The mystery of the missing coach

November 26 - MLS Expansion Draft

January 18 - MLS Draft

January 28 - Sounders FC Training camp begins

2nd or 3rd week of March - Inaugural Sounders FC home match
??????? - Head Coach is announced

As you can see by the above timeline, the expansion draft is fast approaching. In under 2 weeks the Sounders will add 10 players and finally have enough to construct a full side. The question, however, remains - who will be doing the construction? Logic suggests that it might be a good idea to have the coach in place prior to the draft, so an announcement should be coming soon. Like we haven't heard that before.

Adrian Hanauer is notorious for playing events close to the chest and not wanting information to leak ahead of time, so who knows how far along in the process the Sounders are. They may not have had the chance to interview one candidate, current Columbus head coach Sigi Schmidt, who has been linked with the job by multiple online sources. But since his side is heading to MLS Cup next Sunday, he'd presumably be unable to interview for a new team in between. And reportedly the Sounders were denied permission to speak with him. I've never thought Sigi ever had a chance of happening, anyways. He's about to have a bunch of money thrown at him by Columbus ownership, and he's crafted the Crew into the best team in the league over the last few years. I think he stays put.

The other major candidates are currently part of teams who already are out of the playoffs - Brian Schmetzer (Seattle) Preki (Chivas), John Spencer and Dom Kinnear (Houston), Paul Mariner (New England). All crashed out last week, save for the USL Sounders who went out in the first round of their playoffs. I would not be in the least bit surprised if some or all of those names are going through the interview process this week. With that timeframe in mind, the new coach very well could be announced as soon as next Monday, or in the days following.

Oh, you want a prediction? At the risk of sacrificing my stellar prognostication reputation, I think Preki gets the nod.