HOUSTON – The Houston Dynamo coaching search is picking up steam, and the club has a shortlist of candidates that will move on to the next step.
The opening left by Dominic Kinnear’s departure to the San Jose Earthquakes brought nearly 100 applications from around the world. That search has yielded a shortlist of serious candidates following interviews and conversations. MLSsoccer.com spoke with Dynamo president Chris Canetti, who said the club have narrowed their list to between four and six candidates.
“We’re zeroing in on the final list,” Canetti told MLSsoccer.com on Wednesday. “We may or may not interview additional candidates, but we’re satisfied with the final list at this point and would like to focus on them."
The next step is to send that list to the club's ownership group as the Dynamo work toward hiring the second head coach in franchise history.
“We’ll have a conversation with our owners and lay out the process and who we’ve talked to and what the strengths and weaknesses are of each candidate," Canetti said. “Then we’ll get some feedback on where we’re going to go.”
Canetti declined to discuss specific names of candidates, but the belief is that the group includes both internal and external options.
According to those close to the talks, the external candidates have head coaching experience at some point in their careers. They are believed to have spent time in a myriad of places, including the J-League, MLS, NASL, the EPL and even coaching foreign national teams.
In addition to the external candidates, Dynamo assistant coaches Wade Barrett and Steve Ralston interviewed for the position Monday. Both, of course, worked under Kinnear.
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“Both came in and presented themselves in a very professional way,” Canetti said about the assistants' interviews. “I think they both had good ideas and were very well prepared, and I think they’re interesting candidates. They’ve obviously been assets to the club, and we’ll see how that fits in going forward.”
The next step in the process will involve working with newly-hired general manager Matt Jordan, who is heading to Spain on a scouting trip in the coming days, to finalize the list that will be discussed with the club’s ownership. The target date for hiring a head coach is before the MLS Expansion Draft on Dec. 10. However, depending on the pace of talks, the decision could come sooner.
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.
