I totally agree. I guess, personally, I just don't see a problem with an almost total rebuild. That's probably an overreaction but if it were going to happen this would be an ideal time. Expectations are low and at least you could buy Cabrera some slack by littering the squad with youngsters and seeing how they do against first-team opposition. Then we could follow your proposal and if they don't "cut the mustard" then down to RGV they go. It's somewhat of an extremist's view on how to go forward but I'm ready to hit the reset button. We had a good run but all of the original Dynamos are gone and so is our leadership. I'm ready to start over and try to find a next generation of players to carry the mantle of Barrett, DeRo, Ching, and Davis. It would probably take time, but I would welcome it.
It is fine to restructure our cap situation. It is fine to leave open slots for the upcoming windows. I wouldn't mind if the team got younger. However, it competes in a first team league with teams that recruit like they give a sh*t, and while running out younger players to end a season is evaluation, doing so to start the season is basically being cheap and uncompetitive. You have to start accumulating some winning pieces each window. Some of those pieces may be young. But basically the best players regardless of age should start during the competitive portions of the season. Also, with RGV around this is no longer a "where else will they play" issue. We no longer need to shoehorn a player into some first team minutes so they do play. We can send them to RGV and play them every minute every week. I don't mind us signing some young Castillo or few but that's primarily "I want talent" with "youth" as a cherry on top. But if someone plays like Torres I don't care if it's a youth movement, until Bruin is gone he plays better.
So small sample size (since winning the "Desert Diamond Cup" doesn't count for much) and all, but which one of these two is more "triggered" (whatever the hell that means) after two regular season games? 2 wins for hispanic head coach, 2 goals for hispanic star (well, kind'uv a star) in houston... Six mentions for the Dynamo for Team of the Week over the first two weeks (Torres x2, Elis, Quioto, Alex, and even Cabrera)... The Cubo, Elis and Quioto show in Houston Did MLS make highlight videos for any of the scoreless draws under Barrett? What's Barrett up to these days, surely one of the other 60 professional soccer teams in America has scooped up such a hot commodity (letter of recommendation provided by Will Bruin)?
We are two games into the new regime. Remember, last year how great the Houston Dynamo were after tying New England and beating Dallas. Wade talked repeatedly about the need to get better attacking players last year. I don't get how the job Matt Jordan and Owen Coyle (and to a partial responsibility Wade because he was an assistant coach) in putting this roster together is all his fault because now the team is playing well. I said at the time, I prefer Wilmer as I think Wilmer will make our attack better including specifically getting something out of Cubo, but Wade did fine during his limited time. So no need for the hot commodity/60 other professional soccer teams crap. He's a club legend.
If he just put "fine during his limited time" on his resume surely he'd have another coaching gig by now... lol
Any chance you'll emerge from your "safe space" with an update on what's working out better after two and a half months, Wade Barrett's coaching career or the fortunes of the Hispanic coach and Hispanic kind'uv stars in Houston? First in the west in points, fourth in the league in PPG, most goals scored in MLS, tied for the most wins, undefeated at home... 8G 1A for Torres, 5G 1A Quioto, 4G 2A Elis, 3G 1A Manotas... the only non-Hispanic red-blooded American that's putting up big numbers is some dude named "Alex" with 6 assists!
And your point is? Hispanics are good at soccer? The 2016 roster was garbage? And all of our Hispanic-centered roster is really bringing in massive amounts of that community into the stadium? BTW, they don't hand out trophies in May - last year's champs were at the bottom of the West in May
Its only because we shipped the great white hope to Seattle. Now that we arent playing short handed every game, anything is possible.
Rico Beasely Willis De La Garza are the starting Americans Wenger Memo are the American subs 1/3 of the team that plays still has an American identity. I wish it was more but they don't want to pay for a Dempsey / Altidore / Bradley USMNT player. However, aparently the Dynamo FO is willing to overpay for a second tier MNT fringe player. LOL
Of course, if there is a race conversation, Westside jumps in and stirs people up. If it's about sexual preferences, Westside stirs it up again. If it about politics or about poor people abusing the system, he's in the middle of it. Westside is a virtuoso puppetmaster! He doesn't have to say anything openly racist, or homophobic. All he has to do is encourage people to correct him, and let people go at it. That's the part I don't understand: Even folks who appear to be smart fall for his antics and walk into his seductive trap.
