http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/soccer/Vancouver Whitecaps need suck coach/5189317/story.html caps coach, TS, telling his players that they just have to 'suck it up', i guess meaning all the loses actually, i am amazed that the caps have been as competitive as they have been (not too many 3-4 goal losses), considering the experience and quality of players that people like TS put into place if i were one of the few quality players on the caps team, i would be royally pi**ed that TS would say that... he's putting all the responsibility on the players when, in fact, it has been, to a large degree, his decisions as director of player personnel/head coach on who was drafted, signed and playing TS should suck it up and admit to himself that he is not a capable coach, agree to return to director of player personnel (though i would rather he was fired) and help find a suitable replacement for head coach in the off-season
not only has TS have a worse record than TT as head coach, he nows has a team fighting amonst themselves-- 2 fights between 4 players at a practice last week... this never would have happened under TT's reign- the players were loyal and unified under his reign what a disaster!!! the team since TS took over has been nothing but schizophrenic, a divided personality-- for 60 minutes they look good and capable of winning, but then they self-destruct through carelessness and giving up too easily in the last 30 minutes some people call it bad luck-- i call it as it is - a team mainly selected by TS and paul barber that is very short on quality and experience strangely, the person i feel most badly for is bob lenarduzzi who was demoted by the owners into a PR role-- he babied this team through many years, mainly with success, and should have been given the CEO title... now he watches the nightmare on hastings street unfold with no end in sight
Very well said sportie1 I know a lot of people don't like Bobby, but our entire path from 2003 to the granting of an MLS team (and stadium, and 2 championships) was all under his watch. I don't think bringing in a guy from Europe was the answer, we needed a CEO who knew the market and league and culture. It must be killing him inside to watch this mess unfold.
lmao WHOA! WHOOOOOA! That is a massive leap! Bobby has been with the team since 1986. That include years where, despite on-field success, the team almost folded due to low attendance and owners wanting to bail. So much for knowing the market. Duze pissed all over the supporters groups this last year. Love the the SS or hate them, he didn't have to be a jerk about it. So much for the culture. And the league? What makes Duze so good for matching up with MLS? He has no proven success at anything other than D2 soccer in North America. And the success was good, but not incredible. (He was also that guy who years ago said MLS wasn't really necessary for club aspirations. Hm. I wonder if he still thinks that.) I won't disagree that Soehn *may* be mediocre (though I do think he is better than TT for MLS), but Barber? Maybe Barber doesn't know the league, but he sure as hell knows how to run a football club. You saying that Duze is the man - without any corroborating argument - and dismissing Barber - again, without any corroborating argument, just seems like a strawman argument. Nothing personal against you, I just think you are speaking sentimentally and not looking at what actually has been going on. FWIW, I have talked to several people who say that Duze is a cancer and a douchebag. No, not Southsiders - but one of the people who I talk about Duze with is ex-WNT and Winnipeg Fury coach Tom McManus.
The Whitecaps (86ers) never nearly folded over low attendance. There's never really been a poorly attended season at Swangard.
I swear I remember that back in the day (late 90's?) they were only drawing 3,000 a game. And I am positive they almost folded at least once because I remember the newspaper articles. (Didn't it have something to do with Braley wanting to divest himself of the club and no one else wanted it? I am positive about the danger of the club going under; my bro could back me up on this because I remember us talking about the article years ago.)
people only wanted out of ownership of the team IIRC, nobody ever couldn't make a go of it due to low attendance.
So you and Krammer support the Duze? I used to be high on him - mostly as a mythic figure - but in the last year I only see how he seems to be a little arrogant, out of touch, and - according to those who've worked with him, around him, etc - he's an ass. Whatever his or Soehn failings may be, my biggest disappointment is the difference between Sea and Por supporter-FO relationship and Van's. We definitely are losing the Cascadia Supporters battle. And I do put a chunk of the blame at the FO's feet. Duze seems a good target because if he's a part of the "culture" as previous posters suggested, he's the one who could have gone to bat for the supporters (not just SS, but supporters groups in general).
