Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
As the Seattle Sounders languish in ninth place in the Western Conference, and stare at their first ever missed playoff appearance as a MLS club, they have parted ways with the only head coach they’ve ever had, Sigi Schmid. While he’s the winningest coach in MLS history and has lead the Sounders to the playoffs in every season of his tenure, his teams were starting to show cracks recently and the foundation caved in this season. So what’s next for him, and for one of the league’s most important clubs?
After Jason Kreis was hired by Orlando City, many wondered whether the Sounders would ride out the season with Schmid and wait until the offseason to make a move. Garth Lagerway, Kreis’ former GM at RSL, is now working in the front office for the Sounders and naturally, Kreis has been linked with this job from when the fortunes for the rave green went downhill until he signed with Orlando. But the Sounders have pulled the trigger anyway, even with rumored DP Nicolas Lodeiro landing in Seattle today, presumably to complete his long awaited transfer.
Sounders USL affiliate manager Brian Schmetzer will take over on an interim basis, and when the Sounders take the pitch next Sunday against the Galaxy, it will certainly be odd to see them without the man that has run them from the word go in Major League Soccer. But even last season, the signs coming from Seattle weren’t good, even if all of their issues were not solely his burden. While the Sounders finished fourth in the West last season, they lost almost as many games as they won, and relied so heavily on Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins to score the goals. Recent DP signing Nelson Valdez has not acclimated well at all to the league, and Jordan Morris has not replaced the scoring burden. Ozzie Alonso is not quite the player he once was, and the ancillary pieces have not formed the backbone that was present in earlier Sounders squads. Schmid hasn’t been able to find a tactical formula that has worked, and even though he’s been hurt by bad finishing, that alone wasn’t enough to save him.
While the Sounders can improve from a new manager bump as well as the return of centerback Roman Torres, who has missed all of this season due to a torn ACL, they’re likely going to miss the playoffs no matter what impact these changes will have. But Garth Lagerway and whoever is the new manager next winter have a job to do in rebuilding this squad from the ground up. They have stayed loyal to players who are on the downswing in their careers, and the depth that teams like LA, FC Dallas and others have accumulated over time is not anywhere to be found on the Sounders roster. Sigi Schmid may not have used what he had at his disposal effectively, but it’s hard to blame him for all of the Sounders ills when there isn’t much to work with in the first place.
What’s next for Schmid? Houston needs a full time manager, as will Atlanta United, the expansion team, who apparently has a shortlist of five managers already culled together. That likely will expand to six, and if the club wants to establish MLS legitimacy early in the dugout, they could do far worse than Schmid. What’s next for the Sounders? New additions, plus a new manager bump will likely improve performances in the short term, but the club has work to do to return to where they have established themselves in the previous seven seasons in the league.
While this move was certainly expected and inevitable, it is still a massive shock to see anyone other than Sigi Schmid managing the Seattle Sounders. His departure shows how far the team has fallen, and how much work they have to do to return to where they expect to be and beyond.
