Preki, Osorio, Kinnear, Nowak

Round and round it goes, where will it stop, nobody knows! It's Metro coaching carousel! And the offseason is only a couple of weeks old!

Let's recap: after Bruce Arena's firing, it was widely assumed that Red Bull will go the European route, so the names like Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi, Jose Mourinho, and Giovanni Trapattoni were on everybody's lips. Meanwhile, fans were tossing into the ring the name of every unemployed coach imaginable.

And then, some names started to emerge, but they weren't the names we were expecting. Apparently, with most of this info coming from Steven Goff and Ives Galarcep, Red Bull is not looking to go the European route at all. Instead, they are trying to hire away a current MLS coach: former MetroStars assistant Juan Carlos Osorio of Chicago (the Fire denied Metro permission to talk to him), Preki of Chivas USA (permission received), and Dominic Kinnear of champion Houston (status unknown, but why would he leave?)

Of course, since that trio are all current MLS coaches under contract, Metro would have to give up compensation if they are to poach them away. That might make sense in Kinnear's case, but giving up something of value for Osorio and Preki, with a total of 2.5 years of head coaching experience between them could be debated.

So then there are other names in the mix: MLS assistants Paul Mariner of New England and John Spencer of Houston (according to Steve Davis of ESPN, neither has been contacted as of last week), current Metro assistants Richie Williams and John Harkes, and a name seemingly completely out of left field, UConn coach Ray Reid. And while MLS assistant coaches who rose to head ranks include Fernando Clavijo and our own Mo Johnston, they also include Bob Bradley, Frank Yallop, and the trio of former assistants mentioned two paragraphs above.

And then there is Peter Nowak, the former DC head coach now in charge of the US Under-23 national team. But with Olympic qualification just around the corner, why would he turn down the chance to lead the US into Beijing?

So who knows... It's early! The carousel just started spinning.