Occam's razor, how many of their teams have made the playoffs since 2014? Zip. Whether it's greed and winning is a secondary priority, or they just aren't good at winning even trying, they seem cheap and daft. We've never made the playoffs but go play in England Carli. We'll sign a bunch of 30 year old defenders and a coach who never won in the league. What could go wrong? The Dynamo may overcome it this season but it's just underfunded and poorly run.
Yeah, I don't think the absences entered into it, especially given the fact that when the Dash were missing their national team players, generally everybody else was as well. I think where Chris is a bit off base is in his belief that this team is built to win now. It should definitely be in that 4th to 6th place mix, but it has glaring holes that have never been filled which keep it from being considered a strong contender.
So you don't believe that Lloyd would have made any difference in the team if she had started the season?
Not unless she could play defense, score a crap ton more goals than she has done in the last three years and suddenly morphed her personality to become the type of leader they haven't had since Ella Masar and Erin McLeod left. This team has holes, the manager lost the locker room last year and that wasn't going to change. You can simply look at the difference in performances of many of the players when they are with their national teams and with the Dash, or when they leave the Dash and go somewhere else. Look like completely different players. Randy is a wonderful human being and a very good college and national team coach. It didn't work at the pro level. He never figured out how to manage adult pros on a day-to-day basis. He should have been released at the end of his contract last year.
How does a manager loose the locker room? And what does it takes to manage adult pros on a day to day basis? I would have thought that all one has to do is to develop a game plan or strategy and expect your players to follow it. And why would performance change between national team and club team? So what you are basically saying is that when with the club team, the national team players do not feel that they have to put in the same work ethic as they do when playing for country? What kind of message does that send to the folks who are paying good money to go to the games.
The dynamic with the national team players (US and Canada) being paid by their federations and all of the pullouts for national team camps undercuts the coach considerably in NWSL. Look, I am clearly a novice women's soccer fan but when the national team players get to set their schedule and get weeks off for hosting youth camps in Pennsylvania or whatever, it's hard for the coach not to be undercut and lose his authority a bit.
Surely you've heard of a coaching losing the locker room before? It's a commonly used term. It was said that Wenger lost the locker room this year when Arsenal was in a free fall (although clearly he managed to get a handle on things in the end). Why am I explaining this to you - I'm sure you're aware that management of a team is about a lot more than just telling players what to do on the pitch. This section from a FourFourTwo piece today touches on the issues: At the NCAA level, players cycle out within four years, and most of the talent you bring in doesn’t expect to be truly featured until their third or fourth seasons. There’s no need to explain why you’ve established your pecking order. For the most part, seniority is also tied to player development. With limited scholarships, the depth chart often writes itself, and when it doesn’t, the command a college coach has over his squad is authoritarian. At the pro level, it’s different, and not only because you are dealing with more mature, more knowledgeable athletes. In the NWSL, you are with a team indefinitely. If a player is on the bench and thinks she should start, it’s harder to see a path to change, to say, “well, next year, that player will be gone and I’ll have a shot.” Players don’t graduate from their teams in the NWSL. You don't have to communicate a lot at the college level and college players don't tend to question their role. The delineation between top players and everybody else is much clearer. Not so in the pros, and if players don't understand why they aren't playing, or why you keep making lineup changes each week and you aren't good at explaining, laying out what they have to do to play, treating them like adults - worse yet if they feel they are lied to - then you'll tend to lose the locker room. If they feel like the team is not being prepared well, if they feel training is poor quality, if they feel decisions appear to make no sense and so on, then they aren't happy. And again, pros will be much more more demanding in these areas than college kids that don't have a lot of experience with top management. No, the difference in performance between national team and club has nothing to do with what you are suggesting. All teams have national team players, most don't have that problem. It has to do with feeling motivated versus not feeling motivated. Half of the team wanted out at the end of last season. Look at the quotes of those that did leave, most of them (including Lloyd) take a swipe at the coaching staff on their way out. One told me that Randy was the worst coach they'd ever had and they wouldn't return if the Dash begged them to. Those that got out of here celebrated, even if it meant they were waived and didn't have a club.
I'll also point out that if you look across all major sports and assess the track record of college coaches moving to the pros, it is pretty terrible. Some of the greatest college coaches of all time absolutely flopped at the pro level. Just a few from recent history: Nick Saban - National Champion at LSU. Went 9-7 in his 1st season with the Miami Dolphins, 6-10 second season and was fired. Hired at Alabama and the rest of history. Chip Kelly - National champion at Oregon. Disaster at the Philadelphia Eagles and fired. Even worse with the 49ers and fired. Steve Spurrier - Perennial champion at Florida. Total bust with the Washington Redskins. Went to the University of South Carolina and turned a moribund program into consistent winners. Long, long list of others on the football side. Basketball is similarly a who's who of the greatest college basketball coaches over the past 20 years. Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Lon Kruger, Tim Floyd, PJ Carlisemo, Mike Dunlap, etc. All great college coaches that flopped in the pros. Managing college personalities on a day-to-day basis is just dramatically different from managing adult pros. Preparation at the college level is different. Not much is the same. I'm trying to think of coaches that successfully made the transition. I know they exist, I'm struggling to think of any. It's not an easy jump. Failing to make that jump doesn't make one a bad coach. Just means you are better suited for the college level.