while i have heard similar sentiments about BL from soccer-knowledgeable people, i still give him credit for helping keep the Caps going-- and successfully on the field-- for so many years; over the past 8 years prior to joining MLS, he helped build a strong corporate and fan base-- if he hadn't done many things well, why would the caps have almost 16 000 STHs and an impressive corporate collection-- give the man credit- BL did do somethings well when he was head honcho under greg kerfoot since TT was chosen as the Caps first head coach because he was with the D-2 team, then surely BL should have been given the reigns as CEO- the owners, such as nash and mallet went after barber due to their ties to tottenham- barber is beginning to look like an arse with some of his naive decisions-- he has succumbed to the belief that the MLS is a far inferior league to Euro leagues and built his weak team around that thinking... and the supporters are paying the price can u really credit paul barber for making the caps a box-office and corporate sponsorship hit? i think not- he walked into a lucky situation and up to this point, is making a hash of it; he hired TS as director of player personnel and then made him the head coach (and TS has a poorer record than TT and the players are fighting amongst themselves, so how is he better than TT??!!); he also played a major part in the acquiring of players which we now know is filled with inexperienced and/or non-MLS calibre players i'm not saying to can Barber, but truly the man needs to wake up and smell the coffee- the team will need at least another 6-8 more skillful/more experienced players for 2012 if we are to be more competitive- MLS is a better league than most euro people give it credit for (and please do NOT use the 7-0 shellacking that seattle got from RM- many friendly games were close and we even won and tied some) i love the caps -- have done so for almost 40 years-- and hate to see it going through this period of confusion and disappointment if they want to keep players like hassli, rochat, de merit and camilio, they better demonstrate better decisions heading towards 2012
Okay I'll answer a question you asked in another post first. I don't support the douche....I mean Duze. I don't even know what he does that I should be supporting. As for attendance, I'll post a link to my old site...it has all of the yearly attendances on it. If that's not enough I'll pull out my yearly scrapbooks of newspaper clipping that cover about a 10 year span and has every game day attendance posted (I wasn't always a part timer-I used to put in a lot of effort following the team): http://newheads.tripod.com/id24.html There were two seasons prior to 2000 where the Caps averaged around 3,500 a game, and even these numbers were near the top of the league they were playing in. These numbers had more to do with scheduling and weather during those seasons. I recall the 86ers one of those years playing nearly all games until mid July on rainy, extremely cold days up until late July. It made this years weather look good. I remember one weekend where they played a Friday and Sunday game both in torrential weather and both games combined didn't reach 5,000 fans. The other poorly attended season was 2002 when useless owner David Stadnyk, after one season of owning the team, announced that the team was not selling enough tickets and was going to lose a lot of money that year. Of course this was odd because the announcement came after they had only played one game-which they had sold out (over 6,500) and there was no indication that they weren't going to keep doing the same. The truth was Stadnyk had really lost a lot of money on the stock market and his wife was leaving him.....which was going to cost him even more money-and he wanted out. So he bailed on the team, the league took over the team for the rest of the season, and attendance wasn't so great purely on the speculation that the team might fold. But none of teams ownership troubles were because of low attendance.
Wow, you and I are miles apart. I don't see how any of the corporate success of the Caps has anything to do with Lenarduzzi. Barber was here for a lot of the important decisions, and even before he arrived, whatever decisions were being made, neither you nor I know if Duze had anything to do with whatever decisions were made, good or bad. If Duze WAS making the decisions, then he decided Barber was worth going for...which invalidates your argument about Barber being a mistake...or about Duze making good decisions - take your pick. And Barber has a heckuva lot more experience running a successful club than ANYone else in the organization. I don't think you realized what a big club Spurs are. Lastly, Hassli, Chiumiento, Rochat, and Camilo all appear to be happy here and in no real danger of leaving - you introduce the idea of them leaving as likely whereas there is nothing (so far *knock on wood*) to substantiate that. From our perspective it may seem like all this losing would turn us off the club if we were professionals, but we aren't the professionals - they are. They probably like their paycheques, might like their teammates, the city of Vancouver, the nightlife, the weather, the restaurants...who knows? But what you can't say is that they are all going to bail because the FO isn't making good enough decisions. Long0term we might discover all these decisions were good ones. I like TS marginally better than TT, but who knows? Maybe TT needed 5 more games...maybe TS needs 5 more games. We can't guess that. We can only enjoy our team and see what all unfolds. But your speculations are unfounded and alarmist.
Firstly, while i dont want to overpraise BL with corporate sponsorship, i believe his name was far more recognized in the boardrooms where the decisions were made to sponsor the Caps-- BL helped to establish a historical and community connection for the caps, not paul barber i truly doubt that BL would have turned down the head CEO job and given it gladly to PB; most likely, it was taken away from him by nash and mallet, who had connections with spurs and thought PB would be the right man (rubber-stamped by kerfoot)-- to think that BL would have been happy with this decision is ludicrous to say the least! he had been the head CEO for years and people dont like to give that up for anyone -- IT WAS STRIPPED FROM BL-- do u really think BL would have hired TS??? that was a PB hiring secondly, quality players want to be on quality teams with quality coaching- chaos on and off the field do not encourage good players to stay and/or play their best-- if i were eric hassli or jay de merit, i would be watching to see what happens between now and 2012-- there are lots of other beautiful cities to play in thirdly, as i suggested in other posts, in order to save their arses, TS and PB had to make a coaching change announcement... and its been done as of today-- they have bought themselves a reprieve for at least 2012 and tied the can to MR-- without 6-8 better players coming in, i cant see a whole lot of improvement for 2012... 'u got to have the horses to run the race well' fourthly, how the heck you can say TS is a better coach than TT is beyond soccer reasoning-- TS has a worse record and less unity amongst the players-- under TT, the Caps were a TEAM and their record was sightly better fifthly, we can agree to disagree... but we both love the Caps and that's the most important thing!
