Thomas Rongen Q&A :: Dyson, DCUnited.com

[Knave]

I think that every team has the potential to do well. In the end, can you separate the men from the boys? I really hope that D.C. United can be one of those teams, and I think they will.
http://www.dcunited.com/index.cfm?section=main&cont_id=241098

[Cantankerous]

http://www.dcunited.com/index.cfm?section=main&cont_id=241098
Look at the people TR brought into the league. Clearly he recognizes talent. So why didn't he succeed? Was it simply bad timing? He came on just as we'd crested and were going into the inevitable trough.

BTW, I really like him as a color man on TV. It's nice to hear from someone who actually knows the game. In contrast I give you Ty 'Idiot Boy' Keogh.

[monster]

They're playing out of a 3-5-2 right now, but people talk too much about systems.

Arena has said similar things in the past. I'm pretty sure Nowak said something about how unimportant formations were. I know I'm being Pollyanna, but hopefully this will quell the analysis of formations.

[Knave]

Look at the people TR brought into the league. Clearly he recognizes talent. So why didn't he succeed? Was it simply bad timing? He came on just as we'd crested and were going into the inevitable trough.
I don't think that's totaly true. As I saw it Rongen was always first rate at finding and developing talent. He stank with veteran players. That, I think, was part of the problem with him. There were others ...

[Th4119]

Weren't there a lot of stories about him getting Kasper's technical director job? Seems like he would've been a perfect fit for that, and still would be in the the future.

[Turk from Pigs Eye]

I remember reading an interview with Bruce Arena back when he coached DC and he said DC would be good as long as they had Etch in good form. It seems Bruce left at a good time and Rongen came in at a bad time. He did win one championship, though.

[DigitalTron]

Look at the people TR brought into the league. Clearly he recognizes talent. So why didn't he succeed? Was it simply bad timing? He came on just as we'd crested and were going into the inevitable trough.

BTW, I really like him as a color man on TV. It's nice to hear from someone who actually knows the game. In contrast I give you Ty 'Idiot Boy' Keogh.Rongen had strengths and weaknesses. One strength was identifying good young talent, but he wasn't as good at identifying veteran defenders. Similarly, he coached a very nice attacking team, but he didn't stress enough defense, nor did he preach ball-winning in midfield. Another thing that contributed mightily to his demise was his teams inability--both offensively and defensively--on set pieces. Late game defensive breakdowns cost us a lot of games. The players weren't fit, and he wasn't enough of a hardazz to impress upon them that fitness was required.

He won a championship with Arena's players, but he didn't crack the whip hard enough in the offseason and the next season the defense didn't come back in with enough committment, and we totally sucked, despite having all-star talent in every defensive position. Then the salary cap hit us hard and we had to unload Agoos and Llamosa, the lynch pins of our defense. While we kept Pope, he always missed so many games from injuries and USMNT committments, he wasn't dependable and never really had good chemistry with the stop-gap defenders he was playing alongside. We had no left back, right back, or Dmid, and when Pope was out, we had no central defenders.

Nelsen was brought in to play Dmid, but he couldn't handle it as a rookie. Eventually he moved to the back line and paired well with Pope. By the end of Rongen's last season, Kamler had nailed down the left back spot fairly well. But the team still lacked a Dmid (because Richie was in the swamp then) and a right back. Rongen tried for a long time to acquire Reyes for right back, but he was too expensive. IMHO, if Rongen had gotten Reyes and a Dmid, he'd have done just fine and possibly had United fighting for a chance in another MLS Cup. But, by the time he assembled a half-decent group of defenders, the veteran attackers--most notably Moreno--had totally tuned him out.

When Zaidie was here, he really was atrocious defensively. He's improved every year, but he's still not very good at it. Lisi was unfit, played no defense, and had a huge chip on his shoulder. Nelsen took two-thirds of a season to settle into the back line, and by then United's ship was sunk. Santino was an instant hit, but as he does every year, he was injured as well. But I wonder how different Rongen's teams would have been thought of had Reyes and a Dmid joined a year earlier.

-Digital

[ursula]

Rongen had strengths and weaknesses. One strength was identifying good young talent, but he wasn't as good at identifying veteran defenders. Similarly, he coached a very nice attacking team, but he didn't stress enough defense, nor did he preach ball-winning in midfield. Another thing that contributed mightily to his demise was his teams inability--both offensively and defensively--on set pieces. Late game defensive breakdowns cost us a lot of games. The players weren't fit, and he wasn't enough of a hardazz to impress upon them that fitness was required.

He won a championship with Arena's players, but he didn't crack the whip hard enough in the offseason and the next season the defense didn't come back in with enough committment, and we totally sucked, despite having all-star talent in every defensive position. Then the salary cap hit us hard and we had to unload Agoos and Llamosa, the lynch pins of our defense. While we kept Pope, he always missed so many games from injuries and USMNT committments, he wasn't dependable and never really had good chemistry with the stop-gap defenders he was playing alongside. We had no left back, right back, or Dmid, and when Pope was out, we had no central defenders.

Nelsen was brought in to play Dmid, but he couldn't handle it as a rookie. Eventually he moved to the back line and paired well with Pope. By the end of Rongen's last season, Kamler had nailed down the left back spot fairly well. But the team still lacked a Dmid (because Richie was in the swamp then) and a right back. Rongen tried for a long time to acquire Reyes for right back, but he was too expensive. IMHO, if Rongen had gotten Reyes and a Dmid, he'd have done just fine and possibly had United fighting for a chance in another MLS Cup. But, by the time he assembled a half-decent group of defenders, the veteran attackers--most notably Moreno--had totally tuned him out.

When Zaidie was here, he really was atrocious defensively. He's improved every year, but he's still not very good at it. Lisi was unfit, played no defense, and had a huge chip on his shoulder. Nelsen took two-thirds of a season to settle into the back line, and by then United's ship was sunk. Santino was an instant hit, but as he does every year, he was injured as well. But I wonder how different Rongen's teams would have been thought of had Reyes and a Dmid joined a year earlier.

-Digital

Good post as this mostly sums up what happened. But i think there are two more specific points to be made:

- Olsen's injuries not so coincidentally started in 2000. Remember Benny was just about to come into his own that awful year and between various injuries to Etch and Moreno and the other forward position being a black hole (see below) Olsen, if healthy, could have been a major creative force for the offense. Then that winter he went to Forrest and banged his ankle and then was lost for two more years while still counting against the cap.

- The Albright for Lassiter swap. Regardless of weather Rocket Roy was washed up in 2000 we didn't replace him at all and so this was another blow to the offense.

To sum up although the defense did collapse in 2000 under TR, I always felt that the offense was at least as much to blame as we became a possession orientated team that no longer was threatening thus putting more pressure on our defense that was reasonable.

Over 2001, with new players, TR built up the offense to be the beginnings of an effective unit. Unfortunately he never could fix the defensive side of things. Hudson did that, but at the expense of the development of the offense.