Yeah, coaching searches never go on without a denial from someone, somewhere.

Diego Aparicio of Al Dia spoke to SMU coach Schellas Hyndman and he insists that he has not spoken to FC Dallas about becoming the team’s new head coach or technical director.

“I have a good relationship with the Hunt family, and have for a long time, so for that reason I am always connect with FC Dallas every time they are looking for a head coach,” Hyndman told Al Dia. “But I have not met with anybody.”

Once I get more details on all of this I will pass it along to you. I’m still in the stance as I was earlier in the day about this possible hiring. In shock.

More on this later on….

FC Dallas is preparing to hire SMU head coach Schellas Hyndman as head coach and technical director, Buzz Carrick at 3rddegree.net reported on this morning.

Hyndman has spent 24 years as head coach of perennial national power SMU, where he has developed a reputation as a strong tactician and unmatched recruiter. He’s made SMU into one of the national powers in college soccer over the last few years.

Its more obvious that this is a Hunt hire more than a Hitchcock hire. It also makes me believe that this kind of hire puts Hitchcock’s days in Dallas as a GM numbered. Which some won’t find as a bad thing.

Also, the fact that the Hunts are giving Hyndman two positions at once leads me to believe they offered him security that they probably wouldn’t have with anyone else. It was believed that the next coach was going to be a lame duck without some sort of security from the owners.

There are good reasons now to believe Hitchcock’s days are numbered or he is a lame duck as GM with Dallas. He is under pressure as Carrick said to sell tickets. Obviously his dealings in the past in signing players hasn’t worked out as his two biggest flops/mistakes/busts/etc. were more to sell tickets than to improve the club. Those two signings were of course Denilson last year and Shaka Hislop the year prior. Neither worked out well for the club, both were a total waste in terms of money, and neither translated into better attendance figures.

In other words, the Hunts are probably growing tired of false promises from Hitchcock and are now taking this step as they figure those sellouts won’t come because of a coach like Hitchcock was previously thinking. And to be fair, only a few coaches in the world would translate into more tickets sold for a MLS club and none of those coaches would even want to coach in this league.

Carrick even talked about how the Hunts went about doing this hire:

Our sources indicate that while Hitchcock has been conducting his coaching search this week, the Hunts informed their GM they were talking to their own candidate. Yet talks with Hyndman apparently did not progress enough to tell Hitchcock to cease interviewing coaching candidates, as such various names and candidates have been emerging in local media. Hitchcock is under immense pressure from HSG to sell tickets and was on a short leash with the Hunts this season to begin with, now it appears the Hunts have chosen to move away from the GM’s path and take a direction of their own choosing.

My take on the hire is still this, while I think Hyndman is a great coach on the college level, I still have my doubts about him on a professional level. I know he was a favorite of the owner group but the guy has never won a national title with SMU during his long run with the Dallas-based program.

Plus the hiring of him for two positions is very interesting. I thought the technical director part was smart as he does know the college talent very well and would be able to scout for the club better than Hitchcock. But for handling both positions, for a coach with no professional coaching experience, I find shocking.

I’m hoping though that this duel position thing is only temporary, meaning he takes on the role as the technical director and then finds a head coach for the team on his own terms. Think of what Mo Johnston did in Toronto, that’s kind of the direction I hope this hiring takes shape. It would make more sense in the long run with Hitchcock’s days numbered if he were to do that sort of thing.

There are two coaches who have succeeded in making the direct transition from college head coach to MLS head coach are Bruce Arena (with D.C. United) and Sigi Schmid (with the Los Angeles Galaxy). But let’s remember at the time those two came into the league, it was practically brand new. Fast forward to today and that isn’t quite the case. Also, both Arena and Schmid actually won national championships on the college level.

What do you all make of it? This hiring could be either a total success or a total disaster. But more importantly, just how much longer does Hitchcock have with the club?

Nothing like an afternoon update here. The wonderful Tobias Lopez of the Fort Worth Star Telegram has given us all a little insight into the Dallas coaching search.

Former FC Dallas player/assistant coach Oscar Pareja and former Chicago Fire coach Dave Sarachan have both received permission from the U.S. Soccer Federation to interview for FC Dallas’ vacant coaching position, according to USSF spokesman Neil Buethe.

Pareja is an assistant with the U.S. under-17 national team while Sarachan is the Director of Scouting for the USSF Development Academy.

The first name (Pareja) makes total sense as I’ve said before. Most people in Dallas would love to see him return to the Big D to coach the Hoops. Though there are some that wonder if he is too connected to the current club as he was just an assistant a couple years ago. Take that for what it is worth.

The second name (Sarachan) is a bit of a surprise. The former Chicago Fire coach was pretty one of the main reasons as to why the Fire are built the way they are today with the exceptions of Blanco and Wilman Conde. Seriously, for the most part that club was Sarachan’s even though his era as coach in Chicago ended on a sour note.

My take on these two names is pretty much what it has already been. Pareja would be a natural fit and Sarachan has a good eye for talent though I question if he is the right fit for such a young club.

No word yet on what the other potential third name is on that apparent shortlist of three names. Most still believe it is Hugo Sanchez. And there are some out there who have been calling for Dallas to go after RSL’s Jason Kreis for the position, though I highly doubt they will.