I bet Eric Hassli loves hearing 20,000 fans chanting "ER-IC HASS-LI" throughout the games. The players seem very happy, despite all the losing, I think they understand the situation. If we have another losing season next year, I think we may risk players wanting to leave, however sitting on the sideline by the tunnel, the players seem very respectful and understanding and genuine when they enter and exit the games, always acknowledging the fans. I don't see the infighting at practice as an indication of unhappy players persay (at least ones that matter) other than the fact that no one likes losing, espiecally those who are not playing (Tan, Salgado etc.)
It's frustrating to see Soehn starting players who aren't match fit. This is a game worth points, not a rehab session. It doesn't make sense to start Demerit and Thorrington because it just winds up putting other players out of position. If you know Demerit isn't going to finish the game, then why not have Janicki on the bench??? It just messes everything up having to play Harvey in the middle and Brovsky on D. Why is Duckett(a natural defender) on the bench if you're just going to put Brovsky at the back anyway??? The start of a LEAGUE game is not the time to get players minutes. Give them more minutes in reserve league or put them in when a game is out of reach. The game should be played to win, not to be meant as a conditioning drill.
I agree, although we needed Demerit in there with Rochat out. I want to know why we started with Chiumento and Jarju on the bench, not going in until the game was already over. The Caps have lost the desire to win games, or battle back after going down, to the point that it is embarrassing to watch.
i thought you said the players were happy playing on a loosing side-- if that 4-0 loss to both LA and DC makes them happy, what will they look like when they are sad???? clearly the players have lost respect for TS-- he is a dead weight and should have been replaced with MR's hiring- get a head start for 2012; clearly, only 18- 20 players should be kept and the cleaning should continue... but no more MLS cast-offs or players who lack skill and pace, but play with a big heart but for whatever ridiculous management decision, they have decided to keep TS as head coach for the rest of the season it boggles my mind how supposedly soccer-knowledegeable people like barber and soehn can make such amateur, naive decisions which started long before the 2011 season began with acquiring soooo many inexperienced, border-line MLS players what seems obvious is that barber and soehn lack the ability to bring in better players even now, much to my chagrin-- if there are no additions this coming week, then i greatly under estimated the incompetence of the FO, especially barber and he needs to be taken to task for not realizing that MLS is a much better league than the euros think what barber did in tottenham means squat nothing to me--- its what he does for the Caps in MLS that counts and to this point, he has not delivered if i were the owners, i would be wondering if hiring barber and soehn were tragically wrong decisons... and do these 2 really have the ability and soccer-wisdom to turn things around if i were MR, i would be wondering also-- not letting him get started as head coach only prolongs the embarrassment and pain for us supporters at this point, i am already loosing hope for a better 2012 season
You're right Sportie, maybe I was looking through rose coloured glasses thinking we were improving, but this last game proved otherwise. We had something to play for and decided not to play.
You folks have some pieces. The defense is poor and I was "privileged" to see Jay Nolly for a year at DCU -- he's not an answer to any soccer question you can ask, except what 'keeper would you like to see waived? Hassli looks dangerous, Camilo certainly strikes the ball well on free kicks. Jarju might be dangerous. Other than those players, pretty pedestrian. While I like DeMerit, he's past his sell by date. Janicki is not MLS material -- again from personal experience.
