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Bobby Murphy, who coached ×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ City2 the past two seasons, taking City SC’s developmental squad to the semifinal round this season, is leaving to take a job as sporting director and coach with a USL League One expansion team.

David Critchley, who had been coach of City SC's U-17 academy team, will take over City2.

Murphy is headed to Maine to oversee the Portland Hearts of Pine, who will begin play in 2025. The USL League One is the third tier of the American soccer pyramid,

More important than City2’s success on the field this season was the job Murphy did getting players ready to make the jump to the first team, which became very important as City SC was hit by injuries during the season. John Klein, Michael Wentzel and Jayden Reid all earned first-team contracts this season and played key roles for City SC when the club’s injury list was its longest during the summer. Reid particularly made big steps under Murphy’s guidance with City2, Mykhi Joyner, one of City SC’s Homegrown signees, also made major progress this season.

Despite a constantly changing roster, City2 finished with the second-best record in the league and set club records for points in a season (56) and wins (17).

Critchley was one of the early hires of the club in 2021, when all City SC had was its academy program. With MLS Next juggling the age groups for academy programs starting this season and eliminating U-17s, Critchley had been working with all the club's academy teams.

Critchley guided the U-16 team in 2021-22 to the MLS Next semifinals, and with the U-17s the following year got to the quarterfinals. Fourteen of his academy players have played for City2 and 26 have gotten college scholarships. Along the way, he has coached Homegrown signees Caden Glover, Mykhi Joyner and Tyson Pearce. Critchley can claim the distinction of being the first person to coach a City SC team in ×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, as the U-16s were the first game of a doubleheader with the U-17s when they began play in September of 2021. 

Critchley was born in Liverpool, England, and came to America to play soccer at Oklahoma Wesleyan, and he stayed there as a coach afterwards. He was on the staff with Tulsa in the USL Championship before coming to ×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ as technical director with the Lou Fusz club.

Murphy, meanwhile, is kind of going home. He played soccer and graduated from Southern New Hampshire University and has a master’s degree in education from Plymouth State in New Hampshire. He was also the soccer coach at the University of Southern Maine.