Ellinger to Join Hyndman’s Staff
June 12th, 2008 . By: Buzz CarrickUS Youth Soccer has just announced that John Elligner is leaving his post as Technical Director of their soccer program. According to 3rd Degree sources, Ellinger will be joining the FCD staff as an assistant coach under Schellas Hyndman. Our sources, that spoke on the condition of anonymity, claim that part of the reason for the hold up in the announcement of FCD’s hiring of Hyndman as head coach of FC Dallas has been his desire to bring in an assistant coach familiar with the MLS rules and salary cap. Hyndman insisted that former RSL head coach John Ellinger be part of his staff and according to our sources negotiations over Ellinger’s contract and salary held up the overall process. The Ellinger contract hurdle has apparently been cleared and with his departure from US Youth Soccer he can now join FCD as Hyndman’s top assistant. Hyndman is expected back in town on Saturday and the press conference for his hire should now come Monday or Tuesday next week. The former US U17 coach (1997-2005), Ellinger was Real Salt Lake’s first coach (2005 to 2007). After being relieved of his coaching duties in favor of Jason Kreis, Ellinger was RSL’s technical director (May 07 to Sept 07). Ellinger’s overall record with the club was 15-37-16. The hire is a bit strange to us at 3rd Degree. While I applaud Ellinger’s long history developing some terrific young US talent and what he could bring to the FCD Juniors program, he doesn’t have a great reputation for manipulating the MLS rules and cap. Ellinger’s RSL tenure was littered with mistakes in that vein; from drafting Nik Besango far to high in round one when he could have traded down, to trading for the massive contract of Eddie Pope, to taking out DC United’s Freddy Adu trash, to Clint Mathis’ 1.2 Million guaranteed contract. Perhaps Ellinger will have learned form those mistakes and be able to help Hyndman by preventing the same problems. One can’t help but wonder if Ellinger is now set up to be the eventual head coach of FC Dallas in a season or two, given the dual technical director role our sources insist is Hyndman’s. Either way the die has been cast and Ellinger is on board, where the good ship FCD heads now will certainly be interesting to follow. 29 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
ive been faithful, but methinks that FCD is trying to bring in as many screwups as they can grab up. maybe we can bring in Ronaldo and promise him strippers and hookers too. i dont like this at all.
I am so unmoved by either of these hires, I can’t begin to describe my disappointment.
Buzz, doesn’t this set up so that SH can have an experience coach to run practices/games when he has some of his camp duties over the summer?
For the longer term, this kind of allows SH the freedom to do whatever he decides. If he enjoys coaching at the professional level and decides he wants to do that, he can move Ellinger to the TD spot, and if he moves to the TD role, he has an experienced guy to put in as head coach.
The good news is that Ellinger’s screwups in Salt Lake weren’t permenant, Kreis was able to change over most of the roster in less than a season.
Jason, I would agree with that. He gets someone who knows pro players a little. I doubt he would move Elligner to TD above him, I am betting on Ellinger as head coach eventually with Shcellas as the long term TD the hunts want.
I wish I could post something optimistic here… but I can’t think of anything encouraging about this.
Have fun and may god have mercy on the soul of your team. Ellinger is nothing but a disease and should be kept as far away from a football pitch as possible. As an RSL fan, I am sort of greatful that you guys are now stuck with Ellinger because it means your team is going into the toilet, but I still can’t help but feel sorry for you all. This guy couldn’t coach girl scouts out of a wet paper bag.
Maybe Dallas will be smart enough to fire him a lot sooner than RSL. Even his draft picks sucked, none of the first rounders are starting in MLS and only Chris Seitz has any hope of a future.
If I were you, I would be burning my season tickets and jerseys.
Good luck with this……….
Well, this news certainly doesn’t push me towards the positive side of the fence I’m currently on.
You forgot one of Ellinger’s biggest RSL screw-ups. He left Kreis available for the Toronto expansion draft (when there were LOTS fo worse players on his roster), then panicked when they picked him and gave up an allocation to get him back.