teams that continually perform poorly on the road lack will, courage, strength of character and belief... and will continually to do so until major repairs are done, which usually means changes of players and/or coaching and FO staff this is the MLS and it does not take years to turn a team into a good squad that can be competitive in the league-- RBNY and the Union did it in 1 year and seattle got it right from the get-go; its a league where you can have the luxury of being competitive today without sacrificing the future teams that flounder for years like TFC, SJ and possibly the Caps do so because the FO and coaching staff leadership are weak and divided-- they lack vision, unity amonst themselves and basic building qualities to make the team a success- they talk well, but cant walk the talk say what you will about BL, during his time as head FO (and no doubt he did things to pi-s people off), his teams were usually very successful on the field and he had an improving relationship in the soccer community and media the game that the caps won against chigago was against a VERY weak and disorganized team; the game losses to DC and Galaxy were a true indication of just how fragile and weak this team is the caps have no more than 6 players capable of playing consistently to MLS standards-- hassli, rochat, a healthy De Merit, jarju, camilio, chuimiento; they have 3 young players they should definitely continue with- salgado, tiebert and koffie; lots of question marks around leathers, harvey, boxall and brovsky, salinas, duckett, nolly to name a few; the rest are borderline or less-- and if they continue with this combination, the Caps will take years to be competitive do we wait like TFC supporters have done for 5 years??? i am not looking for a winner of Cups... i am looking for a team that is headed in the right direction and shows progress... i see neither
No-brainer players to keep: Hassli Chiumiento Rochat DeMerit Camilo Koffie Jarju (I know it's early, but San Jose made me believe this kid will shine) Decent players that could play for other MLS teams: Harris Thorrington Leathers Harvey Vagenas Fence: Salinas Future no-brainers (so we keep them around): Salgado Teibert Davies I think we have a decent squad. I wish we had a better option at keeper, a better CD to partner with Jay, a better RD option to pair with Rochat, either Salinas or Teibert to step up their game, Harris back, Jay healthy. I think two things have hurt our season: 1. Keep players missing games. Early injuries that cost us crucial confidence-building points early in our season (and our history). If Jay stays healthy, Harris is still an option, Davide doesn't struggle with his tweaks - suddenly we are neck and neck with Portland for points and looking like a decent, playoff-capable squad. 2. Mediocre coaching. I wanted TT to make it, but it became clear to me at about game 8 that this wasn't working. I was hopeful about TS, but the LA loss paired with the loss against DC - that's it. Send the man back upstairs. Honestly, I don't know what the Caps should do now. Who else can coach this damn team for the rest of the season while we wait for Rennie. If not Soehn who? I think the jury is still out on Barber. The fact that he came from England halfway through the MLS-prep process makes me think Lenarduzzi and Mallett probably had a lot of input on such things as Soehn and TT. In fact, if we are gonna blame TS on anybody, my gut feeling says it probably lies at the feet of Duze. Sportie, I know you are a fan of his, but honestly I don't think the Duze is anywhere near the caliber of guy to run an operation at this level. His best qualities are his icon value to the community, his connections to Vancouver on a lot of levels, and his local soccer knowledge. If he had the skills to run a big club, he would've taken it a long time ago. My hope is that Barber has now got his feet underneath him and that from Rennie onwards, this really is Barber's team and Barber's calls. Then let the chips fall where they may. If we suck all the way through next season, I'll grant you that Barber is at fault. I personally think a guy with that much experience just needed a bit of time to acclimatize to MLS (which is a very different beast from Euro-FC's).
well said!! i forgot about harris so i would add him to my MLS list; Thorrington, Leathers, Harvey and Vagenas are MLS cast-offs and simply will not ever be capable of taking the club to a higher level- marginal players at best! i think that TS has to be a PB hiring, or a joint decision by PB and BL with PB holding the hammer if the club went along with TT as coach because he was the coach at D2 level, then i just think that BL should have been given the shot at CEO-- could he have done any worse?? time will tell if PB just needs time to adjust to the league and here's hoping you are right!! as far as a replacement for TS as coach, get MR in right away (he's only on a D2 contract- there must be a way to get him in asap) and if the club doesn't want that, then move up colin miller to the position as temp coach- he strikes me as a straight shooter and a man of professional soccer integrity and experience-- if i were a player on the caps, i would play for him rather than TS what a mess!!! i can handle a year of mess, but i need some hope that things can get better for 2012
One of your major problems is TS. Nice guy, but not an astute tactician or judge of talent. He loves "character" guys who work hard, but are borderline. At DCU we fans suffered through the likes of Greg Janicki and Boyzz Khumalo (2 refugees from the Pittsburgh Riverhounds). Soehn's teams always played well enough to lose closely. In 2008 and 2009, DCU missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker and by one point. But both teams were listless and staggered to the end, failing to get results in crucial games. Last year we got Curt Onalfo who is TS cubed and you saw the disaster that happended. This year with a new coach who the players respect, DCU is better, maybe with DeRo a playoff team. I hope for your sakes that Rennie is an "Olsen" type coach, my fear for you is that TS will still be making personnel decisions, thereby providing Rennie with recycled scraps to make a winning team.
I hear what you are saying about the cast-offs but this is MLS - every team has cast-offs. That's what comes with a small salary-cap and counterbalancing against these high-end players (Hassli, etc.) The question is - are our castoffs any good? Some are, I think (I like Vagenas and Thorrington) some no. And Rennie. Ah, Rennie. I want him too, but that the price of signing a guy like Rennie: he is class and integrity all the way, I think, and honouring his contract is probably something he wants to do. So it's not a matter of of finangling him out of his contract - he wants to finish it out. Pain in the ass for us right now - great for us long-term...if he's any good.
