Mike Muñoz

Mike Muñoz
Personnel
Surname	Michael Alejandro Muñoz
birthday	September 14, 1983
place of birth	Bellflower , California ,  USA
size	173 cm
position	midfield player
Juniors
Years	station
	Los Alamitos High School
2001-2004	University of California, Berkeley
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2002	Orange County Blue Star
2005-2006	CD Chivas USA	1 (0)
2007	California Victory	23 (1)
2008	Hollywood United
2008	LA Galaxy	1 (0)
2009	Orange County Blue Star	4 (0)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
2009-2010	LA Galaxy Academy U-16 (Co-Tr.)
2010-2011	Real Salt Lake -Arizona Academy U-16
2010-2011	Real Salt Lake -Arizona Academy U-18 (interim)
2011-2013	CD Chivas USA Academy U-16
~ 2013 ~	CD Chivas USA Academy U-18 (Co-Tr.)
~ 2013 ~	CD Chivas USA U-23 (Co-Tr.)
2013	CD Chivas USA (interim / Co-Tr.)
	USA U-14 (Co-Tr.)
	USA U-15 (Co-Tr.)
2013-2016	LA Galaxy Academy U-16
2014-2015	LA Galaxy Academy U-14
2015-2017	LA Galaxy Academy U-18
2017-2019	LA Galaxy Academy (Academy Director)
2017-2019	LA Galaxy II
2020–	Toronto FC II
1 Only league games are given.

Michael "Mike" Alejandro Muñoz (born September 14, 1983 in Bellflower , California ) is a retired American football player on the position of midfielder . Today he works as a soccer coach and since January 2020 he has been leading the fortunes of Toronto FC II , the farm team of the major league soccer franchise Toronto FC , which plays in the third-rate North American professional league USL League One .

Player career

Mike Muñoz was born on September 14, 1983 in the city of Bellflower, a suburb of Los Angeles , in the US state of California and grew up in Los Alamitos, a few kilometers south . He started playing football relatively late. At the age of twelve, chubby Mike Muñoz was still training with his father and only joined his first local training club the following year. In Los Alamitos he also attended Los Alamitos High School , where he was active in the school's soccer team alongside Jonathan Bornstein . With a scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley , he made the leap into their men's soccer team. At the California Golden Bears , the name of the university sports department , he came to his regular assignments and was already elected to the All- Pac-10 -second team in his freshman year . In the subsequent sophomore and junior years he even made it into the All-Pac-10-First-Team . In his senior year in 2004, he also supported head coach Kevin Grimes as a volunteer coach in training the college team. In all four years he participated with the team in the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship . During the free time at the university, he was used in 2002 in the Orange County Blue Star franchise with game operations in the fourth-class USL PDL .

About the MLS Supplemental Draft 2005 made Muñoz the leap into Major League Soccer when he was drafted as the 26th pick in the third round for CD Chivas USA . The midfielder under the first head coach Thomas Rongen , his successor, the interim coach Javier Ledesma , and his successor Hans Westerhof were hardly taken into account. At the end of the first year of the new MLS franchise, he came in sixth and last place in the Western Conference and only had a short stint of around 15 minutes in the top North American football league. He made his debut game on August 13, 2005 in a 3-0 away defeat by DC United , when Hans Westerhof came on for Jesús Ochoa in the 75th minute . In six other league games he was unused on the bench; the rest of the season he was not available to the professional squad. Under Bob Bradley , who took over the coaching office for the 2006 game year , Muñoz then stopped playing and had to leave the team via the 2006 MLS Expansion Draft .

In 2007 he came to the short-lived California Victory franchise in the second-rate USL First Division and acted as a regular during this time, where he brought it to 23 league appearances and one goal. In the final ranking California Victory ranked in the 2007 game year by far in twelfth and last place and dissolved again immediately after the end of the season. After a short flying visit to the amateur team Hollywood United , with whom he participated in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup in 2008 and after a first round win over the second division Portland Timbers, he was eliminated from the current tournament in round 2 against the second division Seattle Sounders . Soon after, he made the jump back to Major League Soccer, where he was accepted by LA Galaxy . Under Bruce Arena , however, he was also hardly considered and completed on September 6, 2008 in a 2-2 home draw against Real Salt Lake, his only MLS game for LA Galaxy. He came on the lawn in the 81st minute of play as a replacement for Josh Tudela . He spent the rest of the season either unused on the bench or in the reserve team with play in the MLS Reserve League . In this he ranked with the reserve squad at the end of the season in twelfth and last place in the table. After the MLS Expansion Draft 2008 , Galaxy let Muñoz's contract expire, whereupon he was temporarily without a club. In the following year he came briefly to the fourth division Orange County Blue Star before he announced his career end as an active player after four league matches.

