 victory over 2017 league champion Toronto FC on Wednesday. The victory improved the Loons’ record to 6-10-1 this season, just four points out of a Western Conference playoff spot with 17 games remaining.

While Heath might be more jaded after his dismissal in Orlando, he remains an eternal optimist for the game he loves dearly.

PAST >

Harrison Heath didn’t understand the magnitude of his father’s playing career at Everton until he was around eight years old in 2004.

Adrian and Harrison attended the Merseyside derby between cross-town rivals Everton and Liverpool at Goodison Park, Everton’s home stadium. They parked their car in the players’ lot, but ran into delays on their way to the gate.

“People were bombarding him,” said Harrison, now a Loons midfielder. “There is a little church there on the side, and this priest comes out. He’s standing outside his church and he goes, ‘Inchy, you should come in.’ He comes inside and gets my dad to sign the cross in the church. That was the first time that (I thought), ‘Oh, Jesus, he must have been pretty big at this club. What is going on here? This is ridiculous.’ ”

With a nickname to match his short stature, Heath joined Everton in 1982 on a then-record signing of 700,000 pounds, and quickly became a fan favorite, scoring a club-best 18 goals in his first full season.

“He was a bubbly character, lively in the dressing room, a good teammate,” former Everton forward Graeme Sharp told the Pioneer Press. Sharp paired with Heath for six seasons at the top of Everton’s 4-4-2 formation.

Heath was on the verge of a call-up to England’s national team when he suffered a bad knee injury during the 1984-85 season. He recovered to net double-digit goals for Everton in every season through 1988, the club’s last golden era. In May, Heath’s career record of 93 goals in 307 games led to his induction as an “Everton Giant” in the club’s hall of fame.

After a stint in Spain, Heath was at the end of his playing career with Burnley in 1996 when the English club’s chairman Frank Teasdale telephoned Heath at home after their manager was fired.

“He says, “Have you seen the newspaper?’ ” Heath recalled this week. “ ‘No, why, what’s up?’ ‘They’ve had a vote, and you won the vote. They want you to be the manager at Burnley.’ ”

Teasdale concluded, “ ‘You might as well have a go at it and see.’ That was how it came about,” said Heath, who went on to become Burnley’s player-manager.

Heath said he knew early in his career he wanted to coach once his playing days were over. He often squirreled away notes on training sessions he liked or passages he wanted to remember.

“He was always a scholar of the game,” Sharp said. “He was very interested in football. I think you can get players who went to coaching that you really go, ‘Wow, I didn’t really see that happening when he was playing.’ Adrian always had a love of football, so it was no surprise.”

After that first day at Burnley, Sir Alex Ferguson, the legendary coach of super club Manchester United, called Heath with a message: “Welcome to the madhouse, son.”

PRESENT >

Heath came to the U.S. in 2008 and led the Austin Aztex in the then-third tier United Soccer League. With their relocation to Orlando, Heath amassed a U.S. record-best first 100 games, going 66-12-22 as they won two USL championships and three regular-season titles before entering MLS.

During their debut MLS season in 2015, Heath’s Lions went 12-14-8 and missed out on the playoffs by only five points.

After that season, now-former New York Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch, who had led expansion club Montreal to 12 wins in 2012, called Heath with a message: “Well done. I think you’ve done a real good job because nobody knows how difficult it is.”

But two days after Orlando’s 4-0 blowout loss to FC Dallas on July 4, 2016, Heath learned he had been fired from reporters sending their condolences and regards. Only after that did he hear the news from the club’s leadership.

Heath reset with Minnesota at the start of 2017, but the club struggled mightily at the beginning of its first MLS season, allowing 18 goals in a winless four-game start. They rebounded to finish 10-18-6, missing the playoffs by 10 points.

“We were a long way behind,” Heath said. “I look back now, and I will say this now, for us to get 10 wins that first year was remarkable. I think it was the best coaching feat I’ve ever done.”

