We'll never get rid of him, he's going to become Washington's Ferguson. Even if he doesn't win a thing.
Larry Brown was coaching Torino this season, in the A1 Italian basketball league (the top tier league), but he got fired at the end of december.
Why are we extending an at-best mediocre coach’s contract before the season starts? When Rooney gets injured and Acosta starts pouting and we combust at the end of this season they won’t fire Ben because they would have to pay out the contract. I want his agent. Rooney should have Ben’s agent. James
Oh please. In modern professional sports it's rare that a coach has to go into the final season of a contract without getting an extension. When it does happen it is a public statement from management that he's on thin ice. Ben is under pressure, but he's not on thin ice. Not after last season. You and some others may not like it but he's earned this. And it doesn't mean he can't be fired if he screws the pooch.
Pressure? He has the least pressure of any job in professional sports. He led the team to the worst season in the history of the league and he didn't get fired. I don't think there is anything he could do to get fired.
This is exactly the infuriating thing. United never discusses performance goals or metrics, if they exist. We know they don't exist because if they did, he'd have been fired long ago. Why should fans support a team that doesn't care how the coach performs?
Olsen is still the coach because he's cheap, he's beloved by the fan base, and the advent of the Rooney/Acosta partnership and Rooney's on-field coaching during matches has made us competitive. Moreover, even if our modestly wealthy ownership found some extra money lying around it would go into new players long before it went to a new coach, and any new coach would demand more than Olsen is paid, IMO.
Let’s not go too far. Olsen is beloved by older fans who increasingly make up a smaller and smaller minority of the fanbase. Most fans today don’t remember him playing and recognize him only as the coach. Is he “beloved” by fans who came to be interested in the team in the last decade?
With the strong finish to the season, Olsen earned another year. He still doesn't have much wiggle room. If they bungle re-signing Asad and Acosta it makes that leash shorter. With this ownership group? Who really knows?
I am an "old" fan and I certainly don't belove him! I recall he was a good player for DCU but my memory is fading more and more each year that he is still on the bench.
Older fan here. I loved Ben the player. He could get under the skin of opponents and undo them like no one else. Ben the coach got a lot of leeway from me as he started because of what he was given to work with + the learning curve of transitioning from player to coach. That curve seems to have flattened out considerably though over the years and yeah...the honeymoon was over some time ago for me. He seems a passable "caretaker manager" in some sense but I don't see him having what it takes to re-establish the kind of profile DC United had at the start of the league. His biggest flaw for me is that he seems to lay back and say "Ok, here's the players I have, what can I do to put them together in some manner?" Then experiments until he stumbles on something. It works for awhile until teams figure it out, then he's back to experimenting with combinations. I'd rather see him lay out a system (with options) as much as he can, then tell the front office, "Ok, I need a guy who can do these things..." In short, he operates in reaction to things instead of getting ahead of the game and trying to direct it.
Everyone outside of about 117 grumpy people love Olsen Fairly certain even millennials are older than United's target demo
wow Shammy counts as 117 people, I'm impressed!!! 20 somethings have way less disposable income than you or I do.
I love him too, but I don't think he is a very impactful coach. Did anyone love Bruce Arena? Or Bora, et. al.?
Most fans don’t care about Olsen or Kasper or Thohir. They focus on the game and players or have no strong opinion one way or another. Olsen staying or leaving doesn’t affect attendance at all or the fanbase in general, unless we win under a new coach or if the coach is themself a liked personality.
Maybe not total indifference but pretty close to it. People won’t take to social media if thohir or Olsen stay or go for the most part. They won’t come to the stadium to try to keep them around. Almost all will simply welcome whoever comes or just not care much.
Have you said something nice about Olsen on twitter? (not to worry, rhetorical question) Do it for fun and watch all the fire-olsen twitter accounts come and call you stupid - it's fun, then you can play with the trolls
Hate to break this to you but DCU isn’t exactly setting the world on fire on social media. The largest DCU websites barely get traffic, hardly any comments in the case of blogs and very few posts on Facebook or twitter received more than 50 replies. It’s not really informative other than to support my point that DCU fans remain largely dormant or disinterested generally. The people who do post are likely older fans or more invested fans and that most of the time defending Olsen leads to ribbing should tell you where he stands with the fanbase.