Predag “Preki” Radosavljevic Is Rumored To Be The Next Head Coach Of Saint Louis FC

Saint Louis FC has found its next head coach, according to reports flying around the soccer world.  Predag “Preki” Radosavljevic, the former St. Louis Storm star, is set to be announced tonight as the new coach of the United Soccer League club at a press conference at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company.

**UPDATE*

Preki was announced as the next head coach of Saint Louis FC during a press conference tonight at Kirkwood Station Brewing company.

When Dale Schilly was let go as the head coach in August, general manager Jeremy Alumbaugh and the club said a worldwide search would begin immediately for the new manager. The hiring of Preki proves the team was quite serious in that statement.

Preki is a coach that has experience coaching at the top of soccer in the United States, an impressive on-field resume, coaching experience in the USL as well as ties to the English Premiere League.

Sacramento Republic FC tabbed Preki as its first coach in club history before their inaugural season back in 2014. 20,231 fans turned out for the club’s first game and they went on to win the league championship.

In early July of 2015, Preki announced that he was stepping down from his position with Sacramento to take a job in the United Kingdom. At the time, Leiscester City of the English Premiere League was the only club in the top tiers across the pond with a coaching vacancy. That led to bookies listing Preki as the favorite for that job. There were also reports that wealthy Serbian-American businessman Milan Mandarić was looking to buy a team and tab Preki to run the club.

Preki said he was flying to the UK to take his “dream job” and then basically fell off the face of the earth. No one seems quite sure what happened or where he has been in the months since. Being hired by Leicester City would have made Preki the first American to coach in the EPL. Instead, Bob Bradley took that honor when he was hired earlier this month at Swansea City.

Preki was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and immigrated to the United States in his early 20s when he was signed by the Tacoma Stars indoor soccer team. He starred for them for five seasons in the second half of the 1980s.

After being released by Tacoma, Preki signed with the St. Louis Storm of the Major Indoor Soccer League. The team’s owner? Milan Mandarić. He starred here for two seasons and became legendary in our town’s long history of indoor soccer. In 1994, Preki signed with Everton of the EPL.

PREKI is coming back to St. Louis!! pic.twitter.com/KLLbjBvkLd

— Brian Roth (@stlambush2013) October 12, 2016

When Major League Soccer was launched in the United States in 1996, Preki returned home to play for the Kansas City Wiz. In nine seasons with Kansas City, he would twice win the MLS Most Valuable Player award and lead the league in scoring in both of those season. He also helped the team win the league title in 2000.

Radosavljevic became a United States citizen in 1996 and played 28 games for the United States Men’s National Team. He played for the team in the 1998 World Cup and scored the winning goal in a game against Brazil in the 1998 Gold Cup.

Predag “Preki” Radosavljevic, born in Yugoslavia, would become a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame here in the United States in 2010.

When he retired from MLS after the 2005 season, Predag Radosavljevic was considered one of the best players in the history of the league. He was hired as an assistant coach by MLS side Chivas FC for the 2006 season and would move into the head coaching role the next season. He was awarded the MLS Coach of the Year award at the end of the 2007 season. Preki would go on to coach Toronto FC briefly before being let go. To this day, the coach believes he was unjustly fired.

Evan Ream, a reporter for The Davis Enterprise who follows Sacramento Republic FC, was the first to break the news of Saint Louis FC’s coaching hire. (Or was he?) Ream is particularly close to Radosavljevic’s camp from the Sacramento days. He previously reported that Aston Villa was actually the club across the pond that Preki nearly became coach of.

True to Saint Louis FC’s history of treating their loyal supporters, the St. Louligans, with great respect, the club apparently let them in on the secret last week, but swore them to secrecy. The podcast fellas from the Louligans will be recording a podcast at the announcement with reactions from fans, players and hopefully Preki himself.

Saint Louis FC has scheduled a press conference for 6 pm this evening at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company. A limited amount of tickets for the event are available through the club.

Join us tonight at Kirkwood Station Brewing Company to welcome our new Head Coach. Click here for tickets: https://t.co/MyKET46m3t pic.twitter.com/JkU4lpW0B6

— Saint Louis FC (@SaintLouisFC) October 12, 2016

Saint Louis FC will be entering its third season in the United Soccer League when play begins in late March. Dale Schilly was named the head coach for the club’s inaugural season and continued his tenure into the second season before being let go from the position with seven games to go in the season. Tim Leonard filled the interim head coach role for the remainder for the season.

The United Soccer League technically fills the role of a third-tier league in American soccer behind MLS and the second-tier North American Soccer League. The future of the NASL is highly in doubt, however.

STLFC will be looking to make the league playoffs for the first time in club history this season. The club finished 8-9-11 in league play in its inaugural season. The second campaign started out promising, but a mid-season slump led to a 8-10-12 record on the season.

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