All these fantasies theories and deductions or whatever you want to call them, all lead to one simple thing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a coach is as good as his players and if he picks good players, he can then utilize those same players which will make him a good or a great coach. If a manager in any league in the world has crappy players , there is no way a team will win and usually he is labeled a lousy coach. Therefore , I honestly believe if Frank has suddenly become a great coach, its mostly because he has recognized the weaknesses in the team and improved on them and acquired the right players who will fit into whatever system he is trying to employ and make the team better.
I seem to remember a quote early in the pre-season, from Frank or John, stating that the FO was going to do some spending this year. I think you get what you pay for and Frank (and/or John) got to spend a bit more to get people who are easier to fit into their system.
I'd take that with a grain of salt. Two of the better performers cost the least amount of money (Morrow and Beitashour). Bernardez isn't exactly expensive, neither, really, are any of the other players. Granted, they were still at the cap because of the number of good players they got, but it's never just about spending more. You have to spend wisely and it looks like they've certainly done that more times than not this season.
I think you're missing some of the other moves - resigning Lenhart and Gordon (Lenhart to what was a very large salary increase to almost $180k), trading for Chavez, who is not cheap ($150k), and paying for Dawkins (it's not just his relatively low salary, but also the loan fee they had to pay to Tottenham). You have to give Yallop and Doyle a lot of credit - almost every move they made in the offseason has paid off significantly. Even the Moreno move wasn't necessarily bad - if Baca hadn't developed like he has, Moreno would likely have played a lot more.
You're right. My overall point was more along the line of how most of the guys on the squad make good money, but they haven't really ventured into the max salary territory for anybody and that at least a few of the guys are playing above what they are being paid. Clearly they've added to the team from the outside for this season and it hasn't necessarily come cheap, but they aren't exactly slinging money around, nor should they.
It probably costs more to get the info to get people like berardez, keep Dawkins, get Shea back, keep good people around. The spending may not only appear in player salary.
You look at this team and its age, it has the potential to be very good for quite a while. Must be pretty good to be Yallop right now.
Yes, they have to spend some cash to do some scouting, even if their first look is on video. Frank and JD have done a good job of drafting since they restarted the team, but now their overseas acquisitions are good too. That's huge. Plus, we got some good players from inside MLS. But I still contend that it's more than just good players. The quality of our coaching has improved, dramatically. Notice that some guys we've had on the team are "suddenly" playing much better than last season. It's not just that they have better guys to work with, it's that they have better strategies and tactics to employ as well. GOOOO QUAAAAAAAKES!!!!! - Mark
I am really trying to believe this is true, but in the interview Yallop did that was posted in the main Yallop thread, I'm not 100% sold on this. He mentioned how he learned from a coach that wasn't focused all that much on the tactical side of the game...that worries me. And if you look at what the Quakes have done this year, the method has been more or less the same. When the teams plays to score goals, they usually get a good result. I'm starting to think that really the main difference this year is just that everyone is playing close or at their potential peaks. There are more weapons and better weapons than in previous years. I don't want to take away from what the coaching staff has done, because the moves made in-game have generally been the right calls, but I just don't know how big a shift has actually occurred in the way Yallop, in particular, approaches the game. Maybe his assistants are doing more of the work, as you've suggested before. It seems to me the real success has been finding all of the pieces they want in terms of players and then just turning them loose. It's certainly not the worst way to go about it, but it means that the potential to go from awful to great and great to awful is higher than it possibly could be and that the teams that are bad are going to be consistently bad and that the teams that are good are going to be consistently good.
something not metioned that i'd like to add was there was no PR stunt trip to england this year. glad the FO realized this maybe wasn't the best way to prepare the team for a long mls season with lots of travel. i'll also agree fy has done a better job of game management and using his subs this year over last. this is something very basic that was poorly managed in 2011, except for a couple of instances this season he's been spot on imo.
Hah! You realize that, after the relentless barrage of "fire Frank!" last year, Mark's got nowhere to go other than "the coaching has gotten dramatically better!". Whether the coaching has gotten "dramatically better" or not, at this point, based on the team's performance to date, I think it can be stated nearly unequivocally that firing Frank at the end of the last season would have been the wrong thing to do. I doubt that a new coach could have come in and taken the team from nearly worst to first. That said, Frank has shown much more willingness to open things up this season. His coaching is much less conservative. I don't think this is a "dramatic change" in his overall philosophy. Remember that in 2011 he tried to go to a 4-3-3 for a while before he abandoned it and went to a more conservative approach after the team went into a tailspin. And remember 2001-2003. So I think it's a matter of Frank dialing in the style of play that he thinks his team can win with. He just seems to have more confidence in this group of players such that he enables them to open it up a bit. Besides that, there's the whole open communication / try to get the best out of guys / positive approach that the Alan Black's article references. I don't think that's ever changed.
frank and jd should of been fired at the end of last season (who are we kidding) and on any other team in the league they probably would of been but they were not as lew's too cheap to pay the buy out in their new contracts that were signed in jan 2011. saying a new coach wouldn't of been able to do the same that we are doing this year is a little out there, what if we had sir alex ferguson or pep guardiola? have frank and jd turned it around this year absolutely, as a sth am i glad...absolutely, would i of done the same thing (keep them) absolutely not based on their performance since the team came back they should of been fired in 2011.
