Former United States World Cup defender Oguchi Onyewu is a candidate to fill U.S. Soccer’s vacant sporting director job, a number of sources instructed FOX Sports.
Onyewu, 40, was most just lately the secretary normal of Belgian second tier membership Royal Excelsior Virton. He left in November after 16 months in cost. The USSF has been and not using a sporting director since Earnie Stewart took an analogous submit with Dutch energy PSV Eindhoven final month. Stewart, who oversaw each the lads’s and world champion ladies’s nationwide groups in addition to the federation’s nationwide youth squads, had held the position since 2019.
Reached by telephone on Monday, Onyewu would neither verify nor deny that he is within the operating for the place. A U.S. Soccer spokesman instructed FOX Sports that the federation would not touch upon any potential particular person candidates whereas the search for Stewart’s alternative is ongoing.
Whoever turns into the nation’s subsequent sporting director might be accountable for deciding on the USMNT coach who will lead the Americans by the crucially vital 2026 FIFA World Cup that might be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. During a media convention asserting Stewart’s departure in late January, U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone mentioned that the federation desires to have its new sporting director in place no later than the beginning of the Women’s World Cup in July — though an appointment may come nicely earlier than that. The USSF has employed New York-based consulting agency Sportsology to guide its search.
Last month, Sportsology approached and was rebuffed by Philadelphia Union sporting director Ernst Tanner, in response to a report in The Athletic. Same for Sporting Kansas City coach and sporting director Peter Vermes, a former USMNT captain. Vermes instructed the Kansas City Star that Sportsology asked him to interview with U.S. Soccer; Vermes as a substitute signed five-year contract extension with SKC.
Onyewu made 69 appearances for the USMNT between 2004 and 2014 and began matches on the 2006 and 2010 World Cups. His 15-year skilled membership profession took him by the top-flight divisions of Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain and included stints with name-brand European groups like AC Milan, Sporting Lisbon and Newcastle United. In addition to English, Onyewu is fluent in French, Italian and Portuguese.
After spending a single season in Major League Soccer, he retired as a member of the Union in 2017. Onyewu then turned the sporting director of Orlando City B, the MLS membership’s decrease division growth squad. The Washington, D.C.-area native additionally returned to Clemson University, the place he performed school soccer earlier than turning professional, earning a double bachelor’s degree in French and international business in 2020.
Onyewu presently works as a studio analyst for CBS Sports.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer author for FOX Sports. Before becoming a member of FOX Sports in 2021, he was a workers author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he has lined United States males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups at a number of FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
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