This season, Year 2, Heath’s team had won only one of its past seven MLS games before Wednesday’s much-needed victory over the struggling yet defending MLS Cup champions from Toronto. After stinging defeats to then-last-place Colorado and a near victory over then-second-place Dallas in late June, some fans called for his job, using the hashtag #HeathOut on Twitter.

Before the win over Toronto, United’s principal owner Bill McGuire relayed to the Pioneer Press a positive assessment of Heath’s overall performance at the midway point of Heath’s three-year plan.

“I think he is a good, solid coach that understands the game and understands the players, is respected by the players, has great contacts and has a methodical plan to build the organization,” he said. “So, I think what we were thinking we would get is what we’ve gotten.”

Heath said McGuire isn’t shy about speaking his mind in private conversations, with McGuire, a voracious consumer of soccer, often asking in-person questions of Heath, sometimes over dinner.

“For people that don’t know him, he’s very up front and very honest, which I like,” Heath said. “I’m never in any doubt about how he’s feeling. We have very open and frank discussions about games … games where he doesn’t think we’ve been good enough and I agree with him sometimes; sometimes I don’t.”

Heath will then share with McGuire, “Where I think we are, where we are in the pecking order and how far along in the process I feel as though we are.”

Whether it’s a feeling of patience or pressure that Heath should feel, McGuire responded, “The guy is a professional. He has played the game at the highest level. He is one of the all-time greats for Everton, one of the great English teams. He doesn’t have to be told. It would be stupid for somebody as an observer of soccer for a few years to say, ‘Hey, you know this is important.’ He knows it’s important. I think there is also that there is only so much you can do.”

When sharing his view of the big picture, McGuire emphasized the season-ending injuries to three pivotal veteran midfielders — Sam Cronin, Ethan Finlay and Kevin Molino.

“What we see is a team that plays even with almost everybody, if not better,” McGuire said. “For instance, we were better against Dallas and couldn’t finish. Would it have been different with other players? I think we are making the strides that are consistent with what we hoped.”

FUTURE >

Since Heath was hired in November 2016, Minnesota United’s new stadium, Allianz Field in St. Paul, has been on the horizon. The $250 million venue, now more than 50 percent compete, is scheduled to open next April.

“I’m enjoying what we are doing and I can’t wait for the stadium to come around,” Heath said. “It will be a game-changer on and off the field for the club. In the meantime, you hope that you can keep moving this along and that you are going to get that opportunity because I didn’t get that opportunity in Orlando.”

In this season’s second game, Heath went back to Orlando City Stadium, which he helped design, and beat his former team 2-1. Molino tore his ACL that game; Cronin was already out with reoccurring concussion symptoms; Finlay would be lost with an ACL tear five weeks later.

By the end of March, the Loons signed their first Designated Player, Darwin Quintero. After a year-plus without one of three available spots for top-priced difference makers, Quintero had three goals and two assists in 11 games before his stunning hat trick against Toronto. Related Articles Loons’ late rally falls short in 2-1 loss to Columbus Crew

Loons’ Adrian Heath, Kei Kamara believe they can strike simpatico partnership

Houston Dynamo scores twice in 2nd half to tie Minnesota United

Minnesota United acquires striker Kei Kamara in trade with Colorado

New Loons star Emanuel Reynoso brings his lifelong ‘fight’ to fresh start in Minnesota

“I think it shows everybody the value of a player like that,” McGuire said before Quintero’s display Wednesday. “ It also shows you the necessity of having pieces around him that need to play at that same level.”

This leads the Loons into the summer transfer window, allowing the club to bring in new players from Tuesday to Aug. 8. Reports out of Ecuador on Thursday indicate the Loons’ first addition has been finalized: 23-year-old winger Romario Ibarra.

Heath is looking to add a few new players this transfer window, and he’s hopeful Sporting Director Manny Lagos, himself and the rest of their staff can continue to shape the roster during the winter window and again in the 2019 summer window.

“It’s takes that time to get a playing staff that you can go, ‘This is ours now and we can actually move it on from here,’ ” Heath said. “So fingers crossed on that one.”