By: Charleston Battery
The Charleston Battery are delighted to announce Thursday the appointment of Ben Pirmann as the club's new head coach. Pirmann, the 2022 USL Championship Coach of the Year, becomes the seventh head coach of the Battery and will lead the club into the 2023 campaign.
“When you have the opportunity to bring someone like Ben into an organization, you take advantage of it,” said Club President Lee Cohen. “His credentials speak for themselves, his personality speaks for itself. But, most of all, what he can do in a locker room, by rallying a group of individuals to buy into a vision and get them to produce 34 weekends out of a year, that's very rare for coaches in the USL ecosystem.”
“I am very excited to be joining the Charleston Battery,” said Ben Pirmann. “From the leadership and what this club stands for, to the history and their flat out ability to win, there's no more perfect place than Charleston. We want to win, we want to play exciting football and we also want to give back to our community.”
Pirmann, 37, has established himself as one of the premier coaches in the league in recent years. He most recently led Memphis 901 FC as head coach from 2021 to 2022 after taking over on an interim basis at the end of the 2020 season.
With Memphis, Pirmann swiftly turned the club around from a struggling side into a playoff-caliber team. Memphis made the USL Playoffs in 2021 and again in 2022 after finishing second in the Eastern Conference table last season. His leadership helped elevate players to new heights, as five earned All-League honors during his time as head coach, along with runners up in the league Golden Boot (Phillip Goodrum, 2022) and Most Valuable Player award (Aaron Molloy, 2022).
Pirmann was honored as the 2022 USL Championship Coach of the Year following the stellar campaign at the helm. He amassed a 37W-19L-13D record in the regular season while in charge of Memphis from 2020 to 2022.
“It's very important for us to have a head coach who understands the importance of this club to the fans, community, players and front office,” said Cohen. “Club Chairman Rob Salvatore and the ownership group have done a great job of taking the Battery to the next level, by bringing in top executives within the USL and making the Charleston Battery a proud member of the number one minor league sports city in the country.”
A Detroit native, Pirmann's first head coaching job came with Detroit City FC from 2013 to 2018 when the team competed in the National Premier Soccer League. Pirmann was a key figure in DCFC's formative years as he led the team Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup qualification four times, advancing to the Second Round twice. Nicknamed “Caesar” by the fans of Le Rouge, Pirmann amassed a 49W-17L-17D record in the regular season with Detroit.
Whilst managing Detroit, Pirmann also served as assistant coach for the Michigan State University men's soccer team for eight years, his alma mater. The Spartans made four trips to the Elite Eight during his tenure, including a run to the 2018 College Cup in his final season in East Lansing. He would make the jump to Memphis at the end of 2018 to be an assistant coach ahead of 901 FC's inaugural year.
Pirmann now sets his sights on preparing the Battery for the 2023 season during the coming months.
“The season just ended and everyone is looking forward to 2023, we're not only looking to add good players, but good people as well,” said Ben Pirmann. “It's important that the Charleston Battery are a place where players want to spend a lot of their career, playing football for this community.”
With the appointment of Pirmann as head coach, anticipation continues to mount for the Battery ahead of the club's 30th anniversary season, as more news on the team and roster is soon to follow.
