Sigi Schmid
Sigi Schmid
Siegfried "Sigi" Schmidis a German-American soccer coach who most recently coached Seattle Sounders FC in Major League Soccer. Born in Tübingen, West Germany, he moved to the United States with his family when he was a child. He played college soccer from 1972 to 1975 at the University of California, Los Angeles , where he was a starting midfielder in each of his four years. He coached his former college team, the UCLA Bruins, between 1980 and 1999. During that period,...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth20 March 1953
CityTubingen, Germany
My objective is that we want to win a title this year. If it doesn't happen, we are going to be immensely better than last year. It doesn't take that long to turn around a team.
We talked about doing this two weeks ago. It has nothing to do with the last game. Neither he nor Kyle Martino were as effective as they needed to be, but our expectations for him are still very high.
I told the guys and the staff that this was a special game for me, they knew that. But the most important thing was to get three points and move out of last place in the East, but everyone knew it was a special game and I thank them for their effort.
I think we've created a much more competitive environment. There is competition in all of the facets of the field.
We don't want to push him too quickly too early. With a player like Duncan, you need to be careful because he is the type of guy that gives you everything he has. We have to keep the reins on him.
Joel is a young guy who can play a number of different positions. He is big plus for us as well.
Joel is a versatile defender who was here for our mini-camp in November. He can play centrally or on the right and is a young player with great potential.
We've got to get him the ball in the box. He hasn't had a lot of opportunities in the box yet and so as we become better and as we become more in sync as a team, that will improve.
We have seven guys out injured. That makes it tough.
We need to improve on our concentration. We made a stride forward in the second half and proved that we can play good soccer. We should have been leading at halftime. We have to become mentally stronger.
He should be getting some minutes for us this year. That's our expectation. That's why we drafted him. If we didn't expect him to play, we wouldn't have taken him.
He might sometimes come off the bench and he might sometimes be a starter. I was impressed with his attitude and character, and once some things resolved themselves we made the decision (to sign him).
I have great confidence in what I've seen from Kei in the past and if it turns out half as good, I'll be very happy. Kei is somebody I've liked for a while and he has a huge upside.
I didn't agree with that statement then and I don't agree with it now. For us, the way we played tonight ... 0-0 would have been good for us today. To snag a victory makes it all the more satisfying.