I doubt that a coach like that could have come into MLS and understood how it works in order to be successful. The record of performance by "esteemed" foreign coaches coming into MLS has been very poor. Frankly (pun intended) I'm not sure that any other coach in the world could have done what Frank has done with the team this year. I think it requires knowing the personnel and building on some things that have building for a few years, like the development of players like Beita and Morrow, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the players, etc. Sure, based on his first 4 years, one might think that firing Frank would have been the right thing to do at the end of last season. But in hindsight, based on what we know so far about this season, it would have been the wrong thing to do. Of course, the team could still tank the rest of the season and suck next season, but at this point in time, keeping Frank looks like a great call. And if any of you (OK, just about everyone) have the slightest bit of dignity and self-respect, you'd be putting on your bib and prepping for a little crow feast. :--) I've been a Frank supporter in general, but at the end of last year, even I was begrudgingly thinking that it was time for a change. So I'll take a wing or two myself :--).
you know i was kidding about ferguson and guardiola as i have no delusions that they or a truely world class coach would come to mls (at least for now) but i was using them as an example that there are great coaches out there that are very accomplished and they could do a fantastic job with our team. to think "only" frank could've gotten us to where we are right now in the season isn't correct.... i've seen enough frank and j.d mistakes to be wary of how well we are doing right now and i hope that the bubble doesn't pop anytime soon and that we continue to ride this wave this season and the next and the next! someone posted that we have a young team and we do, so it is possible we have a core to make a run for 3-5 years...at least i hope so and if frank/jd keep doing the job they are doing now then i want them on the ride. if not...time to change it up because who really want to go thru another 4 losing seasons out of 5!
Sure it's possible that someone else could do the same kind of thing with the team, but I'm not sure that you could realistically expect anything better than from near worst to first. If you changed out the coach and at this point you were in the same spot (top of the league), you haven't gained anything on where you are, unless you think that the future would be brighter. Even if they have a good young nucleus, which I think they do, it will be a challenge to stay in the top 3rd of the league for multiple years. There's a lot of competition, and the league continues to change fairly rapidly. And you can't keep the status quo and expect to remain at or near the top like you maybe could in the early 2000's. But OTOH I think there are certain things that are somewhat timeless, like essential truths that can give you a competitive advantage, and I think Frank's got a handle on some of those things. A coach like Nowak may be good for a while, but I'm not sure that his approach is good for the long haul. So things like: - Consistency: try to keep a core group of players together as much as you can, don't try to completely remake your roster every couple of years. It doesn't work, and the teams that have had success for a number of consecutive years have a fairly stable roster. - Positivity: don't try to beat good performances out of your players, but try to put them in an environment where they can be successful based on their natural strengths (one of the main themes if not the main theme in Alan Black's article). - Character: try to build good chemistry on your team, me-first types of players are going to hurt your team in the long run.
Well said. I know I had my fair share of criticisms for the guy and happily admit that keeping Frank around looks to have been the best decision. I also don't think it was only a contract issue that he stayed, as DasMoots suggested (which seems a bit too cynical). It would be quite strange if a multiple championship coach suddenly was terrible in the same league that he was previously successful in. That isn't to say that he's perfect, but I do think he does more things right than wrong. His relationship with players and finding the ones that want to play for him make a big difference. I just wish he was a little bit more a student of the game, but my faith has been mostly restored.
In acknowledging the great pickups we got this year to have turned this team around, I think we are also leaving out the important details of who is not on the field anymore. We don't have Ward, Gjersten, Peterson, or Burling in the lineup anymore (and some would argue no Convey). Corrales, Stephensen and Hernandez have had less playing time this year. These are all good things! What no one has mentioned also is Lenhart is actually here this year in full! That is also a big difference. But - I second what Mark is saying. This turn around is about the new guys but also about better coaching. Yallop's suckitude was well documented going on four years. I have a feeling the ownership and FO were holding his arse to the fire in the offseason, and he knows he's on the shortest of leashes. The number one reason we are dramatically better this year is that we are playing to win rather than playing to not lose. We're not playing nor being coached like an expansion team. We're acting like a team and an organization who can win the whole damn thing. Go QUAKES!
I agree. I guess the question really then is how much of Yallop's coaching has to do with the players and how much is just him? Is he coaching better because his team is better? Are they playing better because he's coaching better. Obviously you can't count the guys who weren't on the team last year in that, but it's a tough equation to break down as there are so many interrelated parts. Whatever the reason, let's just hope it continues.
As I've mentioned before, I really think Yallop is a coach who will employ a strategy based on the team he thinks he has. If he thinks his team can play a style where they throw numbers forward, he will. If he thinks his team needs to play conservative, that's what he'll do. If you listen to his comments over the years, you can hear this. He talks about "opening up the reigns a bit", etc., but the team has to be able to show that it can handle it. And remember, in 2011, he thought the team was ready for a 4-3-3, but then apparently had a change of heart when things went south. The point is that IMO the coach has not changed in terms of what he will do given a set "x" of players, where "x" is a variable. That "x" just goes into the "Yallop" equation, and what comes out depends on the "x" and whatever constants are in there. So my theory is that the Yallop equation has not changed, it's the players and their abilities that have changed. Yallop = (π * x) + 5-2 (Yes, you could simplify 5-2 to 3, but then it would lose its historical significance :--)
It's have or 've, not of. By the way, you aren't the only one that makes this mistake, it's pretty common.
Ooo I want to try! It should be: By the way, you aren't the only one who makes this mistake. It's pretty common.
I gave up trying to get people to use "who" instead of "that" for people. It's a losing battle. The use of "of" in place of "have" is not a mere grammatical error, however.
