There’s not a thing flashy about Bob Lilley.
He’s there on the touchline in an oversized sweatshirt and track bottoms, baseball cap pulled down low over his brow. Behind his horn-rimmed glasses are the keenest of eyes – taking in the whole of the game down to its subatomic details.
“I try not ever to get too high or too low,” said the 59-year-old Lilley, always oozing calm in charge of his second-division (USL Championship) Pittsburgh Riverhounds, who beat two teams from Major League Soccer to reach the 2023 Open Cup Quarterfinals and one more this year to become the only Division II team still alive in the 2025 edition. “I’ve been around a while, and I try to be steady.”
It’s that steadiness, allied to a deep knowledge of the unique ecosystem of North America’s lower leagues, that have seen the former George Mason University midfielder become an American coaching icon. When passions bubble over in a game, or out at training, you might see Lilley, the longest-tenured coach in USL history, strike one of his signature poses: Arms wide, pleading, head tilted in mild dismay.
Practical Matters & Magical Runs
Lilley is a man ruled by practical impulses.
He allowed himself only brief moments to ponder the overall meaning of his Riverhounds’ magical Cup run of 2023, when his Hounds beat MLS’ New England Revolution on the road and the Columbus Crew at home to reach the Quarterfinals. To talk about how his players, toiling most of their careers away from large-scale public consideration, deserve a moment to shine.
But mostly Coach Bob, as he’s known around the club, is concerned with the nuts-and-bolts reality of plotting the best possible route to victory. At all times.
With another win against top-flight MLS opposition in this year’s Open Cup – a late 1-0 result over New York City FC in the Round of 32 – Lilley’s found the keys to unlock unlikely victory against heavily-favored clubs from the country’s top flight on three occasions in our last three editions.
“You can’t just get conservative,” said Lilley, whose Hounds are now through to the 2025 Round of 16 and the only non-MLS team left in the mix. “If you’re not running forward and you’re just trying to steal something off the other team, you’re going to have to be very lucky to get anything.”
