One position down. One very big position to go.
The LA Galaxy announced the appointment of Peter Vagenas as general manager and vice president of soccer operations on Monday, taking over one of the positions held by Bruce Arena prior to his appointment as US national team head coach last week.
But there's still the matter of the Galaxy head coaching position, something club president Chris Klein discussed during a conference call with reporters on Monday.
The Galaxy will pursue several candidates with MLS experience, Klein said, but would not rule out a foreign coach with no prior experience in the league.
"The domestic coaches have certainly had more success in our league than those from without," he said. "Not saying that a foreign coach couldn't be successful with us. We are definitely looking at candidates. We've had people contacting us from all over the world -- names that everyone would know, and some that you wouldn't.
"So we are not ruling that out. It's likely that we will interview at least one coach who is not from our country. Our search is primarily on domestic coaches, but we would like to interview at least one foreign candidate."
The only candidate Klein identified is LA Galaxy II coach Curt Onalfo, who has head coaching experience with DC United and the then-Kansas City Wizards. The target is to have a new head coach in place by the end of this year.
There's also the speculation regarding the position and former Galaxy head coach Sigi Schmid. Schmid and Vagenas go way back -- all the way back to Vagenas' college days, when he played for Schmid at UCLA. Wherever they've been together, they've won together -- with the Bruins, with the LA Galaxy, with Seattle.
But are Schmid's close ties to the Galaxy's new general manager enough to get him a serious look for a second coaching stint with the club he led to four trophies in six years?
Klein was cagey on the subject -- praising Schmid, who was LA's coach from 1999 to 2004, but not committing to anything beyond that as he and Vagenas look to hire a successor to Bruce Arena before the end of the year.
"I'm not going to comment on some candidates," Klein said. "Certainly, Sigi's history -- not only in this club, but with Seattle, and his standing as a coach in our league, would make anyone think of him as a candidate. We have not spoken yet, though."
Schmid, who won five trophies in Seattle, has been out of a coaching job since parting ways with the Sounders -- who subsequently went on to make the MLS Cup final for the first time -- at midseason, when the team was struggling near the bottom of the table.
Vagenas won an NCAA title with Schmid at UCLA in 1997 and won four different trophies -- one MLS Cup, one Supporters' Shield, one U.S. Open Cup and the 2000 CONCACAF Champions' Cup -- with the Galaxy under Schmid from 2000-02. The two also celebrated a US Open Cup title with the Sounders in 2009.
