Interim Head Coach Stuart Campbell has no doubt been handed a difficult task in taking over the deposed Thomas Rongen so late into the season. However, it is a eerily similar path to the one he had to navigate at Bristol Rovers FC in 2011, the year before he joined the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Campbell took charge as caretaker manager of Bristol for the final 12 games of the League One season that year, the same amount of games remaining for the Rowdies when he took over last Friday.

“Yeah, I’ve had a few [flashbacks],” says Campbell. “I’ve just been on the phone with one of the guys from the president’s club at Bristol Rovers and we were just talking about how all similar it all is, and he was wishing me all the best. So that was a nice little touch to have the chairman of the Bristol Rovers president’s club wish me good luck.”

Campbell was unsuccessful in his effort to save Bristol from relegation that year, but he has hope that with that valuable managing experience under his belt, the fight keep the Rowdies alive in the playoff hunt will be more fruitful.

The silver lining of promoting an assistant coach after firing a head coach is that you don’t have to worry about them playing catch up. Campbell is starkly aware of the maladies that have hampered the Rowdies in the Fall Season after finishing only one point back of the Spring Season champion New York Cosmos.

“On the field I think we haven’t converted a lot of chances we’ve created in a lot of games and we’ve been punished for mistakes,” notes Campbell. “Saturday was a perfect case of that. I felt we performed really well, created some good chances but didn’t take them. And I think Minnesota only had, apart from when they hit the crossbar, they had three chances and scored all of them. So the goals to chances ratio against us seems extremely high. It doesn’t seem like we’re getting out played, or anything like that. It’s just that when the opposition go up the other end of the field, they seem to be punishing us. Whereas, it takes us creating four or five chances just to score one goal.”

Campbell admits that the transition defense has been a huge impediment to the Rowdies success in the Fall Season and insists that it is something they will continue to harp on in training “day in and day out” until it is no longer a problem.

Unlike his predecessor, Campbell is a little more guarded about his tactics and approach to the game, but fans should likely get used to the formation that they saw against Minnesota.

“I like playing 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, call it what you like. I’m lucky because I’ve got Maicon Santos, who’s a natural striker and I’ve got Georgi Hristov, who can play up but is also happy to drop in deeper. I really just want the team to be committed. I want them in every single day of training and every single game to be giving 100 percent. If they do that, then I won’t have any arguments.”

The Rowdies will need to survive a challenging stretch against three of the better teams in the league to maintain their slim grasp on the fourth and final postseason spot in the combined standings. First up is a trip to Ottawa, who sit atop of the Fall Season standings and also play on artificial turf, where Campbell knows the Rowdies have yet to put in a convincing performance this year. The team will follow that up with a home match against the combined points leading Cosmos and another Canadian trip the following week to face Edmonton, who are only two points back from the Rowdies for that last playoff spot.

“It’s probably the hardest stretch of the season, but if you want to win championships or reach the playoffs, then you have to be better than the so-called best teams in the league. That’s just what we’re going to have to do to survive,” insists Campbell.

The deck may seem stacked against the new Rowdies boss, but as an incredibly well-respected veteran of the club as a player and coach, he’s got ample goodwill from the fanbase to ease him into the new position. The supporters voiced their frustrations with ownership decisions at the match on Saturday, but proper respect was still paid to the man leading the Rowdies from the sideline. That backing from the fans is not something that Campbell takes lightly.

“First and foremost I want to thank them for the respect that they gave me on Saturday. I’ll never forget it. I didn’t have the opportunity to really thank them at the end of the game. Obviously we were all disappointed with the result but the reception that they gave me was great and hopefully we’ll give them something positive to shout about this week, and then back home for the Cosmos game. I heard Ralph’s Mob and the rest of the fans chanting my name and I really, really appreciate it. I’ve had a good relationship with them from the minute I walked in the door back in 2012 and long may that continue.”

IMAGE, TAMPA BAY ROWDIES/MATT MAY