Othoniel "Junior" Gonzalez (born September 26, 1977) is an American professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

coach. He was previously an assistant coach for

Chicago Fire FC (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and had coaching positions with

LA Galaxy II LA Galaxy II is an American professional soccer team based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California, United States founded in 2014. It is the reserve team of the LA Galaxy. The team competes in MLS Next Pro, the third tier of the United Sta ...

Seattle Sounders FC Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began ...

Chivas USA Chivas USA (pronounced ''CHEE-vahs'') was an American professional soccer team based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California. The club played from 2005 to 2014 in Major League Soccer (MLS) and was a subsidiary of Mexican club C.D. Guada ...

and was head coach with

Rio Grande Valley FC Toros Rio Grande Valley FC, also known as RGVFC or Rio Grande Valley FC Toros, is an American semi-professional soccer team based in Edinburg, Texas operated by Lone Star, LLC. They joined the USL Championship in the 2016 season. The team served as a ...

. Junior attended UCLA where he played on the Men's NCAA soccer team and won the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship in 1997. Gonzalez's coaching career began in 2001 as an assistant coach for the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

men's program. Three years later he became the head coach and under his tenure 30 players were named All-Big West Conference – including two Big West Conference Players of the Year – and six players went on to MLS and USL careers. In 2011, Gonzalez was named the Big West Coach of the Year. As a player, Gonzalez won the 1997 NCAA National Championship with UCLA. His collegiate career included four trips to the NCAA tournament and three Mountain Pacific Conference Championships. Gonzalez continued his playing career with the USL's San Diego Flash and his career continued throughout California before his final stop with the Utah Blitz. During 2019, Gonzalez was the interim manager for LA Galaxy II.

References

1977 births Living people American soccer coaches UCLA Bruins men's soccer players Rio Grande Valley FC Toros coaches Men's association football players not categorized by position UC Riverside Highlanders men's soccer coaches Chivas USA non-playing staff Tacoma Defiance coaches LA Galaxy non-playing staff LA Galaxy II coaches San Diego Flash players Utah Blitzz players American soccer players {{US-footy-bio-stub