News: Óscar Pareja leaving for Xolos

Discussion in 'FC Dallas' started by ElJefe, Nov 17, 2018.

  1. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/so...lub-tijuanas-new-manager-will-leave-fc-dallas

    Honestly, I ain't even mad. We've known since the beginning that this wouldn't be Pareja's final gig if he did well, and well, a (presumably) better paying gig came along in a bigger league.

    Buzz has some thought on the next guy.

    My thoughts:

    Marco Ferruzzi - This has a Steve Morrow feel to it.

    Luchi Gonzalez - He'd represent some philosophical continuity.

    Jason Kreis - Club legend, but man, I don't know.

    Caleb Porter - After all the shit that I've talked about him over the years, it would be amusing if he were the guy.

    Leonel Álvarez - That would be a hell of a hire.

    Buena suerte, Profe.
     
    burning247 repped this.
  2. TxEx

    TxEx Member+

    Tottenham Hotspur, Crystal Palace, FC Dallas
    Aug 19, 2016
    DFW
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    I just hope it means a shakeup of the club. There was a ton of blah soccer played the last two seasons in Dallas and I'm ready to move on from quite a few names that were stapled to the starting XI.

    I think Gonzalez is the cheap play your kids hire and that's pretty much what I expect from Dan Hunt. Just please not Porter or Kreis.
     
  3. Pegasus

    Pegasus Member+

    Apr 20, 1999
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think the choice should be between Luchi who like Oscar coahed at the highest levels of the academy and knows the kids as well as anyone and Josema Buzan who coached at a youth level in Dallas youth leagues for years before moving into an assistant position (ahead of Luchi) on Oscar's bench. Buzan would also likely mean keeping his brother here who has been spectacular as head trainer. I imagine it's very fluid right now as the new D3 team will also need a coach. My preference is Josema as head coach with Luchi one of his assistants and head coach of D3 team. If having both of those guys together doesn't push more HG's into the team they can just shut the academy down.
     
  4. EricSunRa

    EricSunRa Member

    FC Dallas
    United States
    Sep 29, 2007
    Los Angeles
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Just watch. Vic Ulloa to Club Tijuana is happening.
     
  5. Hitman

    Hitman Member+

    Mar 31, 1999
    Almost certainly Ferruzzi, based simply on Hunt's hiring history and probably the guy that deserves it the most.

    That said, general fanbase has no clue who he is, and he can't present himself as a "change" - since he's basically a Pareja offspring.

    I'm very worried about this club at the moment. This is very much a "disturbance in the Force" for lack of a better way of saying it. For Oscar to want to leave, he must have come to really hard realizations about what he could, and could not, accomplish here.

    Remember, before they did the very smart thing in going out and money whipping Colorado to get Oscar back - these are the brothers that burdened us with Schellas Hyndman and allowed him to stay until he practically sank the damned thing.

    I ask you, who would want this job, that you really would want to be the manager because they've succeeded elsewhere? I'd love to know. If you tell me Kreis, I'm going to push back because Jason isn't in high demand elsewhere and has a rather littered past with the player base in this league.

    Maybe I'm just over reacting. Maybe I'm being emotional because I really, really was 100% sure it would be Oscar that got this team lift MLSCup. But my gut tells me dark days are ahead for this club.

    I knew Oscar would leave for a better gig eventually. I wasn't prepared for it to be now, because my thinking has been - when he did leave it was because he'd succeed - or because he knew he never could.
     
  6. cowtown

    cowtown Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 8, 2006
    Plano, TX
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, Ferruzzi was a steadying hand between Morrow and Hyndman, so there's that, and if we've also been thinking that Oscar exceeded expectations with the roster he was given, then maybe continuity is for the best. I would accept Ferruzzi with little complaint.

    And who the hell knows, maybe any internal hire (and it's almost GOT to be internal, right? Clark and Dan aren't going to put the cost/effort in for a search, much less pay what it would take to make a splash) coming from the organization will have a couple of good tweaks to the system. USL team should also give us a better feel for what we've got in the kids. At least the Hyndman experiment is out of their system.

    I suppose it could all go to crap, too. Still though, while I'm anxious, I'm not feeling so much worse than I did before this news. We can limp into the playoffs regardless of who is in charge!
     
  7. SeventhRowScreamer

    Jan 26, 2007
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Come on friends, don’t get excited. HSG will likely make a business decision which will hurt the team.
     
  8. El Chico Carmona

    Mar 10, 2015
    Baraboo, Wisconsin
    Club:
    FC Dallas


    The Bazan brothers are likely leaving with Pareja.
    I won't be surprised if several players follow.
     
