FC Dallas head coach Oscar Pareja has won the MLS Coach of the Year award for 2016. He led his squad to 60 points in the regular season, becoming the first MLS team to reach that threshold in consecutive seasons. That total was enough to give them their second consecutive Western Conference regular season title and to lift the Supporters Shield by two points over Colorado Rapids. Dallas also won the U.S. Open Cup this season, which was Dallas’s first trophy in 19 years.
Oscar Pareja Wins MLS Coach of the Year
Pareja won by a narrow margin over Colorado’s Pablo Mastroeni. The Colombian took home 34.44% of the total vote among players, media, and club front office staff. Mastroeni fell just shy with 32.97%. He is the seventh former MLS player to also win Coach of the Year. He played for Dallas from 1998-2005.
This was Pareja’s third season with FC Dallas. He has constructed a roster strewn with homegrown players. Nine of them feature in the first team, which is the highest number in the league. All told, Dallas academy products played in 4,897 minutes this season, which was second most in the league.
Despite the powerhouse regular season, Pareja couldn’t guide his side to a playoff victory. They were defeated over two legs by now Western Conference champions Seattle Sounders by a 4-2 aggregate score in the West semi-finals. Pareja has led his side to the playoffs all three years of his tenure, but has twice lost in the conference semi-finals. He did make the West final in 2015, but lost to eventual champions Portland Timbers.
He is the second FC Dallas coach to win the award. Schellas Hyndman was honored back in 2010, when Dallas lost MLS Cup to Colorado. He is also the second Dallas award winner in 2016. Earlier this year, Matt Hedges took him the MLS Defender of the Year trophy.
