He’s no Ernesto de la Cruz, but he’ll do in a pinch. 

As the dean of American soccer journalism Steven Goff posited yesterday, today Louisville City announced the engagement of Danny Cruz as assistant coach to John Hackworth. Cruz is Hackworth’s first coaching hire at Louisville City, and one wonders how he’s been able to manage the job on his own (with help from Scott Budnick) for so long.

Cruz comes to Louisville City from Real Monarchs where he held the same position. He was initially hired by Monarchs’ then-manager Mark Briggs, but Briggs ran into some unsavory legal trouble as a result of domestic violence allegations (which were recently dropped). Briggs’ dismissal meant a housecleaning at Monarchs, which made Cruz a free agent. Fortunately for him, he played under John Hackworth at Philadelphia Union and probably knew Hack was looking for assistants, which is how we got to where we are now.

Cruz’s professional coaching career just began because his playing career just ended. He played for two seasons at UNLV before a brief stint with Des Moines Menace, a longer stint with Houston Dynamo, and then bounced around a bit between D.C. United, the Union, and Minnesota United. Early on in his career he picked up nearly 20 appearances for the US U17 and U20 teams. His ten-year playing career ended at the end of last season, which began at San Francisco Deltas and ended with the Monarchs. All in all, Cruz appeared in 205 professional games and scored 18 goals, mostly as a winger.

I have no idea what, if any, coaching licenses Cruz has, or what his other qualifcations might be, but he’s found a good place to land and learn. VAMOS MORADOS.