WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

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.

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