If we have a brain we are retiring Clark out of the question next offseason? year after that? With questionable Cabezas being what would be left, and he's on loan. He's making nearly $300k and I don't see that much player. Personally I'd like to see them scrap the whole midfield and start over. But at minimum you have 2 DM decisions to be made next offseason and IMO not in the affirmative. Forward is pretty good. Defense is poor and needs tons of work, I ain't acting like that's not the problem also. But when we're getting run around mid ballpark in second halves or failing to complete passes to the forwards, who is doing that? And I've seen Cabezas at least twice not track a man who combo passed through the defense and got the ball back and scored. Jozy for TFC being the one I specifically remember. So I throw DM in with the defense.
Clark has earned the right to retire when he wants. Hes got a couple years left in him. Maybe 3. Depends on injuries, naturally, and wear and tear. Fortunately the team is addressing the latter right now.
I really like Cabezas. He's been enjoyable to watch, after years of really mediocre CDMs. He has the highest Passing Success on the team this season at 87% He has the highest amount of tackles per game by far at 3.6
Yeah, thought he started slow when he actually played early in this season, but he's more and more come into his own.
He's no Rico Clark (kind of like Bruin and Weaver weren't Ching), next....... You hire DMs to smash people and shut down playmakers, and he is a hint slow and doesn't do the primary task well enough so far. Whether he completes his passes doesn't tell me if he does the primary gig well enough.
Why is the title of this forum "Better football than the Texans" Why are we starting fights with football fans? they are two different sports
This is sort of funny: FIFA is getting so realistic it's nailing dynamo attendance pic.twitter.com/L01Jp92gKo— Ay (@aceodonnell10) June 1, 2017
Absolutely irrelevant for a single pivot. He's breaking up plays, tackling rate is higher than predecessors and current teammates, and has a very high passing success rate.
Don't be silly. There is a reason CFC is top of the league with Kante at 6 (as he has been for 2 straight champions), and that Romeu is long since gone to down-table Saints. Positioning, passing, etc. matter, but the ability to cover ground is key to playing DM well. It's a running sport and speed matters everywhere. Speed dominates in position and fixes mistakes when you're out of it. He was chasing the play a few times even in that laugher Weds. Against teams like Toronto he has allowed goals where he lost his man and couldn't keep up. We're going to pretend there was no reason he has been in and out of the lineup I guess. Surely you understand his regular spot came after the Alexander injury, and you know what I think of him. Until then they were rotating the three of them including Clark. Again, to me the deal is, that's an OK DM, not $300k worth of player. He's on loan and if he is not everything we want, go fish again. The midfield gets its tail handed to it in road games and some home second halves. I choose to not pretend that's no one's fault or just the defense. The only one still worth a hoot is Alex and I am not sure if given enough cap room that's my 10. You'll fight me on this, the defense will get refreshed next offseason but not the mids, and we will still be chasing around losing the midfield battles. What we basically do right now is not individual smart position defense but a combination of zone and overcommitted swarming. I am sure swarming racks up tackles. I am sure it also makes you vulnerable like the U-10 kids who defend that way also.
Kante's speed is not what makes him great. There are plenty of faster, better athletes. Kante is great because of his brain. One of the greatest DMs of our era is downright glacial in Sergio Busquets.
How convenient Canetti comes on when the team is near the top of the West 871790199474278400 is not a valid tweet id
I missed most of the interview this far but Canetti is full of crap saying the reason they are behind FC Dallas is because they had a "10-year head start in their market". FCD tanked their own market in the first 10 years until they got their new stadium in 2005. Dynamo were asleep at the switch and cheap for so many years is why they are behind. Now talking about the focus they are putting on the U-10, which will help in 2026
Canetti just said media makes stars, not advertising and marketing. Blaming the media boogeyman for not making stars. Translation: too cheap to spend money so if we don't get it for free it doesn't happen
Talking about all of the Hispanic social media activity, bilingual announcements, "multicultural" music played at games - which has yielded a huge drop in attendance. Apparently he reads the "Mexican Fan Yetti" fairy tale to his kids at bedtime.
Went back and listened to some more of the show - the hardest question came from the Danish Inspirations furniture guy who asked about poor attendance and atmosphere which Canetti then pivoted into blaming much of the falloff to having bad Tv deals the last few years and that it's "hard to build a fan base when your product isn't fully distributed" on Tv. Funny, but the Astros have seemed to do pretty well only being on Root Sports, huh? Every year or two Canetti recycles excuses about what has caused this team to be driven off into the ditch. He keeps citing 200% TV rating growth and 400% growth if you look at last 15 minutes of last nights game broadcast, with no discussion or insight into the absolute rating numbers. It's like his media appearance quotes are plucked right from his Brener Sports self-assessment performance review BTW, the Astros bandwagon is gonna steamroll a lot of stuff this summer.
