Former Colorado Rapids head coach Gary Smith says that not only is he interested in a potential return to Major League Soccer, but his agent has reached out to an old friend about landing the top job with FC Dallas.
Smith, who led the Rapids to the franchise’s only MLS Cup title in 2010, did a Q&A with Steve Hunt at The Dallas Morning News / 3rd Degree soccer blog this week and said that there has been some dialogue between his camp and FCD technical director Fernando Clavijo about the club's head coaching position, vacated last month when Schellas Hyndman stepped down after more than five seasons on the job.
Smith, 44, joined the Rapids in February 2008 as an academy director under then-Rapids head coach Clavijo, who was eventually let go by the club later that season. Smith took over as interim head coach and then signed a three-year contract with the club in November, and led the Rapids past Hyndman and FC Dallas in the 2010 MLS Cup final in Toronto.
“My agent has had dialogue with Fernando about the open head coaching position and from what I can gather it was reasonably positive,” Smith said. “It would seem that the Hunt family will have an active part of this hiring process along with Fernando and therefore will be very thorough, but to this point I have not been interviewed."
A representative from FC Dallas declined comment on the report when contacted by MLSsoccer.com on Wednesday.
Smith and the Rapids parted ways after the Rapids were bounced from the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 2011, and he returned to his native England to lead League One side Stevenage in January 2012. He enjoyed mixed results with the club and lured Robbie Rogers in on loan at one point while in charge, but he was let go by the club last March after the team lost 13 of 18 games dating back to December.
“I enjoyed my time immensely in Denver and was very disappointed to leave,” Smith told the blog. “The chance to coach in the UK came along quickly after my contact had expired at the Rapids and I believed I had a great chance of taking Stevenage to the Championship.
"However, there have been many things that I have missed and I’m keen to enter back into an environment that I understood very quickly and found great success.”
