Its news that won’t shock many and it’s also news that came down last night (as mentioned on Twitter I was slammed with work at my day-job). Denis Hamlett will not be returning next season as head coach of the Chicago Fire as the club decided not to renew his contract.

Hamlett took over as Fire head coach before the 2008 season, replacing Juan Carlos Osorio. In two seasons as head coach, Hamlett posted a 24-17-19 regular season record and guided the Fire to two straight Eastern Conference finals.

From what I’ve been reading around this morning Hamlett was basically a lame duck with the Fire management and the only way he was going to get a contract renewal was if he guided the Fire to a MLS Cup title this season. Like I’ve mentioned plenty of times on here this year the Fire had really high expectations and not reaching them would come at a cost, and that was Hamlett’s job.

Now where will the Fire turn to? Most figured they’d go after former Chivas USA coach Preki before Toronto snatched him up. Some now are saying that former Fire midfielder Chris Armes is one of the names in the running along with former DC head coach Tom Soehn, Chivas USA assistant Martin Vasquez, former KC head coach Curt Onalfo, and interim New York boss Richie Williams. Honestly I kind of see Soehn taking the job but it could go to Armes as well.

I do believe that letting Hamlett go is a mistake on the Fire’s part but we all knew this would be a rebuilding off season for the Fire with so many key players leaving the club. Hamlett was unfortunately going to be one of those parts going too.

Don’t be shocked to see Hamlett fall somewhere else in a hurry. Clubs like DC, New York, and Chivas all still need a manager here and you gotta figure Hamlett has to be at the top of some lists now.

A change is coming to Chivas USA as Preki is set to leave the club. (Getty Images)

Don’t say we didn’t tell you so. Preki is not be coming back as Chivas USA’s manager next season as his contract option for 2010 is not being picked up. Goal.com is reporting that with Preki leaving assistant Martin Vasquez is likely to get the top spot as Chivas’ front man.

Vasquez has been an assistant with the club since 2005 and should become the first Mexican-American coach in league history.

Interestingly enough, something I’ve been saying here for a few weeks is that Preki is also likely to join Bob Bradley with the US National team as an assistant now that John Hackworth has left the USMNT to join Peter Nowak in Philadelphia. Remember before Bradley left for the USMNT he had Preki as an assistant at Chivas USA, along with Vasquez.

No official word has come from the team but I’d imagine we will hear something by the end of the week on this. Once we get more details on this we will pass it along to you.

As mentioned earlier on my Twitter feed today has been a slow day due to some bad headaches on my end. I won’t go into it much but I am feeling a little better after some medicine kicked in here (thanks to the few who asked). I didn’t have much planned for tonight but I did want to get into the coaching carousel that is going on in Major League Soccer. I nearly got into it last night but had more goodies to talk about but when the news came down this morning about Tom Soehn it seemed fitting to get into it tonight.

Anyways, we have four clubs (KC, New York, Toronto and DC) without full-time managers at the moment and from what I’ve been hearing for weeks a couple other clubs will join them along the way.

Now some obvious choices believe it or not won’t partake from what I’ve heard all season in this, that being Dallas and San Jose. Just no way right now Dallas is parting with Schellas Hyndman and same goes to Frank Yallop in San Jose. Both pretty much will get a pass for this season and I’d imagine Hyndman will continue to get a pass until he wants to leave coaching.

I also won’t get into the even more obvious choices here like your Columbus, Seattle, Houston and LA’s of the league who have solid coaching at the moment and have no plans to get rid of them or see the man in charge leave.

But as stated a few clubs will more than likely see a change and some may surprise you in the end. Continue Reading…

Not a real shocker here since Toronto FC got spanked on the final day of the season when they needed a win to reach the post season. Toronto FC announced today that interim head coach Chris Cummins will not be returning for the upcoming 2010 MLS season. Effective immediately, the search begins for a new head coach.

“We have decided to move forward without Chris for next season,” said manager, director of soccer Mo Johnston. “We want to thank Chris for his contribution to the club over the last year and a half, and wish him all the best in the future. For us, the work now begins on finding a new coach, and getting him in here before pre-season starts February 1st.”

