One day after the rough road performance at Houston Dynamo, FC Dallas has fired Head Coach Luchi Gonzalez.
Director of Soccer Operations Marco Ferruzzi – who has been an interim coach before with FC Dallas – will take over as interim manager again.
Gonzalez took over as head coach of FC Dallas on December 16, 2018. He has a 28-29-25 regular-season record as head coach, including a 6-11-9 record in 2021. Gonzalez led FCD to the playoffs in 2019 and 2020.
FC Dallas Assistant Coach Mikey Varas has also been relieved of his duties.
Assistant Coach Peter Luccin and Goalkeeping Coach Drew Keeshan will remain on Ferruzzi’s staff as will Assistant Coach and Director of Scouting José de Jesús “Chuy” Vera.
“We made the tough decision to part ways with Luchi after a great deal of thought and deliberation. We believe a coaching change is in the best interest of the club at this time to help us achieve our goals,” said FC Dallas President Dan Hunt. “I want to thank Luchi for everything he has done for this organization. We wish him all the best.”
Buzz’s Take
I’ve said for some time that anyone claiming to know if Luchi would be fired or not wasn’t being truthful. Only Dan and Clarke Hunt knew. However, given the general downward trend of FC Dallas’ record under Luchi, including this season, this move isn’t shocking.
Still, I am caught off guard. While I did believe Luchi wasn’t guaranteed another season and was under review, the Hunts usually aren’t a midseason coaching move kind of organization. The last time this happened was when Steve Morrow was fired after an embarrassing loss to the LA Galaxy.
For the Hunts, the loss in Houston must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Still, some burden for the current state of things must fall on the ownership and front office as well. We stated quite publically when Gonzalez has hired our stance that Gonezlez was too inexperienced and hired too soon.
Plus the continued sale of the best academy products, the poor overall roster construction, and the failure of many of the foreign signings all took a toll on Luchi’s record.
The sale of the team’s holding mid, Thiago Santos, just a week before the season was a particular blow. Franco Jara, the almost complete $3 million per season bust of a signing forced on the head coach by his owner was also a massive burden.
So I will always believe Gonzalez wasn’t given much chance for success.
But the bottom line in this business is winning.
As successful as Coach G was with young players he had little success with the veteran signings. Failed tactics, some poor substation combinations, and overall lack of improvement continued to mount up. In the end, it has all proven to be too much.
Luchi Gonzalez, a teacher, educator, and developer of young talent will, I am sure, land on his feet somewhere. Academy or professional jobs will likely come again for him.
And FC Dallas moves on.
We’ll have some coaching candidates up tomorrow and lots to talk about on the podcast this week.
I want to wish Luchi all the very best. He put every effort into being the coach and did his best given his experiences and the wildly changing environment over the last two and a half years.
Marco will be able to seemlessly step into his role as interim head coach with the previous experience doing just that. Actually, I hope that he gets the coaching job full time. He has the credentials, playing experience, coaching experience of FCD juniors, assistant coach of FCD and now his second stint as interim. He knows MLS, FCD, and has been with the club for over a decade. If not him who? The only other candidate I would be interested in is Leonel Alvarez. Time will tell.
Again, wishing Luchi every success, you are a good human!
I’m surprised they actually pulled the trigger on this. Maybe they have someone that they have targeted for the last month and wanted to get him signed up before someone else did. Renato Gaucho, Leo Alvarez, or Jason Kries? We’ll see I guess. I’ll be sure to look out for your coaching candidates story tomorrow.