Hottest team in the league? By winning a few games in September/October and then getting smoked in the playoffs? Is that what passes for hot now? That's a very low bar. And it hasn't been a few games. It's been years...he has a losing record. What other pro soccer coach on the planet gets this much rope?
I ask the same question I have been asking. Who are you going to replace him with??? And anyone is not a valid answer.
It's not our jobs to know the market inside and out. It's the FO and owners who have that responsibility. It's quite all right for a fan to make note that other teams seem to do OK finding better coaching talent without having a binder full of alternatives ready to go.
I agree Olsen gets a lot of rope. The reason he gets a lot of rope is because, somehow, with the lowest roster investment in the league, his teams manage to put together hot stretches like the 31 goals in 12 games we saw last year. They always start off slow, they're always riddled with injury, and the tactics are always up for debate. I'd like to see that stop. We all know that's down to coaching - we build through the spring and peak in the summer. Maybe that's what you have to do with a roster like this, or maybe it's just the worst preseason preparation in all of history. But, dollar for dollar, this team should be in the bottom three every year and somehow, we aren't. In fact, Olsen's win/loss record is positive in each of the last three years. Look, I don't like being a borderline playoff team any more than you do, but the idea that we can take this budget or this roster or this development program and build a team that will win MLS cup is a bad-news-bears script. Right now, we have the talent and tactics to be a mid-table team, despite those things, and the reason we are doing really poorly instead of only moderately poorly at this point in the season is injury, and it's not broken hips. The reason we're not winning MLS cup is a different discussion. Olsen and Kasper are not the problems there, either. If you don't think Schweinsteiger would make an immediate difference on this squad despite Olsen's terrible-awful-no-good coaching, nothing I say is going to convince you. I'd be fine hiring another coach - there are probably dozens out there that could do as well as Olsen. They'd certainly go about it differently, and that would be refreshing. But I just think that's deckchairs, and the one thing I can say for this organization is they make an effort to take care of their own. On the margin then, I'm for keeping him, because although that's a double edged sword, I like the way it swings.
I would settle for binders full of women, but then that's always been my position. Or maybe a "trapper keeper" full of women.
Going to echo the "not my problem" to find a coach but add that no good coach will touch this pile of under invested garbage with yours.
Yes, DCU has a low payroll, but other teams with similar payrolls do better. I don't expect DCU to be top of the table every year, but they make really bad talent decisions, wildly overpaying mediocre or worse players. This has been going on the entire time Olsen has been here.I mean, I'm pretty sure we could find someone to do what Marcelo Sarvas or Sean Franklin does for $120K. I'd rather see younger, hungrier players....at least if they lose it would seem like they are trying, and maybe they would develop into something.
Do you think the current ownership and FO have the capability to hire the right people to fill the Olsen/Kasper role?
I can appreciate that sentiment - really I can. I want to believe that those players are just out there ready to be picked from the vine. But to be clear, you want us to be Dallas or NJ. Total payroll last year was 5.2M (19th of 20). At the end of last season we were above or within a point of every other team under 8.4M (6th of 20). 2 out of 14 teams do measurably better than us with their salary restrictions (and that 14 includes teams that had an extra couple million to splash around). And for the why, you really have to look at academies. We don't wildly overpay for talent. They underpay for talent in an official capacity, because they foster it themselves. You can bet in addition to their payrolls, they're spending bank on their youngsters. In fact, we know Dallas is spending $3M a year to DC's 1.5M. So if you can lay the academy structure and budget at Olsen's feet, go right ahead. Look, I don't like watching this train wreck any more than you do. I'm just trying to identify the root cause here. Olsen's got his flaws - I'm not denying that, but dang. You can't say his teams underperform expectations. If they do, they're the unrealistic expectations that we as fans set. When he and Kasper have an average MLS payroll to work with and can't make the playoffs, you bring the pitchforks and I'll bring the torches.
The amount of money spent is not an issue in the Academy. How poorly it is run is. It used to be one of the best Academies around, and has been run into the ground. Players routinely leave due to dissatisfaction. Talented players. That is not on Olsen, but he did hire the Academy Director who ran it into the ground as his Assistant Coach, so clearly he's not getting it. As for "underperforming expectations", I don't have to say it, Ben will for me: “Everyone else gets to use the excuse card or the injury card,” he said. “We have some pieces that will help us, but put that aside for a second: The group we have right now, yes, it’s good enough to win games in this league.” “There are a whole bunch of ways to win games when you are not at your best,” Olsen said. “We’re not finding ways to do that.” His own quotes indicate coaching failure. If you're team is good enough, but not winning, then that's on the coaching staff.
I agree with your assessment of the Academy, but I'm saying baseline, you can't expect one academy to outperform another that has twice the budget. It takes both money and management. DC wanted Ryan Martin in, so they moved Sheldon to a recently vacated 4th coaching position, which as an A and EFC license holder, he's overqualified for, and is, pointedly, director of nothing. It's the equivalent of sending a division head to the mailroom and one step from the door. Maybe it'll suit him, but I suspect he ends up somewhere else within a year. What's Ben going to say? "This team's not good enough. Without certain players, this group doesn't have the skill required to execute a gameplan and expect a result. We're going to lose and lose badly until Nyarko, Mullins and Acosta get back on the field together for three games straight, our defense starts following runners (which they damned well know how to do), and someone locks up the DM position. There, I said it. While we're at it, I can't stand you people! Buy Volvo - they're boxy but good." My point wasn't about this particular series of games, it was that it isn't about this particular series of games. It isn't about the slow starts, or the midseason trades, or crashing out of the finals. When the team's on fire, it isn't about that series of games either. Olsen's figured out how to get better than average results on a season-long basis with very likely the lowest owner expenditure in the league on payroll and development by some margin, three years running. We're keeping this thread alive long past its due date. So I give up. You're right. Fire him.