The Seattle Sounders appear to have landed one of the most coveted offseason prizes in Major League Soccer, even though he won't play a single second on the field in 2015.
Garth Lagerwey, the general manager who helped build Real Salt Lake into an MLS Cup champion in 2009 and a perennial title contender ever since, is leaving the club and will join the reigning Supporters' Shield champion Seattle Sounders ahead of next season.
ESPN analyst Taylor Twellman first reported the move on Monday night, and it was later confirmed by SI.com. The Salt Lake Tribune followed up with a report that confirmed the news, while adding that RSL assistant coach Craig Waibel will be promoted to assume Lagerwey's duties, albeit in a new technical director role.
A Real Salt Lake spokesman told MLSsoccer.com on Monday night that "Garth Lagerwey is currently our General Manager, and it is premature to speculate on what 2015 will bring."
Lagerwey, for his part, told the Tribune on Monday that no written deal is in place to send him to Seattle.
Lagerwey has been with RSL since 2007, orchestrating a turnaround from expansion doormat in 2005 to a team that has reached the postseason each of the past seven seasons, the longest active streak in the league. Along with good friend and former head coach Jason Kreis, Real Salt Lake won the 2009 MLS Cup, made the final of the 2010-11 CONCACAF Champions League, and appeared in both the US Open Cup final and MLS Cup final in 2013.
Kreis left the club after the 2013 season, and was hired by 2015 expansion side New York City FC. Although Lagerwey was under contract through 2014 there was considerable speculation about his future in Salt Lake City as well, and he was linked with a job at Toronto FC as early as last year.
RSL owner Dell Loy Hansen said in an interview in August that he expected Lagerwey to stay at RSL, but also hinted that Lagerwey - much like Kreis before him - quietly wanted a larger challenge somewhere else in MLS.
“Garth has told me from the first time he was here that if the chance came to be a president of a club, he wanted to do that,” Hansen said. “So for five years, I've had no illusions that if somebody said, 'Look, with your eight years of experience at Real, [you] could be the president of a club,’ I think Garth wants to look at that.”
It's unclear what role Lagerwey would hold in Seattle, where the Sounders have boasted one of the steadiest leadership groups in the league since their inception in 2009. Part-owner Adrian Hanauer currently serves as the club's general manager and has overseen the team's six straight postseason berths and four US Open Cup championships, as well as the first Supporters' Shield in franchise history this year.
Chris Henderson has served as the team's sporting director since their expansion season in 2009, and head coach Sigi Schmid recently signed a multi-year contract with the club.
The move is the latest in a steady stream of offseason changes for RSL, who lost both midfielder Ned Grabavoy and defender Chris Wingert to Kreis and NYCFC in the MLS Expansion Draft last week. They also recently traded longtime defender Nat Borchers to Portland, and saw striker Robbie Findley scooped up by Toronto FC in Stage 1 of the Re-Entry Draft.
