The next U.S. national team coach isn’t expected to be named until November, and U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati isn’t offering any clues. But one thing we do know – he will speak Spanish, either when he gets the job, or shortly thereafter.

And that makes perfect sense, considering the enormous Hispanic soccer fan base in this country.

Gulati, appearing at the Honda Symposium last week in Los Angeles, stressed the importance of a Spanish-speaking coach, and said the federation will go out of its way in the next four years to target Hispanic players who might be falling through the cracks. He also said he wants more Hispanic members on his executive board.

“I don’t think that you can have a very successful soccer federation without the involvement of the Hispanic community,” Gulati said. “It is a very large community, it is a passionate community about the game, and we need to make sure that we do things that make our teams, our programs, what the federation does and our national team attractive for the Hispanic community.”

He said the new coach, whom he hopes to name in November, will have to learn Spanish if he doesn’t speak it already. The leading candidates for the job are Juergen Klinsmann, the German World Cup coach who lives in Southern California; former Argentina coach Jose Pekerman; former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson; and Portugal-native Carlos Queiroz, who has a history with Major League Soccer.

Sports Illustrated reported last month that Klinsmann, who speaks three languages, had recently enrolled in Spanish classes. Hmmmm? Coincidence? We think not.

“U.S. Soccer is looking for someone who is successful at a high level coaching, someone who has been a player is a plus but not a prerequisite, and someone that knows something about the American game,” Gulati said. “If we don’t have a national team coach who is very familiar with the American setup, then we will have an assistant coach who is.”