  9. Runhard

    Runhard Member+

    Barcelona
    United States
    Jul 5, 2018
    If FCD hires from within with Ferruzzi or Gonzalez it will be business as usual and you can expect more of the same. I prefer they go the route of Atlanta or NYCFC and get a known international head coach that will shake things up and bring in an entirely new culture to the club. The stagnate play and enthusiasm around this club has gone on for a while and they need to make a big change.

    The reality is, as most of you posted, it will be boring internal hire and nothing much will change.
     
  10. Cowtown Felipe

    Cowtown Felipe Member+

    Mar 12, 2012
    Fort Worth, TX
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Please not Caleb Porter or any Englishman. Loved Kreis as a player, not too confident in him as a coach. Leonel Alvarez sounds like a good possibility.
    I'm not surprised OP is leaving, but I'm disappointed it's not to be to USMNT coach. After hearing him talk about US soccer on Men in Blazers, he sounded like a great candidate for USMNT coach.
    I think Xolos is a good fit for him. I don't think the reasons to leave are so much on FC Dallas, but that Liga MX is a better league and he probably will get paid much more.
    I'd be very careful hiring a foreign coach. There have been so many expensive foreign coaches who failed because they couldn't deal with all the things peculiar to MLS.
     
  11. Cowtown Felipe

    Cowtown Felipe Member+

    Mar 12, 2012
    Fort Worth, TX
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'll give the Hunts better than .500 on hiring coaches. I have some confidence in them on this based on previous hires.
    Dave Dir - Pretty good, at least for MLS 1.0
    Mike Jeffries - Sucked
    Colin Clarke - Fair, hung on after interim status.
    Steve Morrow - Same as Colin Clarke.
    Hyndman - Good that he got us to MLS Cup Final. Bad on mismanaging players (Dax McCarty). Bad on developing talent, given his college coaching experience. Odd / bad game management.
    Pareja - Very good, but frustrating that he couldn't do more.
     
  12. El Chico Carmona

    Mar 10, 2015
    Baraboo, Wisconsin
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    I'm okay with FCD hiring from within. I would hope that a hire from within, will come with a play the kids mandate. And by play the kids, I mean to a far greater degree than Pareja ever did.
     
    TCS35 and TxEx repped this.
  13. burning247

    burning247 Member+

    Liverpool FC
    England
    Sep 16, 2000
    Dallas
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I was going to wait until this became official to comment but it's taking forever. Can't say I'm shocked (not much shocks me in 2018) but definitely disappointed. Thought we would get another good season out of him. Don't necessarily place our playoff shortcomings on him but agree that it needs to be better.

    I have no idea who is going to replace him but I'm not holding my breath on it being anyone (seemingly) significant with HSG in charge. What I do chuckle at is everyone (not just on here) harping on about needing a coach who can deliver in the playoffs and remembering that was the very reason Dir got fired all those years ago. Literally nothing has changed since besides SH finally getting us over the Conference Finals hump one season.
     
  14. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The Hunts don't get credit for Dir and Jeffries, since they were hired before HSG took over the team. So you've got the following succession of coaches:

    Clarke: Promotion of interim who took over after Jeffries was fired.
    Morrow: Promotion of assistant who took over after Clarke was fired.
    Hyndman: External hire
    Pareja: External hire for whom they actually had to pay compensation to the Rapids.

    So for the last couple of hires they've gone outside the organization. And with all due respect to Peet's "It's gonna be Ferruzzi" take, I will remind the class that he's been an interim coach with this team before and has not gotten the top job. He certainly didn't when HSG fired Hyndman and spent money to get Pareja from the Rapids. So I remain skeptical that he's gonna be the guy.

    Personally, I don't really look at Pareja's departure with the same sort of "bad moon rising" vibe that Peet is. Xolos is a bigger job in a bigger league which will likely come with a bigger paycheck and a higher profile. Even if you didn't look at anything else "Going from FC Dallas in MLS to Xolos in Liga MX" is a perfectly rational career decision.

    But I also consider that this team is currently at the end of a cycle and some substantial changes need to be made. Those changes look like they're under way, if reports about Urruti heading to Newell's pan out. Barrios and Lamah may or may not be heading out the door as well, depending on which reports you might be reading. That's a huge chunk of the scoring.

    And if you're Óscar Pareja, you know that you're still a desirable commodity at the moment, but if a rebuild doesn't pan out (and given the number of player misses in the last couple years, it might not pan out), you're gonna end up fired and your career options will be a bit more limited. So he's striking while the iron is still hot.

    Peet might be right. Profe might've looked around, saw that the Hunts weren't gonna give him what he was going to need at FCD, and decided to hop on the next flight out of D/FW.

    I really don't know what HSG is gonna do for the next coach. Things in this league are always changing, and I'm not sure that what they did in 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2013 are necessarily relevant to what they'll be doing in 2018. What I think is this:

    1. An internal hire might be preferred by HSG for reasons of cost, but given that they haven't made an internal hire since 2006, I don't think that they're gonna have tunnel vision on Ferruzzi or Gonzalez to the exclusion of any external candidates.

