Former Sounders endorse Brian Schmetzer to coach MLS team

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — That there were Seattle soccer connections all over the field Saturday night at Dick's Sporting Goods Park spoke to the success and talent development of the former United Soccer Leagues' Sounders.

Forward Brian Ching, who scored twice in the Houston Dynamo's 3-1 win over the host Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer action that night, spent the 2002 season with the Sounders.

For the Rapids, Preston Burpo has split time as the starting goalkeeper this season. He spent nine seasons as a Sounder. Ciaran O'Brien didn't play, but the Federal Way native and Rapids rookie was loaned to the Sounders in August and spent a month with them.

Their success is a credit to the coaching of Brian Schmetzer, three of the players said in expressing their support for Schmetzer to be named coach of the new Seattle MLS team, Sounders FC.

"I think it would be difficult for him, but he definitely knows the city in and out. He knows which players from the Sounders that can make the transition [to MLS]," Ching said of Schmetzer. "I thought he was a great coach when I was there and he handles the players right."

Schmetzer just completed his seventh season with the Sounders and is a candidate for the Sounders FC job. He has a long history with Sounders FC minority owner-general manager Adrian Hanauer, who had also owned the USL Sounders. Hanauer is conducting the search for a Sounders FC coach now.

Burpo said he hopes Schmetzer "is lucky enough" to get the position, and is happy for Hanauer and the Seattle soccer fans that they have an MLS team.

"He's done a wonderful job for that club, so I think in some capacity they'll keep him around," Burpo said. "Whether as a head coach or assistant or whatever they deem to be."

O'Brien played only five games with Seattle before going back to the Rapids, but his older brother Leighton played three full seasons and parts of others with the Sounders. The younger O'Brien said he, too, wants Schmetzer to be hired.

In an e-mail, Hanauer said Schmetzer is on a short list of candidates.

"Brian has many of the attributes that we are searching for in a head coach," Hanauer said. "His character, his winning mentality, his success leading his teams on the field, his ability to coach attractive soccer, his management style, are all qualities that we appreciate in Brian."

Sounders FC hopes to name its coach later this month or at least in time for the MLS expansion draft, which falls in the last week of November.

Hanauer said the team has just begun the formal interview process with candidates. Sounders FC's ownership group, of which he is part, will make the final call on who gets the job.