Here’s my attempt at a silver lining, though. If Hyndman is solid tactically as some people seem to think he is, and Ellinger, who specializes in development, can some of the young players on the roster to catch fire, FCD could be back on track (long-term at least). Remember Toja, Alvarez, Oduro, Cooper, and Burse are all under 24 and McCarty, Ibrahim, Shea, Wagner, Avila, and Wallace are all under 21. Lots of room for growth, there, but not much hope for this season, I don’t think.
You guys just srewed the pouch. A has been college coach paired with a never was u-17/MLS coach. Priceless!
Just when you think this situation has hit rock bottom, along comes something else to put that thought right out of your head.
Thanks, FCD management, for yet another inspirational move. Can’t wait for what’s next.
if most of us dislike the move, it must be the right move!
Being that I am stuck living here in Utah and only go to the RSL games when Dallas is here playing I’m not excited for this hire either. He was a huge screwup here when he was attempting a coaching career here and now we’ve hired him to be our assistant. What the heck is management thinking?
Despite all the negative comments here (and I laugh at Donk’s comments from the next-to-last team in the league…again), Ellinger was not calling the shots at RSL. It’s my understanding that he is still well respected around the league. Hopefully he will now prove his worth. Good luck, John.
Everybody glad Morrow is gone now?
Is George Bush involved with this team at all?
buzz…you’re on to something with the speculation about Orsini and hyndmann relationship being bad. Orsini has come in and changed almost every coach around to his liking in an attempt to put his thumbprint on SMU. but he cant touch Schellas and thats gotta bug him.
No worries though. Orsini is being linked to the open Notre Dame AD job currently, so he may be gone soon.
WOW! i’m a quakes fan and we suck , but in a year or 2 we’ll be pretty competitive , you guys i’m not so sure. it’ll take take a while to fix this crap,longer than a couple of years. does your mgmt. not know what ellinger did to rsl? i’m sorry but being in the same division i’m very happy that your team is gonna be a mess, and hopefully 3 easy points. GOOD LUCK i think you’ll need it.
Yes, Dan, I’m still glad that Morrow is gone. While things might not be looking “great” right now, it was a guarantee that this club was going nowhere under Morrow. At least there’s still the chance for improvement under Schellas. Maybe that chance is slight, but it exists.
Fred, if Bush was involved with FC Dallas, you would have invaded Mexico and hired Sanchez.
“If Hyndman is solid tactically as some people seem to think he is…”
I don’t really think tactics is the problem here. He could be the Bobby Fisher of soccer, but he isn’t going to beat anyone with this collection of ill-fitting parts. I think the problem is how this roster is constructed, and I have ZERO confidence that either one of these guys can do anything to improve that situation. So good luck playing chess with 8 knights and a bunch of pawns.
Yeah Fred, you might want to ask the Rangers about how good they’ve been since he left them.
…because there were so awesome while he was there,,,
Wow, two guys who don’t know the pro game…perfect!
BB, Ellinger (and GM Steve Pastorino) *permanently* traded away two of our international player slots (they were youth spots at the time) for two players who aren’t even in the league anymore. Kreis’ results might not be any better than Ellinger’s, but at least his (Kreis’) starters would make other MLS teams. Almost all of Ellinger’s acquisitions are in the USL now.
I have never seen Ellinger before, but from the description given by the RSL fans, I think that he will be easily picked out. Apparently he will be wearing a dark cloak and in one hand will be a sickle and the other will be a tablet with Real Salt Lake crossed out and FC Dallas just under that. I’ll keep my eye out for him.
IF Ellinger has been hired, and IF Hyndmann is the new head coach, this seems like a really good deal to me. Forget the RSL thing (only Bob Bradley has had any wild success with expansion teams in this league). Look instead at his success with developing young players at the U-17 and Bradenton Academy levels. The list of current American players in MLS and Europe that he helped develop is impressive…VERY impressive. Seems like a good fit at both the Asst. Coach and Asst TD position regardless of who the Head Coach is.
As a RSL fan, I send my condolences.
Clearly Hyndman is making sure that he has no serious competition for his job waiting in the wings and putting pressure on him to perform. Instead, with Ellinger in the #2 spot, it will make Hyndman look like a genius in comparison.