Maryland men’s soccer coach Sasho Cirovski believes he should be considered to be the head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team, he told a class at this university on Monday.
“Not only my record of success over the years, but a skillset I think would be valuable to a U.S. national team coach,” Cirovski said. “The U.S. national team program is basically short preparation time and a tournament format, which is an ideal setup for a good college coach.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the first time in more than 30 years an American team won’t participate in the worldwide event. Coach Bruce Arena resigned days later and no replacement has been named.
Though Cirovski often says the college season is compressed and tournament-focused, those same qualities could make a college coach uniquely qualified for the national team job.
Three of the past four U.S. coaches have had college head coaching experience.
“I certainly have a good feel of the youth market and the professional market and know virtually all of the [leaders] in the country,” Cirovski said. “But there’s a lot of really good coaches in this country that also should be considered.”
[Read more: Maryland soccer’s Eryk Williamson was “on no gas” after playing the majority of games]
Born in Macedonia, Cirovski spent most of his childhood in Canada and played college soccer at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He became head coach at Hartford in 1991 and has led Maryland since 1993, winning a pair of national championships and making eight College Cup appearances.
Cirovski has worked as an assistant for the U.S. U-20 National Team.
Whether he’s being considered for the job or not, Cirovski said he should be engaged in talks about progressing soccer in the U.S.
“I’ve been involved in many of those discussions in previous years, but not so much in the last 10 years,” Cirovski said. “I have a lot to offer in terms of solutions.”
