Following up on the announcement yesterday, I wanted to be a little bit more specific to this audience. We are not good enough; at identifying, signing, preparing or playing. We need that to change and change quickly. When we purchased the team our expectations were to develop something special in this league. To date, we have not done that, and that is largely my responsibility. None of what has transpired is do to a lack of effort or commitment. Our principal owners, Mr. Patterson and Illig are extremely dedicated to the high-performance success of this organization and are as disappointed as anyone in the results of the team this past season. Our plan is to build something that wins and wins consistently. And the plan is to win now; we are not rebuilding. This offseason is critical to the organization and we are going to provide the resources necessary to go in to next season with a full quiver. As such, we will be adding an additional assistant coach, as well as a full time scouting director. Physically, we want to make sure our players have every opportunity to showcase themselves in the best light and we are adding additional fitness and nutritional personnel to the effort. We need to be more broad in our approach and have trips scheduled or in process to Africa, Central and South America and Europe to identify players. If it makes sense to sign a designated player, we will. Our player development program needs to be much more vertically integrated and we need to start building a pipeline of local players to support this team in the future. This isn't something that will produce results today, but it is a key part of the long-term strategy. Additionally, we need Rideout, Parry and all of our Juniors coaches to be more involved in the Senior team so there is a better connection. We need to keep key players on this roster for the long-term and do everything we can to develop them in to front line players, or enhance their skills if they are already at that level. We need to build a world class stadium and promote it and the team in such a way that our brand resonates in the region - that one's completely on me. Will the plan work? - it's sports and it's never that clear; but I will let you know that I believe that Peter is the right leader, and I commit that we'll do everything we can strategically and financially to support the plan. Thanks for all your comments and supporting the club. rh
Thanks for the update Robb. I'm glad to hear more focus will be placed on scouting and development. Even with just one additional Nyassi/Pappa type discovery over the past couple years, the team might have found more success. It doesn't even have to be a young foreign player. Maybe getting a guy like Brian Carroll would have helped more. Can we get any additional info on the fitness issue brought up by Peter? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what he means by that, but unless we have guys that are dogging it, how do we have fitness issues midseason? Is the issue really work ethic, or that our players aren't good enough athletes to begin with? I don't remember late game defensive collapses as much as not being able to create a lead for much of the summer.
Wanted to focus on these 2 points. 1. Any clue on when you're planning to announce the hiring of those two positions? I like the idea of a full time scouting director, it seems like our scouting in the past has been a little less than stellar so bringing in a person who that is their sole job will certainly help I think. Hopefully it's someone with plenty of contacts around the world. 2. I definitely agree with the second point, get the Juniors more connected with the first team. I know it can't be completely like in Europe, but having the Juniors players have some sort of connection to the first team players would help in the long run. Get a connection between the players and their youth counterparts to build that connection and respect for the team as a whole.
Robb, I appreciate the update on the plans. Yesterday's announcement didn't generate much excitement because it appeared more business as usual. If you can implement this plan, I am more optimistic about next year and the long-term future of the Club. Good luck on signing players as we definitely need a significant upgrade of the roster.
I don't know about that, Gansler has very few real successes in the SI scouting department. Molnar came here more because of his relationship with Henderson not Gansler's scouting. His best successes in bringing in SI's were probably Igor and Lowe (although Lowe was already in the US), maybe van den Bergh but I don't remember how much of that was him and how much was van den Bergh wanting to play in the US. Many of the rest of his acquisitions were a who's who of the likes of Fabbro, Sumiala, Hue, and Rasovic. The other question is his age. At 68 does he want to be doing that
I'm not a wizards supporter, however, for me, at least you got an A on effort! I think that the foundation for a good team are there. Lets see if the implementation turns out as good as planned. Keep the good work
So... the insiders knew Preki was available... but, either chose to not pursue him or could not persuade him to come back home...???
That would be disappointing. Anyway, I'm encouraged by the ID of possible holes and a seeming willingness to fill them while allowing PV to keep his Grand Pubah status and titles. Fair enough. This in addition to the outstanding communication. Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth...so get to it. Best of everything to the organization. I'd like to know there will be clear adjustments to the approach to playing at CAB. No need to announce what they are as the battle plans should be kept close, but certainy there is a need for a different organizational gameplan on field.
Interesting potential note on this from Ives: http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2009/11/mls-coaching-carousel-ready-to-spin.html#more
Robb tweeted that they have a verbal agreement with the new assistant coach, waiting for contract to be signed before announcing. I heard last night they had identified who they wanted for both the assistant coach and the scouting director but could not get any names.
Is Savic still an assistant on staff? He's not listed on the roster page but is listed on the staff page (where Vermes is still an interim head coach). And where did Kelderman end up?
Yes Savic is still assistant and they plan on having him next year as far as I know. Kelderman was fired with Onalfo.
Savic will be around for 2010 (as will Kerry and John Pascarella)... At least it keeps him out of the broadcast booth...
Sss So... with the close of the big show tonight... let's hear and see the plans for our SSS... SSS...SSS...SSS!!!
Hearing anything would be nice ........ even 'both plans are not dead' would work for me. Silence makes me nervous.
I asked a few questions the other night and did not get many answers. Various parts of the stadium design are being or have been finalized. They have been very busy working through the design and have not had time to put a rendering together. If they did stop to put a rendering out it would be obsolete in a couple days. The roof will cover every seat as planned. It sounds like the shape of the roof is different than the last drawings we saw. I asked where we stand with finalizing the stadium location and I was told there still should be a groundbreaking before the end of the year.
Six weeks and counting...... Makes you wonder if things will keep moving after the groundbreaking, or if we are being told this just to satisfy our need for progress. I would hate to see 3 or 4 year construction like RB Arena.
Wow....Thad with the breaking news. Well done, yet again! Now if somebody would just leak some news about the stadium, we would all feel a lot better............