    2. That said, this organization has a certain business model, a certain philosophy, and that is an emphasis on youth and roster-building through the draft and the academy, so Ferruzzi and Gonzalez are going to have a bit of a leg up.

    3. They've got a bunch of brand-new high-dollar seats that they'd very much like to sell at Toyota Stadium. While this ownership group has rarely shown any inclination to try to sell seats through high-profile player signing, I'm sure that they also recognize that if they blow things in the coming weeks and months, selling those seats is going to be tougher.

    4. HSG is not adverse to spending money on coaches. They did it for Hyndman and Pareja with FCD, and they did it for Andy Reid with the Chiefs.

    5. While HSG has been known to be penny-wise and pound-foolish at time, they're not completely stupid. They know that things are changing around the league. They're seeing whom Atlanta and LAFC hired and how they made a difference. They're seeing whom the Earthquakes just hired. And hopefully, they're seeing how a fellow not-so-big spender, the Red Bulls, just set a league record for points in 2018 and has been a consistent power under Marsch and now Armas.

    About the only thing that I do know is this: If they were going to just promote someone from within the organization, it would've been real easy for them to announce Pareja's departure and the promotion of the new guy already in an otherwise slow news week without any playoff games.
     
    MjrGrubert and burning247 repped this.
  15. Runhard

    Runhard Member+

    Barcelona
    United States
    Jul 5, 2018
    Any thought HSG goes way outside the box and works to make contact with guys like Arsene Wenger, Zinadine or some other internationally known coach? This would help the ticket sales issue and if they were to buy a well known name (player) Chichirito, to go with the coach, it could change the entire perception of the club. The problem is cost but maybe they are willing to try a different approach.


    you bring Wenger and Chichirito to Frisco, you will pack that place out every weekend.
     
  16. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  17. burning247

    burning247 Member+

    Liverpool FC
    England
    Sep 16, 2000
    Dallas
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    The thought is it won't happen but I'd love to see Chicharon in Dallas red.
     
  18. cowtown

    cowtown Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 8, 2006
    Plano, TX
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I might phrase the last two a bit differently:
    Clarke: Promotion of interim who took over after Jeffries was fired.
    Morrow: Promotion of assistant who took over after Clarke was fired.
    Hyndman: Clark Hunt's college coach and an institution in DFW soccer, for better or worse.
    Pareja: Longtime player and assistant coach whose departure was broadly considered a missed opportunity.


    While they may go outside the organization, they've never gone outside the "family."
     
  19. Hitman

    Hitman Member+

    Mar 31, 1999
    Some variation of this, is exactly what happened. I have zero doubt a man so married to this club decided to look elsewhere begins with the realization he'd gotten out of it all he could.

    The where Oscar Pareja breaks up with FC Dallas


    My money is on Ferruzzi, but there's a not insignificant contingent it will be Luchi. The former has been passed over multiple times, has been here 15 years and is highly thought of internally. The latter is the hot young, up and comer - but has never coached an adult pro player/team in his life. I'm reminded OP only had two seasons of that under his belt, but he also had an entire playing career Luchi has not.

    I just don't think it's an outsider. Why would an experienced outsider (Caleb, Kreis) take a gig like this? Why would the Hunts hire someone who's track record is no better established than the two insiders, and don't know their way of doing things?

    My worry is this will drag out, for ever. 'Cause, ya know, it's FCD.
     
  20. boneall

    boneall Member

    Sep 8, 2008
    Allen
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Both the Bazan brothers are going with Oscar, you can bet your house on that one. Fabian has strong ties to Xolos, Josema is an incredible coach, but I get the feeling he really likes working with Oscar. He gets to run his high paced style of practice and work directly with Oscar regarding player results in practice.
     
  21. Pegasus

    Pegasus Member+

    Apr 20, 1999
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So Josema would rather be an assistant at Xolos than head coach at FCD?
     
  22. Cowtown Felipe

    Cowtown Felipe Member+

    Mar 12, 2012
    Fort Worth, TX
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Xolos have a habit of firing their coach every October 30. Maybe we hire an interim type coach for next season, then re-hire OP after Xolos are through with him next October if interim guy doesn't show us any magic.
     
  23. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Some guys don't want the big chair, and with those guys, I'm not inclined to persuade them otherwise.
     
  24. boneall

    boneall Member

    Sep 8, 2008
    Allen
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, I would say Josema is completely fine in his role with Oscar. Seeing how practice runs, he basically has full control, and rightly so. As ElJefe stated, I don't think Josema wants full control of an MLS team. I might be inclined to think he's working his way back to Argentina, through the ladder. Though I'm likely very wrong ;)
     
  25. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

Share This Page