For me, this quote from Murphy is the most telling: I don't know if it was his intention, but I think he sums up the best of what we can hope for from the draft. Reserve champions, nothing about competing for the MLS Cup. Edit to add - I agree with a lot of Murphy's comments as well as Bonji's. Especially the one quoted by savelints8.
What gets me is how they make it sound like the Super-Draft is where we we build our team from. How many of our First-teamers were draft picks? Bouna, Clark, and Keel don't count because they weren't drafted; they signed a developmental contract. Gargan, Harvey, and DiRaimondo were drafted in the Supplemental draft. My point is that the Super-draft isn't really so super.
Murphy aptly named his communication to the fans, Murphy's Law. He and Clavijo have proven this commentary which states, "that anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong." Could this be his excuse for their years of incompetence!
His excuse is, he's not the coach. I don't know if Murphy's a good coach, and I'm not lobbying for him to be the next one. But he's been getting a lot of, rather stupid commentary, that amounts to guilt by association. He succeeded with the reserves. Big deal? Right? Other coaches didn't succeed with their teams. Is he supposed to tank on principle, because a some wonks think that a two year old project is a joke? That's pathetic. He's friendly with the fans. Who cares? Right? It beats being afraid to talk to them. Considering the state of the team, I have to give Murphy some credit for being one of the few Rapids people who seems unafraid to to engage the fans. Most of the Rapids organization are standing inside the circle of wagons. It seems that folks won't be happy unless he gets himself fired for disagreeing with his superiors.
If he couldn't then it'd been even greater proof of his ineptness. If he had won it though, it would be silly to criticize the only measurable task he's been given. Particulary, when 12 other teams have failed either by having less talent, less interest, or whatever excuse they have for not winning.
I humbly disagree. Murph use's a different formation than FC. Murph has more players that can adapt to the formation he has, the reserves play a more attacking game. Less defense and more down the sides. Keel is a solid player and IMO should potentailly be on the starters (If Pablo does leave)...
I'm not sure who's criticizing it, I know I'm not. What I'm not doing is judging his worth as a head coach by it. I happen to believe the Rapids had more talent then the other teams. Maybe Jose, Niko and Zach weren't the key cogs, statistics wise, in their success, I think, however, their presence and experience did a lot to settle down and organize (on the field) an otherwise young team. That's presence and experience I don't believe existed, consistently, on the other teams.
Nice post, I agree, they were good pieces to a good team. It really helps when you have players like that. I will use David Beckham as an example. When he was out, the team played awful, then when he played they looked more relaxed. Leading to better opputunities and more sucess...
I figure the best you might be able to tell from it is his game management. The rest is kind of a crap shoot. He won with more talent. That seems like something you'd want a coach to do. The Rapids are under-talented to be sure, but they also seem routinely disinterested. After the embarrassment against the Sounders we might even welcome such a feat. He won with Cancela on the field. The 2006 team won with Mathis. They're either interchangeable players, or the proper adjustments were made. Or, maybe the young ones deserve the credit. He won with Niko on the field. That's a handicap right there, because Niko looked to have the same issues on the reserves as he did with the full team. He won with the handicap all thee other reserve coaches have; not really knowing who he'd have available until game time. The veterans actually played like they wanted to win these meaningless matches. That might be behavior that the full team could emulate. They won even after losing key reserve team players, Wasson to Germany, and Clark to the full side. Like I said I don't want to promote Murphy to head coach. It strikes me as strange to find fault with his succeeding where he's supposed to. It'd be nice if the rest of the organization could manage that small feat.
It's awfully windy outside my home office today, that could explain why I'm not having much success here. Or perhaps my thoughts are suffering from "dismemberment" if you get my drift I'm not finding faults with Murphy. Enough of this topic, onward to more important things. So what the hell is up with Chase's last name(s) and then there is that whole youtube thing I need to catch up on. It's taking over the Rapids forum by storm.