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Kevin Payne - more tone deaf than umm, everyone
Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 08:30 AM by Aaron Stollar
Not seen out of frame, the past laurels Kevin Payne is resting on.
Kevin Payne decided to blow off some steam in an interview with the Washington Post's Steven Goff last night. Payne sounds a little bit flustered and more than a little bit defensive.
Quote:
"We don't want to play like Colorado or New England, which most of the season sat with eight or nine guys behind the ball. How many people go to watch Colorado or New England play? That's a problem for our league. We can't play like we're a team desperately trying to remain in 14th place in the Premiership. Our market isn't there yet.
Quote:
They want to see something that is entertaining, and D.C. United has always had a way of playing. Given a choice, we would rather attack than cynically defend. You look at the way Real Salt Lake played when they came here [a 0-0 tie in May] and sat 10 guys behind the ball. You don't have to do that. Sometimes that is the best way to get a result -- if you don't care about the product, if you don't care about advertising your league. Long term, who wants to watch that?"
Quote:
"There are a lot of games in our league that I can't watch. The problem in our league isn't who is or isn't in the playoffs; it's that not enough people want to watch our league yet, and we have to convince them that our league is worth watching. I don't think [playing conservatively] is the way to do it. I recognize there is more than one way to skin a cat. I'm not saying that everyone has to play an attacking style, but that is our style and identity, and we have to be honest with ourselves and say there are sometimes liabilities [such as missing the playoffs] that come with it.
Quote:
"We still have a lot more trophies in our case than everybody else, so I think in the long run, it's the right thing to do.
Quote:
This league is changing [a smaller percentage of teams will make the playoffs as MLS expands by three over the next two seasons] and we are going to see more of that kind of [defensive] approach: results at any cost."
Hey Kevin, do you know what single thread runs through all these requests? Can you, through the fog of your own hot air, see it?
I'll make it simple for you.
Stop talking.
You can talk when we win. Until then, shut up and stop embarassing this club.
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He also thinks Kaspar is "the best in the league at his job."
Staggering. Truly staggering.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 08:51 AM by monster 
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Believe it or not, I am willing to give Kaspar another shot. We've been hamstrung by dead money on our cap for so long that I think he might have been trying to build a roster with "one hand tied behind our backs." He may be an idiot. I just think he might not have gotten a fair shot to prove he isn't one.Quote:Originally Posted by monster
He also thinks Kaspar is "the best in the league at his job."
Staggering. Truly staggering.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 08:57 AM by Aaron Stollar 
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I don't disagree with one word that he said. (Well, maybe the bit about RSL, who can, when they choose, play some of the pretties ball in the league.) But he shouldn't be saying it to a reporter less than a week after his team failed to make the playoffs.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 10:08 AM by Q*bert Jones III
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I'll give Kev a pass on blowing off steam. Jealousy often comes across as anger in the powerful (relatively speaking).
But ... we are sounding more and more like Liverpool these days.
"We Win Trophies" "Tradition" yadayadayada ... what have we done lately. Like Liverpool, our glory is all past. We need to turn this ship around.
From my perspective, his stadium comments were even more depressing. "Outside the Beltway" "We'd have to rebuild the fanbase in Baltimore, but getting a stadium is paramount", etc etcPosted 27 Oct 2009 at 10:22 AM by Mullet&Talon
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The funny thing is that two of the teams he rapped, Colorado (42) and RSL (43), scored more or less as many goals as his practitioners of jogo bonito (43).
The difference is, of course, that those two teams also occasionally play some defense and thus ended the season with positive goal differentials (and in RSL's case, the fourth highest in the league), while DC was on the negative side of the ledger.
Maybe if DC had occasionally played a little more defensively, he could be watching them in the playoffs instead of whining about teams that did manage to qualify.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 10:25 AM by ElJefe
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Kevin Payne should shut the ******** up, he sounds like a stupid arrogant prick, the Revs managed to make the play-offs for the eighth straight time playing with a depleted roster all year and by beating the defending champions on their home turf when a draw would've been good enough.
RSL not only outdraw DC and have their own stadium, but earned their play-off spot by playing mostly attractive soccer and winning when they needed to, as opposed to his own team who choked when they needed not to.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 10:50 AM by CLEATS
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STFU Kevin Payne and get a god damn stadium deal, or put a decent squad in the field next year, or you'll see the 14k average attendance go down to 10K or even less in the coming seasons!!.
STFU and get to work!!Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 11:00 AM by Willito
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I don't agree with with the "no meaningful trophies since 2004" criticism, because I don't think MLS Cup is the only meaningful domestic trophy. But that doesn't affect my frustration over his comments, or my belief that the Dave Kasper era has been solid mediocrity punctuated by a few brief moments of joy. Rather than repeating what you've said, and some of the posters here and elsewhere have said, I'll just say this: the very first thing I thought of when I read Goff's blog entries was how Redskins-like it all seemed. It was as if the management of the team is living in a different world. It reminded me of KP chiding me for asking (in an online chat back in August) what we were going to do to solve our offensive issues. At the time, we were leading the league in goals scored; KP told me that that was proof we didn't have any significant offensive issues. I read his reply and thought "Jesus, are you watching the games?! What planet are you on?" It just seems divorced from reality.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 11:39 AM by Bootsy Collins
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Aaron, I have to insist you dial down the meds a bit, my friend
Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 12:32 PM by fatbastard
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I think Payne is looking at the league and saying "why can't we get butts in the seat. We've got good players, but our games are boring. If we want to get more people in the season without following the Alexi Lalas thought process, then we need coaches who are more apt to 'throw caution to the wind' and attack than to sit back and defend."
I would probably use the same criticism of our National team. Particular when playing in Mexico. There's no reason why we should have lost in Mexico in August. That was a completely win-able game after Davies put the US on top.
But to Paynes point, he's probably just saying this to eliminate some of the coaching candidates out there.Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 01:48 PM by TCompton
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