‘The right things over and over again’ - How Marko Mitrovic revived the Revolution by obsessing over details

All coaches have their moves, though. Many can talk for hours about how they are detail-oriented, or just how dutifully they study film before, after, and even during games. There are the performative vibes of former Chelsea manager Liam Rosenior handing out notes while 3-1 down to PSG. There is the lasting image of Marcelo Bielsa on an upside-down bucket barking instructions.

So, what’s Mitrovic’s? There’s no one singular answer there. To be sure, he loves details - and never switches off. But for him, it starts with a harsh, cut-throat background.

Born in Belgrade, Serbia, and indoctrinated into the Red Star Belgrade academy as a child, he learned the difference between “trying” and “winning” very quickly.

“There is no negotiation, every day. You have to be at your best every game you play. You have to win every game, you have to respect yourself and know, no matter who your opponent is, that you’re going to play this game to win. In Red Star, there is no negotiation about winning,” he said.

That was true with every training session, where he was fighting for his spot against the best players in Serbia.

“There is competition so high that in order to survive there, you have to compete with the best within the club. The best players are always coming there,” he added.

The irony? Mitrovic didn’t survive. He made just one appearance, in a cup game, for his boyhood club before bouncing around. He had three separate loan spells at other Serbian sides. He played in Hungary, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

His longest stint at a club was a three year run at FK Budućnost Banatski Dvor, a now-defunct side that bounced between the Serbian first and second tiers, merged with another club, and eventually went out of business in 2016. Mitrovic finished his playing career with 232 appearances over 15 years. He was on the books at 14 different clubs, and retired just after his 32nd birthday.

“It's normal to compete with the best for your spot, and then always to have to perform at your best to win the games. I think that’s the biggest impact on me. And that shaped me, who am I as a person now,” Mitrovic said.

Coaching just made sense. But once again, that journey was far from linear. It started with a couple of assistant managerial jobs, then a brief spell as a caretaker manager of Napredak, where he got the Serbian side promoted to the first division.

Then, it was youth soccer: Serbia’s U20, U19 and U18 sides, as well as some players even younger, too. He was an assistant coach when Serbia won the U-20 World Cup.

“I was lucky as an assistant coach to win the World Cup. So again, to taste what it means to be the best team in the world,” he said.

A connection with Veljko Paunovic brought him to MLS. Paunovic hired Mitrovic as a top assistant when he took the Chicago Fire job in 2016, and Mitrovic later joined him on the staff for the 2017 MLS All-Star Game against Real Madrid - a group that included Ballon d’Or-level names such as Bastian Schweinsteiger, Kaká, and David Villa.

“I coached three players who were nominated for the Ballon d'Or. So I know what it means [coaching] one of the best players in the world, or I have quite a good understanding of what it takes to be there,” he said.

And to finish it off, he spent two seasons at Reading after Paunovic left Chicago.

“We all gain our experiences coaching in different levels. I coached youth. I was also a coach at a senior level, like I was here in MLS for four years. I also appreciated my two years in England,” Mitrovic said.

And then came the United States. Just as he did in Serbia, Mitrovic pieced together a tidy job of things in two U.S. youth roles. First, he guided the U23s at the Olympics in 2024. Then, he oversaw a quarter-final run for the U20s, before they were beaten by a solid Morocco side.

“My four years with the federation were amazing, to help even more, to learn about the league, to learn about players' mentality. I had some amazing people in the Federation who helped me to grow as a coach,” Mitrovic said.

He can certainly point to some success stories, too. He managed a U23 side at the Olympics that has now developed in fine fashion. Miles Robinson, Patrick Schulte, and Jack McGlynn are all certainly in the conversation for the U.S. roster this summer. Tanner Tessmann has an outside shot at a starting role. At the U20 level, he identified Zavier Gozo - now reportedly on the radar of Aston Villa and Atletico Madrid - as a top talent early on.

So, where does that leave Mitrovic now? The obvious gap in his career is a full-time head coaching role of senior professionals. All of the experience in the world coaching top-level youth, or spending time as an assistant for elite first-team programs, cannot adequately prepare most managers for that task. But for Mitrovic, there are threads to cling on, individual instances that he has drawn from to piece together his own way of working.

His hiring, though, was met with praise by most. Mitrovic just felt like a guy who needed a chance, finally being given one. Now he has his own team, he has taken the kind of intensely analytical approach that saw him scrap for his footballing life every day in Serbia. Mitrovic and his staff are heavy on numbers, and - especially relatively early in the season - light on the results.

“We always go through certain things that are important for us, and there are no positives or negatives from the game,” Mitrovic said.

Instead, it’s a detailed breakdown of four categories: attack, defense, set pieces, and mentality. All four of those come with key objectives, none of which are really results-driven. Sometimes, they’re incredibly detailed.

“For example, the number of shots in general matters. But for us, what matters more is the distance of shots were are taking. If you taken 50 shots from 30 yards, where does that take you? You can aggregate the expected goals. If you have 50 shots from 30 yards, how likely are you to score?” Mitrovic asked, knowing that the answer is not likely.

There are specific plans for individual players, too. One such example is the number of times a player arrives in the box per 90 minutes. But even then, the goals are fluid.

“We cannot tell the players, ‘you have to arrive at the box eight times.’ What if he arrives eight times and now he's like, ‘Okay, Coach told me eight times, we don’t need to do it more,’ But then the game opens, and you should do it 20 times?” Mitrovic pointed out.

The manager thinks that it’s getting a tune out of the team.

“I don't think we're doing anything magical. I just think that there is a clarity between the players and us in what we want to do. The feedback from the guys so far is very good,” he said.

But of course, final scores are the one thing that ultimately cannot be calculated. Mini milestones are celebrated. Mitrovic can be proud of isolated achievements - he often is. But you can hit every single target you want, and the win might not come, he conceded.

And that is exactly why he doesn’t check the table. “When you get to the game, it's so difficult to predict anything. That's the highest uncertainty that we have. You just have to make sure everything prior to the game, we do it right,” Mitrovic said.

It makes sense, then, that Mitrovic relatively turns off. When he is at home, he watches soccer. When he is not coaching or at the training ground, he is thinking about soccer. There isn’t much room for anything else.

“My wife always says, I'm so lucky that I love this game so much. I can watch nonstop. I always watch soccer, and everybody in my house is the same, so there is no problem with that,” Mitrovic said. "You know, I'm so untalented for different things. I have no other things to do."

Mitrovic is not, he insists, obsessed. That has the wrong connotation. Instead, he’s just helplessly in love.

“I just love the game, you know? I always feel like I have a massive responsibility for this game, too,” he said.

It remains to be seen how far the Revolution will go. After a rough start, they have since rebounded. A tricky loss against Nashville snapped a seven-game undefeated streak in the league. They are third in the East, with a game in hand over second-placed Inter Miami. Mitrovic has star players Carles Gil and Luca Langoni nearing their best. He has handed minutes to youth, not least Brooklyn Raines and Peyton Miller, who have both impressed.

The Revs have the seventh-best defense in MLS with 16 goals allowed. This all looks like an immense improvement for a team that finished last season 17 points outside of the final play-in spot.

Mitrovic knows a lot can change. But it’s those small milestones that really matter - one shot, one session, one day at a time.

“I don't think that we are anywhere right now. If you speak about this like a 90-minute game, we are in the 30th minute of the game in a good spot,” Mitrovic said. “We still have a long way to go.”