Washington Times: Nowak reflects on rocky finish

[pokemoncards]

http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20060113-114452-7681r.htm

[gocaps]

Interesting to hear Nowak admit to making some mistakes last season, whatever those might have been. Stubbornness always seemed to be a weakness for him, but it's good to see him step up to the plate here.

[BBBulldog]

I never got stuborn idiot wibe from Nowak, just dude that believe in his system. :)

[Jose L. Couso]

His stubborness last year irritated me, but I guess he felt justified in his stubborness having won MLS Cup the previous year.

I wish he had given more rest to Moreno (he did to some extent with Gomez) and I wish he had kept his faith in Boswell in the middle (switching Erpen to a better suited and more needed outside back).

But as long as he realizes he made some mistakes and gets the team on the right track again, I am happy.

[AMERICANS SC]

Admitting to one's mistakes is a good start, correcting them makes one great.

[Dave Brother]

Good to see he's gettin his "shrink" on.

[Jegao Paraiba]

Interesting to hear Nowak admit to making some mistakes last season, whatever those might have been...

1. Poor substitution patterns. Leaving players that should come out in approx. min. 65 in the game until min. 80.
2. Overvaluing experience/veterans.

These two mistakes compounded eachother last year. I guess #1 can be a consequence of #2. Older players can tend to run down towards the end of games and the end of the season more than younger players.

Granted, without the success of the previous year, we may have been able to aviod being punished for these two tendencies. The CONCACAF Cup and the Copa Sudamerica really ensured that those chickens were going to come home to roost, though.

I would hope to see Peter being less "German" with regards to the younger players. It seems like "Peter the Punisher" comes out when dealing with the mistakes of Boswell or Freddy, but that there's no concern at all when a veteran occasionally phones one in. And which is the bigger sin?

Don't get me wrong. I like Perer and let's not forget that he's only been a coach for 2 years. If he is honest in his recognition of his mistakes and capable of correcting them (because he's certainly willing to do whatever it takes to win), I expect him and DC United to be successful.

[highlander]

Admitting to one's mistakes is a good start, correcting them makes one great.
This is a great point. I have always admired Nowak's ability to be brutally honest with himself and I was hoping to see these kinds of admissions. Despite his inflexible demeanor, I don't think that he holds anything back when assessing himself critically. Like he said in the article, he was a second year coach and he behaved like it.

Now comes the hard part - figuring out solutions and implementing them with much of the goodwill that he built up the first season gone. I think he can do it. Here's to hoping Poitr, Freddy and the rest of DC much success this season. We still have a good group of players, Poitr. The ball is still in your court.

[nobletea]

Good to see he's gettin his "shrink" on.

Very good to me cause sports psych is still my first choice profession.

[JoeW]

It's interesting to me when Nowak talks about the Adu-playoff deal. It sounds like:
--he is admitting he mishandled it and that he didn't know everything about the situation that he knows now.
--that he got a lot of advice from the players and that at least some of them were arguing to stick it to Adu. I've always felt that there was very little tension on the squad b/c of Adu but this seems to counter that: either some players viewed Freddy's comments as being indirectly critical of particular players OR they were highly unprofessional and divisive. In any case, while Nowak takes the blame he indicates that he listened to the squad and didn't have the full story, thus implying he'd have done it differently.
--interesting about his comment about the squad not being "hungry" enough. I'm not sure I saw that as the problem but that probably talks about working people harder, being more competitive.

Finally, I don't agree with the argument about him relying too much on veterans and jerking youth off when they make a mistake. I think Adu got pulled as an A-mid when he deviated from the game plan against NE. But Adu ended up 3rd in terms of PT when you look at central of the field attacking players--only Moreno and Gomez were ahead of him. There were plenty of examples of guys who earned PT or moved up the ladder as a result of work in practice or the reserves. We went into the season with a painfully young defense (Stokes as our first reserve?) and Nowak was comfortable with that. Some of this "jerking off youth after a mistake" seems directed at Boswell. Remember, Boswell started most of the season despite some terrible play against Chicago defensively and the own-goals: if it was about jerking him off when he made a mistake, he'd have not played after our Pumas road match.

