This coaching situation is as peculier as any I've seen. Ben fits into no known category. He's not the promising young coach going through growing pains. He's not the veteran coach who's a proven winner going through a rough patch. He's not a successful lower level coach adjusting to a new league. He's had a handful of good seasons and more than a handful of bad seasons, and appears to be the head coach because ownership doesn't have the interest to make a change.
bump ... I think if you're going to do it, now would be a perfect time. Derby losses are a pretty common time to fire coaches in Europe, especially when it's been building for awhile. It's always embarrassing to lose to your arch rival at home. But to do it in just your 2nd home game in a brand new stadium is even more embarrassing. For the rest of eternity Red Bull fans can now say that they won their first game at Audi. Nothing can reverse that. If this happened in a country where people actually care about soccer, nobody from the club could show their face around town for the next week. But let's set aside the context. Let's just look at the game. You could justify the firing just based on the complete tactical debacle that Ben put out there. Bad organization. Bad player selection. Bad game management. Every single facet of the game was in shambles. Robles had virtually no difficult save to make all night. And our defense was in such disarray, it's a miracle Red Bull didn't score at least 5 goals. Never mind the stadium, Rooney and the expectations that come with that. After 8 years on the job, even the B team should look more competent than what we saw tonight. I say fire the coach this week. I don't want to hear the "who do we hire" excuse. FFS, Chris Armas was available just a few days ago. Owner needs to send a message throughout the whole club that the days without accountability end today. We have a bunch of new season ticket holders in the stadium and in life you don't get many chances to make a first impression. In 5 months these people are expected to renew for next year. The average United fan is already pretty disillusioned so it won't take long for them to lose interest again.
Might as well get the rebuild under way. I saw Kasper on the West side today pre match. I didn’t say anything but I wanted to ask him what, if any, vision did he and Olsen have for the team. Olsen and Kasper are in over their heads.
Tonight was pretty disappointing. No direction or noticeable tactics to speak of. The coaches could’ve stayed home and we would have had the same results. Thousands of people waited out a rain delay to watch a rudderless team play an utterly mediocre game. What’s Olsen’s role on this team?
I'd take anyone, because at least I won't have to hear their shithead comments about "grit" in postgame comments from the coach.
Any more open animosity toward Olsen at this point just seems to be cruelty. He's as lost as a 9th grade remedial arithmetic student in a Stanford Thermodynamics Class. He deserves pity and will need therapy for years to come. His brief interviews were sad. Someone adopt him before they take the final steps down at the pound.
Donks posting on message boards aren't the ones that need plans. General managers & front office people should have a rolling list of potential candidates 24/7.
You know, Jaime Moreno & John Harkes are both apparently somewhat underemployed and living in the metropolitan area. Harkes has coaching experience with FC Cincinnati and built the Natis into winners as a first year expansion franchise in the USL. Just thinking out loud, that's all.
I’ve come to the conclusion that DC United is a union shop, and as the foreman with the greatest seniority, he’s not going anywhere. He’s been employed by the team for almost 20 years and will be here until he gets his pension and gold watch.
You're absolutely right and also, it won't happen. Last night was a disgrace. The season is now effectively over. As I said in the game thread, Brillant should be released immediately. His "defending" on BWP's goal was comical. If the guy ever had "it", he lost "it" a long time ago. Ousted to me is Halsti, another highly overrated "technical" Scandinavian player who won't get dug in when necessary. That was obvious last week when he let Martinez abuse him for the first goal. As someone pointed out, Matt Reis would have made sure Martinez didn't get up from that challenge. Hell, at this point just put Thornton in goal, he's wide enough to stop most shots without moving.
Well, he filled in for Hype Man during the rain delay by coming out of the lockerroom to rev up the crowd. So there's that.
Olsen's plan has always been more about grit, determination and hard work as he seems incapable of employing actual tactics. And I've never gotten the impression that he's particularly smart. Whenever I listen to him speak, he seems sadly unable to choose the right words to convey his thoughts or even make a cogent, let alone insightful, point. Thanks for your service Benny, but this franchise isn't going to realize its full potential until we hire an upper quartile level coach.
Olsen is the manager not the coach. Ashton is the coach. Now his insistence at keeping Ashton makes Olsen a bad manager but these tactics are all Ashton. If Ben should be let go it is because he cannot see how bad Ashton is. Not due to tactical ineptitude. Oh and Thornton can go too.
If this is true and he can't provide better tactics than Ashton then he would in fact be tactically inept.
Right. It's the nonexistent coaches' union that's keeping Benny in place. Definitely not the owners. Anybody but the owners.
look, there's so much more to this game than tactics and formations. man management and fitness and diet and emotions and all that good stuff. but when one aspect, in this case the deployment of players, is so obviously broken and your coach doesn't show any sign of improving then the time has come. how sad was it watching rooney just run around aimlessly last night? olsen might as well have subbed pajoy on for mattocks. to those who ask who would replace him, anybody. literally give anyone a chance to show that he has some idea of how to put people in a position to succeed.
I'll throw a wild and controversial idea out there ... how about starting by hiring a general manager/technical director who has an idea of what he wants this club to become. Then it's easy ... You interview everyone you can, build a folder on each prospective coach that fits the club identity criteria, and then you find the guy. Money stopped being an issue at least 18 months ago. If they had money to sign Rooney, Arriola, Acosta etc ... surely they can sign a coach. And it's not like candidates don't exist. Just look at the list of some of the new coaches that entered the league during Olsen's reign. And I won't even list international coaches who came from outside the MLS community ... Oscar Pareja - 2012 and again in 2014 Gregg Berhalter - 2013 Mike Petke - 2013 and again in 2017 Greg Vanney - 2014 Wilmer Cabrera - 2014 and again in 2016 Veljko Paunovic - 2015 Bob Bradley - 2017 Brad Friedel - 2017 Chris Armas - 2018 Giovanni Savarese - 2018 There's 10 options for you that were available at one point or another. Don't have to overcomplicate things. Just interview assistant coaches around the league. Especially guys with MLS playing experience like Josh Wolff, Mike Lapper, CJ Brown, Pat Noonan, Dan Calichman, Robin Fraser, Marco Ferruzzi, Michael Dellorusso, Davy Arnaud, Ezra Hendrickson, Dominic Kinnear, Ante Razov, Kenny Arena, Ian Fuller, Mark Watson, Carlos Llamosa, Jamison Olave, Tyrone Marshall, Steve Ralston, Gonzalo Pineda, Djimi Traore and Preki. Take a look assistants in the USMNT system like Richie Williams. Maybe someone like Steve Cherundolo who is an assistant in Bundesliga. There's at least 5 guys on that list with DC ties ... Davy Arnaud, Josh Wolff, Mark Watson, Kenny Arena and Carlos Llamosa. At least 3 names on that list with previous head coaching experience and superior records to Olsen ... Robin Fraser, Dominic Kinnear and Preki. This isn't rocket science. The candidates are out there. This club should no longer be a turnoff for potential candidates. The budget on the roster is there. The quality of the roster is there. The academy is there. The stadium is there.
Coach, Manager, whatever. It’s all on Olsen. And if he is unable to see how bad Ashton is, it proves his tactical ineptitude! FFS, his signature move as a player was the back pass. He couldn’t come up with the tactics for a cogent attack if his life depended on it.