Another month down here in Major League Soccer, but yes I know there is still one day left on the calendar with games on it. But for the most part this list is basically going to be fine no matter what happens tomorrow. Even if someone drops six goals in a game tomorrow, it really won’t do a lot for me to change this list, though they might get bumped into the Best XI if they aren’t already there.

In other words, May is pretty much over and its time to look back at what was good about it now that we are nearly a third of the way through.

WVH Player of the Month: Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Chicago Fire – With two goals and five assists on the month, its hard not to look over Blanco for the month’s award. He gobbled up the player of the week award last week and has been really consistent all month. Despite the one loss at home to Houston, the Fire have been on a roll as of late, winning three out of four in the month of May. Blanco has been a key element in that play that has put the Fire near the top of the MLS table. Continue Reading…

The Sports Business Journal have released their annual awards. This year Major League Soccer was well represented in a couple categories but ultimately took home one of the more important awards as Professional Sports League of the Year.

The league beat out the usual subjects, the NBA, NFL and MLB. Interestingly enough Toronto FC was nominated for the League of the Year honor despite being just a club team. In a way that kind of sours the taste of this award to some since a club team was nominated. Weird. They were probably meant to be in Professional Team of the Year category. Still weird.

Don Garber was up for the Executive of the Year but lost out to one of his owners in Tim Leiweke of AEG.

Its nice to see the league get honored in this way. Especially in a business sense of it to beat out the likes of the NFL, MLB, and NBA.

While Brad Guzan will be heading to Spain to play with the US National team in next week’s friendly. But first he will head back to the States and play in tomorrow’s game against Columbus.

Should Guzan leave next week, Chivas will be without him for a Thursday night game in New York. Interesting point though because this will give us the first chance to see exactly what Chivas has in reserve behind Guzan. Dan Kennedy is the current back-up in place and will more than likely get the nod and could soon become the full time starter for the Red-and-White.

Last night on MLS Primetime Thursday, it was stated that Guzan still wants to go to Aston Villa and play in the EPL. We all remember his work permit problems in January and one has to wonder if that would have improved by now. The summer transfer window opens up in the coming months and you have to believe Guzan will be making the push to abroad once again.

“Hopefully there will be more interest from Aston Villa in the summer. Right now I couldn’t tell you the specifics because my focus is with the national team.

“My agent has been handling all the discussions and nothing can really happen until the window opens anyway. I am letting him deal with that and, if something comes about, then great.

“I would love to sign for Villa. When I was there a few months back, it was an absolutely brilliant time – great people, great facilities and I couldn’t say one bad thing about the place.

“When the window opens, we will see what happens. Hopefully there is some interest and we will go from there. It looks like exciting times at Villa.” – Brad Guzan

Think Chivas is ready for a Guzan departure here? I’m sure they could easily use the transfer fee cash from him this summer if he does end up leaving.

There really is no idea here about what General Manager Michael Hitchcock will do with the open coaching position with FC Dallas. By now most agree that he fired Steve Morrow a couple weeks back due to the teams terrible performance in front of a sold-out crowd.

When Hitchcock was hired by the Hunts (FCD owners) he promised a number of sellouts in the first couple years of Pizza Hut Park. Since that time, the club has only seen a couple regular season games with the stadium nearly full. Those were Beckham games or MLS Cups. Not the number he had originally told the Hunts he would bring in.

So Hitchcock basically is out to save his job (he is in the final year of his contract) and thus Steve Morrow was left out of the mix because he probably had to tell the Hunts he couldn’t sell tickets when the coaching doesn’t translate in to success on the field. He threw out the excuse that the team was headed in the wrong direction, which most disagree with since it is such a young club.

A youth movement isn’t a wrong direction, its just a slower way forward.

But the firing of Morrow is yesterday’s news and the candidate search is on-going. The shortlist of names has apparently been cut down to three names according to Diego Aparicio of Al Dia in Dallas.

The big talk in Aparicio’s post was about the possibilities of former Mexican National team coach Hugo Sanchez as the next FC Dallas coach. Some like the idea, while others question if it is the right fit.

No word on those three names but Buzz Carrick is wondering if Eric Wynalda is one of those candidates.

So the mouth that is Eric Wynalda was in town today.  We don’t know whether he was interviewing for the coaching job today or not, but he did meet with a local club later in the day and confirmed he at least spoke to FCD.  We’ll continue to try and confirm if he is candidate for the job.

Most of the people who commented on the news basically said the same thing, “hell no.”

With names like Wynalda and Sanchez floating out there in the media it is apparent that Hitchcock is trying to find a big name to not only fill some seats at Pizza Hut Park but to ultimately save his butt. With the last two home games in Dallas getting gates in the 8,000 after the LA Galaxy sellout, Hitchcock will have to act fast if he hopes to start seeing the normal numbers in the 14,000 range and better yet those sellout figures that he was promising.

Honestly, the shortlist is probably Sanchez (if all possible), Oscar Pareja, and the owner favorite SMU coach Schellas Hyndman.

But then again, with a guy running the show in Dallas like Hitchcock its really hard to tell at this point what will happen. If he wants to sell out the stadium for each game, he has to bring in a big name to coach a bunch of young guys. I just doubt he will be able to land a guy like Sanchez though. This is a job that really has little security with him in place as GM. Plus the possible hiring of a Technical Director still looms.