December 10, 2008
MLS Cup champion Columbus Crew have announced that they will not be bringing back MLS Coach of the Year Sigi Schmid after he turned down their latest contract offer.
That would appear to clear the way for Schmid to sign on as the first coach in the history of Seattle Sounders FC.
Ives Galarcep expects that long time Crew assistant coach Robert Warzycha will get the job in Columbus as they obviously want to try and limit the rocking of the boat when they attempt to defend their MLS Cup title in 2009.
At the end of the day, this is all about money. The Crew never paid Sigi Schmid anywhere near the top of the MLS coaching pay scale. And given that he is the only coach in MLS history to win an MLS Cup with two different teams, I can see why Sigi would want to be a top 3 to 5 paid coach.
I can also see why Seattle would be very interested in Schmid given how he turned around the Crew and given his solid results in LA before that.
The only question that remains to be answered is how badly will the Crew be hurt because they were unwilling to retain the reigning Coach of the Year simply because they didn't want to pay market value for a coach with Schmid's resume.
News & Notes:
- Kyle McCarthy at Goal.com breaks down the Eastern Conference of MLS and what each team is looking at this off season.
- The Kansas City Star has a great article on all the small things that need to happen to get an MLS stadium built. The current economic downturn can't be helping at all,either.
- Apparently Don Garber was in Portland last night for a meeting about the Timbers bid to move to MLS.
- It looks like Maurice Edu is struggling to adjust to how physical the SPL is.
- Forget the Euro stars to MLS rumor mill, now we are getting the MLS players moving to Europe on loan during the off season rumors! The latest is speculation that Brian McBride could head to Norwich City.
- Soccer365.com has picked up a couple of Greg Sletzer pieces. One is about Charlie Davies possibly moving to France and the teams that are lining up to go after Gooch.
- Steven Goff is saying that Seattle could be going after Charleston Battery midfielder Osvaldo Alonso. That would be a huge loss to the Batts.
- SBI.net breaks down a conference call that Red Bulls Technical Director Jeff Agoos held. Nothing huge came out of it, but it is nice to know that Juan Pablo Angel is under contract for 2009.
- Ridge Mahoney's latest at SI.com suggests that MLS should play hardball with Bayern Munich in the loan discussions for Landon Donovan's services. Personally, I think both sides should play a bit of wait and see. Especially since Donovan has decided that he doesn't want to play in Germany before. If MLS waits and Donovan shows well for Bayern, perhaps MLS could get a bidding war going............
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