Again, it doesn’t come to much of a surprise to most folks. Toronto needs to find some stability though moving forward and Cummins just wasn’t the right guy for the job. I would imagine that fans will expect a big hire for this position as no one has been able to get things going in the right direction with this club after three years in the league. I would say that this season was a decent step in the right direction but getting to the playoffs was certainly a must for this bunch and it didn’t happen.

Its a pretty full night here at WVHooligan as far as the links and thoughts go. I have a couple stories that kind of make my head spin, a couple surrounding the US national team and a brief discussion on a rule that could really help some young players out with the NCAA.

First up is a post I saw earlier today that I felt needed to be held off until today. It centers on an issue that a lot of non-soccer folks have with our beloved game. Draws. No one likes them and a lot of MLS clubs have plenty of them to go around this season.

This author decided pointed out in a way that I still kind of agree with him on that there are too many teams getting playoff births in MLS. Its an issue that has been surrounding this league since year one for that matter. But at the same time as the league expands its should be a non-issue.

But the solution to “make MLS more exciting” isn’t a bad one. Simplify the playoffs into a four-team, three-game deal. But the more I think about that and the more I see how the league is doing with it’s current eight-team set up going into the final week of the season (with seven clubs in contention for three spots), I think the current set-up is fine. The drama that the league has created is good going into the final week of the season and it will only continue to get better from here on out as the league grows.

If it were the top four clubs going into the playoffs or even the best two from each conference we’d already know three of the four and it would sadly rule out three really good clubs from one conference from getting in.

It took a while for the league to get to the point that it is at but this playoff set up of eight clubs isn’t so bad after all. It does however need tweaking in it’s structure of number of games and what not but that is a discussion for another day. Continue Reading…

KC will no longer be lead by Curt Onalfo. (Brian Stevens, WVH Photo Correspondent)

Turns out losing 6-0 can get you fired, but I’m sure that wasn’t the only reason. According to a couple KC blogs (DTB and Back Post), Kansas City has fired head coach Curt Onalfo. Along with Onalfo, assistant coach, Kris Kelderman was also let go leaving Kerry Zavagnin and John Pascarella as the two remaining coaches.

This move really doesn’t shock me in the least bit. For the last season and a half I’ve thought Onalfo was a decent coach but his clubs continues to be right at average or below it. I know I got a lot of flack over putting him on the hot seat these last couple of years but when you aren’t really improving a club something has to be said about it.

Onalfo held a 27-29-22 record in MLS play after taking over prior to the 2007 season. That just doesn’t cut it folks. Their few wins this year have come against New York, San Jose, RSL, Seattle and New England. The Seattle and RSL road wins were good but aside from that they didn’t have much to go on this season.

I think it is a positive step for OnGoal (KC’s owners) to step up and make a change here because after a couple months of not winning something had to be done.

Kansas City was expected to be one of the clubs on their way up this season but clearly things are just a bit below average once again there.

An official announcement should come tomorrow from the club.

Preki on the move? (Getty Images)

It sounds possible right now for Chivas USA to be making a coaching change in the very near future. Andrea Canales at Goal.com says that a change could be coming thanks to Chivas owner Jorge Vergara breaking his silence with the media.

The official Chivas site mentioned that Vergara also said that a present assistant coach at Guadalajara, Luis Manuel Díaz, would move to Chivas USA to serve as an assistant.

This was news to official Chivas USA media relations staff, who explained that they had not been informed of any incoming coaching staff.

One report was even more specific about how the MLS club could be affected. Informador.com reported that Díaz was going to Chivas USA to be the assistant of a new head coach that would be named in a short while.

That would mean, of course, that Vergara is planning to dismiss 2007 MLS Coach of the Year Preki, who led Chivas USA to the playoffs in every year of his tenure, but failed to get the team past the opening round both times.

Its not 100% but right now it wouldn’t be surprising. Vergara seems to be the type that isn’t patient enough to wait for Preki to turn this club into a year-to-year winner like he probably expects them to be. So bringing in another coach that probably doesn’t know the MLS game seems logical right? Wrong, its nothing more than a step in the wrong direction if it happens.

If Preki is to go don’t be shocked to see him land on his feet elsewhere. Possibly Columbus as some are going to suggest but I don’t see it as Rob Warzycha seems to have that job in the bag. Or maybe Preki takes a year off and goes to coach in Philly? Who really knows what will end up here but if a change happens for Chivas I just hope its someone who knows the MLS game.