BTW!!! If you used to listen to the Keeper Notes Soccer Show, i predicted back in 2012ish that our roster would look less and less like the San Jose Dynamos and more and more of what we have now. I even said and I'll quote myself "we may even have a fringe Mexican NT player on our roster *audible gasp* to the chagrin of some of our fan base". <===true story One of the reasons Dom lost me was as he saw the league internationalize itself he kept holding on to rosters composed heavily of products of the NCAA system. Even his internationals came through the system. When history will tell you that when a league expands/improves too quickly it's pushes out the domestic player in favor of imported help. I personally saw it happen in the Liga MX from the 70s - today and I personally saw it happen in the Premiership post Bosman ruling. I predict that it won't be long before someone in MLS pulls an Arsenal and starts an all foreign starting XI. I thought it was going to be Dallas, but it may be the Dynamos and that's something I would've never predicted. I have more. Buy me beer and I'll do a whole show for you.
Look, some guy from La Raza or something came in here and turned the thing racial and keeps taking shots every few weeks or so, although I don't think I've seen a single post that thought keeping Barrett and Bruin was a good idea by anyone on this board. I can almost guarantee he's probably not buying Dynamo tickets either
I thought Dax McCarty always fcked it up and made it a starting foreign X? If you wanna read more: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/feat...ment-domestic-foreign-talent-global-challenge
I don't think it's racial per se, I think there is a decent -- not great, but decent -- match between personnel and scheme for a change. Last year we ended the season playing bunker soccer with a team that was actually poor on defense. I understand it was fingers in the leaking dyke but it was covering up a weakness rather than playing to strength. This year we have only slightly better a defense -- and not even in the stats -- but we feel free to play to strengths and that makes a lot of difference. The team last year had some offense -- as shown by the 11 goals in 3 games to start the season -- but we ultimately decided to maintain more control and earn regular results (ties) by playing a lower risk strategy. The back 7 is somewhat better this season which frees us to play offense. Also, I felt like last season with the bunker system the offense had become crossing against teams sitting back. We lacked speed to flank teams. We lacked technique to combo the ball through them. And then when we crossed we weren't actually suited to that, it was just what we could manage. So you had poor defense and an offense not suited to personnel. We now knock it wide early and press high and have fast players to do it. We can score in a number of ways and have players suited to doing that. We haven't really had a match between personnel and team since the golden years. That style might have been grinding but Ching was a striker and DeRo was a 10 and the wings were wings and most of the defense could play. I do think we can use some work on mids and defense and keeping but the forward line is quite suited to the aim, with perhaps the exception of Torres, who contributes with kicks. We've been trending Hispanic in recent years, though not to this degree, but I think it's more scheme fit and Hispanic would be less the point. Particularly, the Latins on the backline could probably also play bunker ball or a 442 and be fine. So it's more scheme fit specific to the forwards, who, yes, are predominantly Hispanic.
The one area where I think heritage matters is that if we're going to sign this many Hispanics it was not a bad idea to hire a coach who is a native Spanish speaker but has been here long enough he is also fluent in English. Whether the coaching itself is any good is another question but in the abstract that makes sense.
If we want the fan-race argument shot down, what percentage STH are Hispanics, were they fine with the Early Kinnear teams, and is the issue really lack of success? It's not white fans fleeing for Bruin and Barrett or Hispanic fans flooding in for this team, it's lack of success and a lag in terms of commercial response. People for years supported teams here that were mostly white Americans, Canadians, Jamaicans......that won.
It's funny to slag on Dom and I guess I will always be the token Dom apologist as I think a huge reason why Dom 2.0 was Dom 2.0 is that he had an ownership group that vetoed some of his DP acquisitions. Regardless, it's early, but he seems to be doing well so far in San Jose right now. Four road points and undefeated at home. San Jose's schedule to date (4H, 7 A) has been the opposite of Houston's (7 H, 3A) so I would anticipate when the home matches even out Dom 2.0 will be doing just fine in the playoff race.
I think the failure to get to the next level in the last couple years of his tenure is a joint thing between Dom and the ownership. Dom deserves credit for retooling after the 2010 and 1st half of 2011 bottom out and taking the team back to MLS Cups. For every story I heard about how ownership is cheap there was another story about how Dom didn't think one guy should make that much more than everybody else so I'm not sure who to believe. The failure to have anything resembling a competent academy and homegrown program is completely on the FO even if Dom didn't care because the kids were 3-5 years away from helping him. Even today they tweeted something like homegrown to home debut or something about Memo Rodriguez, like him playing 17 minutes is a massive organizational success
LOL it is when you look at the rest of their Academy successes. I agree with you wholeheartedly that Dom deserves some negative on his tooling of the Academy. That being said, I would say even as GM/Coach - that really has little to do with him and should be handled by the Front Office (even if you are the GM) as they pull the financial strings. I don't think Dom had much input into the hiring of Clarkson for instance.