I just got word from the FC Dallas front office that Michael Hitchcock is out as General Manager. A letter was sent to season ticket holders with the news. In the letter Clark lays out the plan to replace Hitchcock, which includes President John Wagner officially taking over full control operations. In addition FCD will look to hire a Technical Director to “assist” Schellas Hyndman.

Most in Dallas would agree that this is a move that has been needed for some time now. Hitchcock had been relieved of nearly all his duties this past year. The Hunts waited for Hitchcock’s contract to expire instead of just canning him a year or two ago like most had wanted. Continue Reading…

Yikes! 3rdDegree is reporting that FC Dallas has sold LESS THAN 5000 tickets for next weekend’s season opener against Brimstone Cup rival Chicago. Less than 5000 folks. In a 20,000+ seat stadium that is no good.

Because of this 3rdDegree also mentions that General Manager Michael Hitchcock was removed from responsibility for ticket sales.

With fewer and fewer resonsiblities under Hitchcock’s belt, it makes me wonder when the owners are going to pull the final plug on him and let him go from all duties with the club.

To recap, he has already been pulled from responsibility for marketing, corporate partnerships and sponsorship, and a couple others. The soccer side is all he has left now.

I can tell you that around Dallas it is pretty obvious that the club hasn’t done enough to hype the upcoming season. You see very little in terms of advertising and marketing and it explains the extremely low season opener number.

The club saw terrible numbers in the stands a season ago and from where things appear to be headed they will continue to get lower. I just wonder when it will grab the attention of the Hunts and make them make a change there.

If you go around cities like Seattle or Toronto you will see ads, banners and all kinds of media about their clubs. In Dallas you get next to nothing. Maybe a random TV spot at 3am but nothing that stands out and gets the city excited about their club. The marketing of this club has been largely horrible for a while, not just going into this season.

Its a pitty really. It could be time for the supporter groups of this club to stand up and take action for their club’s lack of care really.

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?

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.