Part of the reason their motivation sucks is because they know whatever happens in NWSL, they still have the national team to fall back on and pay their salary and if they were USWNT union members, they had job protection. It seemed to me that Carli Lloyd only wanted to listen to her personal coach in New Jersey regardless of the circumstances
Bruce Arena, Caleb Porter, Sigi Schmid, Bob Bradley, you could stretch and say Steve Sampson and that's just MLS. Brad Stevens, Larry Brown,
I'd argue that most (not all) of those soccer guys starting coaching at the pro ranks in a very different era in soccer in the United States. I'd also note that most of those guys didn't spend their entire career in college. Waldrum is 5 years younger than Arena and older than most of the rest of those guys. His entire life has been college. As for the others - like I said, there are some. That's 2.
As you can see by the time of my response, I did it off the top of my head. Some more: Jimmy Johnson, Jim Harbaugh, Pete Carroll (although 2nd go round), Tom Coughlin, Dick Vermeil, Bill Walsh (both those from 70s). I agree it's not a great track record overall but not impossible.
Coughlin, Harbaugh and Carroll don't count, they were assistant coaches in the NFL before they were ever head coaches. That, to me, is the biggest difference. The pro game is different from college. Most pro coaches learn the pro game as assistants before they ever become head coaches. The guys that spend their coaching career in college, then make the jump, don't have the luxury of learning before becoming head coach.
Sounds like there were some leadership problems in the Dash coaching staff. That means things can't get worse with a change. Oftentimes it is needed, and it is likely a year late for the Dash. Hopefully the next coach will be able to manage egos, and be an effective leader.
2017 NWSL Schedule Coverage is go90 unless otherwise noted. Week 8 results: Saturday, June 3 North Carolina Courage 2-0 FC Kansas City Washington Spirit 2-0 Houston Dash Sky Blue FC 0-2 Portland Thorns Orlando Pride 2-0 Boston Breakers Sunday, June 4 Chicago Red Stars 1-0 Seattle Reign Standings: 1. NCC 9 g.p. 18 pts +4 g.d. 2. CHI 8 g.p. 16 pts +4 g.d. 3. POR 8 g.p. 15 pts +5 4. SKY 9 g.p. 13 pts -1 g.d. ----------------------------- 5. SEA 8 g.p. 12 pts +6 g.d. 6. KAN 8 g.p. 11 pts +0 g.d. 7. ORL 8 g.p. 9 pts -1 g.d. 8. BOS 8 g.p. 8 pts -3 g.d 9. WAS 8 g.p. 7 pts -5 g.d. 10. HOU 8 g.p. 6 pts -10 g.d.
017 NWSL Schedule Coverage is go90 unless otherwise noted. The league is taking a break for June 6-12. Week 9: Saturday, June 17 FC Kansas City v. Seattle Reign 3:00 pm Chicago Red Stars v. Washington Spirit 3:00 pm Lifetime North Carolina Courage v. Boston Breakers 6:30 pm Houston Dash v. Orlando Pride 7:30 pm Portland Thorns v. Sky Blue FC 9:00 pm
The role of 2017 Wade Barrett will be played by Omar Morales until he is fired at season's end: NEWS: Dash name Omar Morales interim head coach for remainder of 2017 seasonREAD: https://t.co/C1Dm6HlkFh pic.twitter.com/X2f9jqQLAe— Houston Dash (@HoustonDash) June 6, 2017
He's probably not getting the job so he may want to do things unconvential because just stabilizing things will get him fired like what happened to Wade Barrett last year (going defensive and solidifying things with the same roster and a short-staffed coaching group got Wade a pink slip and tarnished his resume).
Wow, changing the game times by a whole 30 MINUTES! That should take care of any heat-related issues Three Dash games affected - moved from 3 p.m. kickoffs to 2:30 p.m. kickoffs.June 24 at Orlando; Aug. 5 at Portland; Sept. 23 vs Chicago https://t.co/xnK7zjhbh0— Corey Roepken (@RipSports) June 12, 2017
Yeah, but that's only part of the release. A number of the more dangerous day games were moved to the evening and other games moved into the TV slot. June 24th, let's face it you aren't going to move a game that takes place in 2 weeks and that has marquee stars. Aug 5th in Portland, odds of that being a heat problem are low. Sept 23, after a long hot summer is reasonably low risk. Issue with Lifetime that was never announced, but that is known now as a result of this release, is that they have a hard stop of 6pm EST. If a game ever went past 6pm EST, Lifetime would have to cut away. The Houston vs Seattle game narrowly avoided that problem. So, it's not just 30 min earlier. It's also the ref being given the ability to implement multiple hydration breaks without having to worry about the TV window.
The fact that the Dash kept running pop-up and banner ads all week until today showing Carli Lloyd vs. Alex Morgan was nice and misleading since it was known Morgan wouldn't be playing due to injury
Having the announcers say things like "BBVA Compass Stadium is a great place to watch a game" and "the Bayou City Republic trying to get the crowd going and behind the Dash" even though the announcers are in a studio in Florida is really quite crafty to try and fool folks into thinking they are at the game. They must have some sort of script with fill-in-the-blank stuff for each game like an NWSL Madlibs book