[MattMathai]

Very good to me cause sports psych is still my first choice profession.

Serious question: how does the training for a job of sports psychologist differ from that of a 'regular' psychologist? Do you have to have a background in sport in order to have credibility with your subjects? Finally, how do you get your first job? IOW, how do you approach someone to say "I can help you win/succeed" with no experience to call upon?

[MattMathai]

--that he got a lot of advice from the players and that at least some of them were arguing to stick it to Adu.

Where did this come from? It wasn't in the article.

[ursula]

--interesting about his comment about the squad not being "hungry" enough. I'm not sure I saw that as the problem but that probably talks about working people harder, being more competitive.



This is the comment that worries me. At the end of last season the team looked tired, not satisfied, and extra work would only make the probelm worse. I worry that if he keeps this track then various players will start to tune him out.

[Wallydrag]

This is the comment that worries me. At the end of last season the team looked tired, not satisfied, and extra work would only make the probelm worse. I worry that if he keeps this track then various players will start to tune him out.

The series with U. Catolica during the CCC is what pops out in my mind regarding not playing hard. Especially the first game of that series the whole team seemed to be phoning it in and it eventually bit us in the ass in the 2nd game.

Too often I've see lackluster passing that end up in turnovers. There were several games where there was no sense of urgency. Not to say this doesn't happen to every team occasionally, but it was something the stuck out more than I'd like it to have during the season.

[nobletea]

Serious question: how does the training for a job of sports psychologist differ from that of a 'regular' psychologist? Do you have to have a background in sport in order to have credibility with your subjects? Finally, how do you get your first job? IOW, how do you approach someone to say "I can help you win/succeed" with no experience to call upon? Good question. Truth is I'm still in a process of answering those questions. There are a few actual sports psychology programs around. However, generally if you have some kind of reputable background in sports or any other highly competitive career path, and you are a licensed, etc, psychologist or counselor, then you can theoretically do it. Most often you spend your time at a college campus as a counselor and double working for the athletic programs. Seeing as the jobs are few and far between, and the path is long, and the pay isn't all that great, I'm passing up this career for the time being. It's in my back pocket.

[JoeW]

Where did this come from? It wasn't in the article.

You're correct--Nowak did not explicitly say (nor did the article) that players were lobbying for him to punish Adu severely. Here's what it did say however...

As for the situation with Adu, who was upset about not starting the last game of the regular season and hinted about playing elsewhere, Nowak said he felt it was important to give credit to all his players at the time.
"With the Freddy thing, everyone was talking about what I should do, but if someone had come up to me with the recipe on how to work with Freddy Adu, I would have used it," Nowak said. "Look, I was once the same kid [as Adu]. I was the same rebel. ... There was a misunderstanding, and I've talked to Freddy about it."

As I said in my post. "my take" on this is...
--Nowak heard from a bunch of people (including several or many players. From articles at the time time we know that team captain Moreno did approach Nowak about this and then publicly said it was a mistake for Adu to go public and it would distract the team).
--Nowak is saying that he was trying to listen to and give credit to his players. And interpret that to mean that when players came to him and said "man, this is out of line--you need to tell the kid you won't tolerate this nonsense" or something similar that Nowak felt he had to respect their contributions and advice.
--that knowing what he knows now, Nowak would have handled it differently.

Again, only my interpretation, but as opposed to Nowak saying "I was wrong--I analyzed it incorrectly" and interpreting Nowak to say "I was wrong--I got lots of different advice but didn't get the whole picture and with the info I have now I'd have done it differently." Now if it wasn't Nowak wanting to be draconian to Adu, who was it?

As for the work and fatigue, I'm kind of shocked that the team didn't hit a wall much earlier. Small roster, 4 cup competitions, twice we played 5 games in 15 days--that's a prescription for burnout. I interpret what happened at Chicago to several things:
--teams learned to play us better. Play directly and bypass our midfield. Don't let us counter or transition quickly--foul, especially our skill players. When in doubt, go down the flanks.
--we weren't hot and weren't playing well.
--Chicago played their best game of the year against us in game #2 at RFK.
--we didn't have a finisher who could steal points against the run of play. We had a great offense that generated scores most of the time, and except when teams found ways to congest midfield, foul our possession/creative types and slow up the game.