On the second hour of the show at the 7:30 mark Glenn asks about what is the cause of the attendance drop and what needs to be done and NOT ONCE in the list of ten things that Canetti listed was customer service ever mentioned. Still doesn't fully get it - just hired more sales guys (we have 29 now) instead of investing in the customer experience
One last thought: Glenn was talking about how much more exciting the team was this year compared to prior years and how he and Eddie love coming to the games and Canetti chimes in with " last year every time Alex got the ball he was looking to pass back where this year he is looking to pass forward offensively and that's just a FACT" implying that Wade did a crappy job or played too defensively - which is probably correct but is not a fact, but an opinion. And Wade was also the guy they put on conference calls with season-ticket holder's to take slings and arrows on behalf of the club that made a horrific decision to hire Owen Coyle which put the team in a huge hole last year - and his thanks is to get tacitly pushed under the bus. Here's some FACTS for Canetti: 1) No playoffs for 3 consecutive seasons where 60% of the teams make the postseason 2) 2017 average attendance is below the final season average at Roberson and down 15% since 2014 3) Dynamo Academy have produced no MLS starters
Dallas has never won a title and we were outdrawing them day 1. Dallas' current success is the product of a dedicated concept of how to staff their team up, Latin players plus local HGP plus draft picks basically. I think I remember Danish Inspirations guy from the HFA.
I will give Canetti credit for two things: 1) he has acknowledged now that they made some mistakes with hiring Coyle and some other player acquisition moves over the last couple years so they do own that up to a point before the excuses kick in 2) man, does he have an excuse in response for just about everything even if it's nonsensical. In the span of the interview last night he cited FC Dallas' 10 year head start AND Atlanta riding the wave of MLS today as excuses for poor academy development and attendance. Completely ignoring the Dynamo have 4 MLS cup appearances and a new downtown stadium but are somehow at a disadvantage compared to every other club in the league because we launched in 2006. The next excuse coming up will be that somehow we have a worse stadium situation than DC United currently has at RFK.
The Academy system was implemented by MLS after the Houston Dynamo won a few championships. No team in the league had a ten year head start on the Houston Dynamo. None. Mere market presence for ten years is a de minimis advantage for those teams at best. Dallas just put the right people and the right resources behind their Academy in year 1 whereas the Houston Dynamo just did what they always do. Put someone in position to make it appear like they were working really, really hard - but the truth is they were doing the smallest amount possible.
You forgot to add that Dom's attitude towards the academy didn't help. He could've been a bit more hands on, but my feeling is he already knew he wasnt going to be in Houston in 15-20 years and didn't care about long term development as it wouldn't help his short term goals.
100% right that Dom is just as responsible for the Academy set-up initially as Chris and the Front Office. But the role of the boss is to make sure the employees are not ********ing up as well and if they are to catch it and do something about it. I don't think Dom thought he was going to leave Houston though. I honestly believe he just felt that the Academy was not worth his time/energy/effort. He didn't envision the MLS of today with teams raising national team caliber players through their Academy and those players costing nothing towards the team's salary cap. At the same time as the Academy system was being implemented, the DP rule was coming into effect. The league was moving away from the days where one person could handle GM/Coach/Scouting/everything. I think Dom always felt his efforts were better focused on scouting/coaching (or maybe he got a little lazy) and didn't have the time to focus on the GM/Academy side. His Academy decisions were more a function of his lack of vision and tight resources than a recognition that he will be leaving eventually and doesn't give a crap. I also don't believe Dom liked Clarkson much. I think Clarkson was a Canetti guy from the start. I am merely speculating here, but that is just my guess.
100% agreed on this. It filtered down to everyone on Dom's staff, I recall an interview on the radio with Tim Hanley where he was asked about Ibgehia or someone like that and he pretty much said they wouldn't help him for years so not a pressing concern. Dom didn't have the foresight to see how MLS was changing and Canetti didn't have the foresight or urgency to demand that the Academy be focused on. Which is why I think our academy was ranked like 18 out of 19 in MLS in terms of progress. But it's back to the overriding principle that the FO lives by: everything is short-term focus, no vision, no innovation. And then the day comes when everyone with a longer term focus blows by you on the highway