Coaching career

After he had already supported his coach Kevin Grimes as a volunteer trainer in the training of the college team in his final year of study (2004) , he immediately began a career as an active footballer after his career ended. After initially working as an assistant coach for the LA Galaxy U-16 academy team (2009/10), he was a U-16 coach at the Real Salt Lake-Arizona Academy . At Real Salt Lake, he achieved third place with the team in the final ranking and was voted Development Academy U-16 Coach of the Year due to his performance . He briefly appeared in the 2010/11 season as the coach of the Real Salt Lake-Arizona Academy U-18 . He then looked after the U-16 team at the CD Chivas USA Academy for two seasons from 2011 to 2013 and made it to the play-offs at the end of the season with the team in both years. As an assistant coach, he was also responsible for the U-18 and U-23 academy teams and, after José Luis Sánchez Solá's leave of absence, worked alongside academy director Sacha van der Most for two championship games as interim assistant coach for the professional team the MLS. In addition, he was an assistant coach in the US U-14 and U-15 national selections.

Then he went back to LA Galaxy, where he initially looked after the U-16 academy team and from summer 2014 also took over the U-14 team. From April 2015, he also took on the role of coach of the U-18 team at the academy, which Ante Razov had looked after up to that point , and was therefore primarily responsible for three academy teams. Towards the end of the 2015 season he gave the U-14 team to Brian Kleiban and only coached the U-16 and U-18 teams. From summer 2016, he finally only trained the U-18 team. Subsequently, at the end of November 2016, he replaced Peter Vagenas as academy director and took over the management of the LA Galaxy Academy ; Vagenas then took on the role of general manager of LA Galaxy. Only a few months after this handover, Muñoz took on an additional task and was appointed head coach of LA Galaxy II , the farm team of the MLS franchise, with play in the two-tier professional league United Soccer League (USL). At the age of 33, he was currently (as of 2017) the youngest professional football coach in the United States. After receiving his US Soccer Pro License at the end of 2018 after completing a one-year course , Muñoz only remained coach of LA Galaxy II for a few months before he was given the course for the US in July 2019 by interim coach Junior Gonzalez , with whom he had previously worked Soccer Pro License had been replaced. As the academy director, Muñoz and his supervisors were dismissed and replaced by Juan Carlos Ortega .

On January 27, 2020, Muñoz was introduced as the new coach of Toronto FC II , the farm team of the MLS franchise Toronto FC ; he replaced Michael Rabasca as coach.

Web links

• Mike Muñoz in the MLSSoccer.com database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 24 Under 24: US Soccer's new Under-12 level paves "pathway to the pros" , accessed December 27, 2017
2. ↑ ^{a b} Mike Muñoz on the official website of the California Golden Bears (English), accessed on December 27, 2017
3. ↑ Timbers eliminated from Lamar Hunt US Open Cup , accessed December 28, 2017
4. ↑ Hollywood stuns Timbers 3-2 late ( Memento from June 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2017
5. ↑ Seattle Sounders 6-0 Hollywood United , accessed December 28, 2017
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} LA Galaxy add Mike Muñoz to Academy Coaching Staff , accessed December 28, 2017
7. ^ LA Galaxy pick up Academy coach Mike Munoz; Laurent Courtois also in training with Galaxy , accessed December 28, 2017
8. ↑ Mike Muñoz named LA Galaxy Academy Under-14 Head Coach , accessed December 28, 2017
9. ↑ Peter Vagenas named LA Galaxy General Manager , accessed December 28, 2017
10. ^ Academy Director Mike Muñoz named LA Galaxy II Head Coach , accessed December 28, 2017
11. ↑ 10 Under 40: The best young American coaches in the game today , accessed on December 28, 2017
12. ^ ^{A b} Four USL Championship Coaches Earn US Soccer Pro License , accessed on January 22, 2020
13. ↑ Galaxy II, Head Coach Munoz Part Ways (English), accessed on January 22, 2020
14. ↑ Mike Munoz announces departure in open letter , accessed on January 22, 2020
15. ↑ Mike Muñoz Named Toronto FC II Head Coach , accessed March 10, 2020