As Oscar Pareja addressed reporters on Friday for the first time since becoming manager of Club Tijuana, the search for his replacement at FC Dallas appears to be taking shape.
US Under-20 national team coach and retired USMNT legend Tab Ramos (pictured above) has interviewed for FCD’s vacant head coaching post, but appears unlikely to reach an agreement with the club, two sources told MLSsoccer.com on Friday.
MLSsoccer.com’s Sam Stejskal reported last week that Ramos was a leading candidate for the job, as well as two internal candidates, longtime Dallas assistant Marco Ferruzzi and academy director Luchi Gonzalez.
Another source described Gonzalez – who has earned praise for his leadership of the FCD academy, one of the top talent incubators in the United States, as well as his coaching of individual teams within it – as a frontrunner. It would be the first senior professional coaching job for the South Florida native, who played with San Jose and Colorado during a seven-year playing career a decade ago and has held his current post since 2015.
Last month Ramos led his US U-20s side to their second consecutive Concacaf championship, in the process qualifying for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland next spring.
Speaking to reporters at the launch of FCD’s new USL side North Texas SC on Thursday, club president Dan Hunt said Dallas have received “hundreds of inquiries” from around the world about their coaching vacancy and said their final choice would be revealed in the coming days.
“It is unbelievable the evolution and the coaching candidates from five years ago,” Hunt told ProSoccerUSA. “We are thrilled with our final candidate pool and we’re down to a couple. We should be making an announcement for a head coach in the next week and our entire staff.”
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