We still need to see what we can do about a finisher. We need to avoid injuries. We can add some more talent. But I think not being in 4 cup competitions will allow the team to focus better.

I think a continual challenge for Piotr Nowak (and people like him) is that very few people can treat everything as a priority and give 100% for 100% of the time. He said it right when he came here at the beginning: he wants to win everything. If he had a roster like Chelsea or another top side (where you have two legitimate starting lineups) than he might. But if you have 14 legitimate starters and a few good subs, you need to pick your shots. For someone like Nowak, it's very hard to learn when to tone it down--to stop fighting and aim for the next one.

[John L]

A real first - DC United in Washington Times in the off-season

Nowak may have mis-handled the whole Freddy thing at the end of the season - But he certainly couldn't have ignored it either - He had to discipline ANY player who spoke out like that - What he should have done is listen more to Olsen ("Yeah - I said a lot of dumb things when I was his age" - or words to that effect) - And remembered more how immature he may have been at Freddy's age too - And this is a different era than when Nowak was Freddy's age - A game suspension might have been the norm then, but nowadays?? - Perhaps talking with Freddy and coming up with an agreed-upon discipline - Well, perhaps

Actually, the sports psychologist thing is a really good sign - So is the realization that "players are fragile"

[DoctorD]

I think a continual challenge for Piotr Nowak (and people like him) is that very few people can treat everything as a priority and give 100% for 100% of the time. He said it right when he came here at the beginning: he wants to win everything. If he had a roster like Chelsea or another top side (where you have two legitimate starting lineups) than he might. But if you have 14 legitimate starters and a few good subs, you need to pick your shots. For someone like Nowak, it's very hard to learn when to tone it down--to stop fighting and aim for the next one.
You can pencil a Western Conference team as the winner of the 2006 USOC now. Both DCU and NE exhausted themselves by the season end. Nicol already sends out scrubs for the USOC anyway. The East will not be any less competitive next year and I bet all Eastern coaches will learn the lessons of 2005 and rest every starter for the USOC games.

[bridgeviewturd]

1. Poor substitution patterns. Leaving players that


I would hope to see Peter being less "German" with regards to the younger players. It seems like "Peter the Punisher" comes out when dealing with the mistakes of Boswell or Freddy, but that there's no concern at all when a veteran occasionally phones one in. And which is the bigger sin?

.


Yeah because Nowak getting Bundesliga player of the year and Germany consistently being in the upper crust of world soccer.

How the hell wouldnt we want to mimic them?? Dont think for seconde Bruce Arena is easy going. Arena may be just as stubborn as Nowak if not more so in some ways.

IN fact i want more German and less candy ass which is seem to be the norm for US sports and its players and antics.

The coach is the coach, right or wrong its his way our your out. Otherwise you may as well have 11 player-coaches out there.

Nowak is a special breed where PC people of the world cant handle.. Well to freaking bad. I love his style and if you guys dont like it you are more than welcome to let him go and he can bring his German attitude to Chicago anyday

[JoeW]

You can pencil a Western Conference team as the winner of the 2006 USOC now. Both DCU and NE exhausted themselves by the season end. Nicol already sends out scrubs for the USOC anyway. The East will not be any less competitive next year and I bet all Eastern coaches will learn the lessons of 2005 and rest every starter for the USOC games.

I've got to disagree. Some teams (NE I believe was one, definitely SJ) don't take the USOC seriously. To automatically say it's going to the West is absurd.

I don't think DCU was exhausted at the end. I think it was mostly about people learning how to play us--so we've got to adjust (or get a striker who can steal points against the run of play). We weren't playing well but I don't think that was about fatigue. It was mostly about the opposition.

Ditto with NE. Metro played a similar style against them as they did to us: congest the middle, foul Shalrie Joseph like crazy (these first two deny service to Twellman--man was he lonesome that series), deny quick transitions, play directly, attack down the flanks. Combined with: Dempsey was great the first third of the season and then cooled down PLUS that team just wasn't the same after the Gold Cup--their chemistry was affected.