San Diego FC has its first head coach ahead of its MLS debut in 2025.
Mikey Varas has been hired as the club’s first head coach, San Diego FC announced Monday. Varas makes the move to San Diego after recently serving as U.S. men’s national team interim head coach during the September window.
“We believe Mikey is the perfect choice to lead San Diego FC as the Club’s first Head Coach,” said SDFC Chairman, Sir Mohamed Mansour. “As we prepare for our inaugural season, Mikey’s leadership, desire to win now, and his deep understanding of player development make him the ideal choice to guide our Club forward.”
Varas was previously head coach of the USMNT U-20 squad after being hired in November 2021. He led the program to a CONCACAF U-20 Championship in 2022, which sealed the United States a berth into the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Varas also led the Americans to a first place finish in their group at the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina. He also served as an opponent scout for Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT squad at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Prior to his roles within U.S. Soccer, Varas served as an assistant coach for FC Dallas under former head coach Luchi Gonzalez for three seasons. He helped coach several homegrown players there including Paxton Pomykal, Ricardo Pepi, among others.
“I am honored to join San Diego FC as the Club’s first Head Coach,” said Varas. “The opportunity to build something special from the ground up, with such ambitious and committed ownership, and in a city with such a passionate fan base, is truly exciting. I look forward to working with the team and the community to develop a winning culture from the start. I will give everything to this club and the people of San Diego.”
San Diego FC already has six players signed ahead of 2025 including Mexican international Hirving Lozano and Norther Ireland international Paddy McNair.
San Diego FC is kind of an odd duck. Here is what I understand from reading the local press, so it may not be 100% accurate and is probably not all inclusive. The major owner, an Egyptian billionaire, is part of a specific group of clubs based on the concept of what they call the Right to Dream Academy. They are youth academies in several different countries, including Ghana, Denmark, and now the US. At this academy they are taught a specific tactical scheme and that tactical approach is then followed by the parent clubs. At the academy it is like the old US youth academy in Florida in that the players are enrolled in what is like a boarding school where the only real subject is soccer. BTW, I learned about a year ago that there are basketball schools like that where they combine high school with year around basketball. Anyway, as regards to Varas, first SDFC has a director of operations who is young, deeply into analytics, and worked together with Varas in Dallas, so it is kind of a personal hire. Second, they like the fact that Varas has spent so much of his career working with youth players and the focus of the club is to build from the ground up, basing their club on youth development within their academy. Two of their first players coming into the squad played in Denmark for the sister club FC Nordsjaelland which also runs a Right to Dream Academy. Southern California is a soccer hotbed and the area from Santa Barbara to Tijuana encompasses well over 20 million people, so there is a rich recruiting area. I haven’t yet seen a description of how their tactical scheme is designed.
it’s a weird choice for an expansion team that already has lozano lined up like they are going to try to compete rather than just put some bodies on the field and endure a bad first season.
the dynamo for a few years were hiring US U19 and U20 coaches like cabrera and ramos, or their second team coach as a caretaker, little or no pro adult first team head experience, made the playoffs once and were usually near bottom.
the pendulum has kind of swung back against promoting USL leaders (cruz/louisville) or NCAA coaches (yeagley, cirovski, noonan, mcintyre), instead in favor of foreign coaches, career assistants, age group US YNT coaches, former US players. it’s odd because porter was quite good for a while. maybe it’s most teams have separated out HC/GM roles where you reduce the value of a program builder like arena once was. my personal experience houston’s GM is semi-brutal and the team still struggles to match what kinnear did controlling his own personnel.
Wait…. really? MLS coaching basks in a very shallow wading pool. An inflatable kiddie pool 😩
Yes, please get him way from our nats team! His coaching was atrocious, a soccer mom screaming for her son to run faster, is better coaching than what he offered, smh. Dont drag me! Saying it wasn’t Varas fault Cordoso passed ball to Canada lol😂, Papi Varas tactics were a no! Pepi on wing, not striker? Porque! Where is Ashton Kuthcer? Def thought I was being punked, when I saw that ish😂.
You have to believe San Diego was a little bit apprehensive about their decision last weekend. I think Sarge was supposed to start on the wing (which isn’t great but to get people minutes without Reyna, Paredes, and Weah available is understandable) then he gets a funny feeling in his ankle and can’t start. Pulisic had already gone 90 and you want to give Aaronson some minutes at CM. This was a case of everyone but maybe Morris, Schulte, and Fossey was just trying to get past this window healthy including Mikey. SD taking a big risk, presumably picked Mikey because his youth system experience at FCD, but his game management last week was scary.