Ben Olsen

Discussion in 'Houston Dynamo' started by quiznatodd_bidness, Oct 29, 2022.

  1. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    I generally agree with the last part. There’s very little hope to achieve anything aside from finishing ahead of St Louis this year.
     
  2. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    Olsen on Glenn’s show. Focus is on USMNT stuff but as for Dynamo:

    Spending a lot of time looking at players with Pat, Asher, scouts.
    Still working on coaching staff and narrowing down candidates.
    Working on preseason and plan setting for it.
    Figuring out how to change the culture.
     
  3. TX Bill

    TX Bill Member+

    Apr 3, 2006
    Sugar Land TX
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hell, I'd not only take Dom back, but his players too. 4-3-3 with big Mac Kandji on the wing.
     
  4. TX Bill

    TX Bill Member+

    Apr 3, 2006
    Sugar Land TX
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I remember when we spent DP money on a left back. Garber made us do it but still.

    Good times.

    Also, to show you how out of it I am when it comes to MLS, I didn't even know STL had a team much less we traded Tim Parker to them.
     
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  5. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i do feel like the preseason has been on autopilot for years. austin, dallas, HBU, UTRGV, maybe an arizona trip, maybe RGV Toros, one can begin populating the schedule without even thinking much. how does that make the players unusually excited.
     
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  6. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    culture is such an insincere copout. the team tries hard. that's about what you can ask culturewise. they don't quit. they tire and get outplayed.

    you cannot make them better players or baby barca talking to them. you cannot make them winners when they are surplus off other struggling MLS teams. you want to win you need starters from playoff teams or high quality production players. as i have said a jillion times, if you want them stuck in more, you probably need different players with that makeup, not to lecture ones who already can't do it right. personnel, not culture.

    they also don't seem to get the "wales" lesson that losing games late after running around very hard from the opening whistle inheres in the tactics rather than reflects some attitude or lack of will. the coach could have subbed better but the way we play exhausts a team and forces those subs.
     
  7. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    What would be your ideal preseason then?
     
  8. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm losing confidence that Segal has any ambition to win a cup/shield.
     
  9. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    I think it’s still more about ability and/or knowledge than ambition. I wouldn’t call an owner that buys 4 DPs in 3 windows unambitious. I will somewhat echo what I said earlier in that the Dynamo are a club that culturally doesn’t make the playoffs. As of December 8, 2022 I see nothing that’s changing that.
     
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  10. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree most of the time. I've just started to vacillate between the two views. Your view is more fair at this point, and I hope you are right.
     
  11. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #112 juvechelsea, Dec 15, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2022
    i think you're conflating -- to be charitable -- some churn/spending with actual ambition. we didn't sign bale or bernadeschi. we didn't spend like the big dogs. we merely "started spending for a change" having let it dwindle to nothing and bottom of the table. our idea of a big name DP is HH, who is broken down. we have 2 no name DPs, and they are just ok. there is no DP accountability, we are slow to judge even regular roster players, and what efforts we have made have not been sustained window to window reflecting some sort of true burning ambition. we instead made a one-time sponsor-funded splash and hoped it was ticket-selling and 50 points, ie, minimum competitiveness. are we calling pursuing the minimum, ambition? really? that is not any ambition i recognize. for all pat's seeming savvy comments about tthe pace of change, he doesn't speed it up one bit. he says at this rate 6 years, i bet it takes that. cheapness, incompetence, incrementalism. there are teams who do it in 1. in this state. they are willing to part ways with DP mistakes, to make mass changes, to act like they are sorry they sucked.

    in our situation you have to be more aggressive than we are. every time i hear "contract expiration" discussions in a league where players can be sold, loaned, traded, or released, i hear passivity. we weren't even trying before and right now we seem clueless what it takes to be even minimally competitive. about every 5 years after an ownership change or new sponsor we splash a little money. i do not call that ambition because down deep we seem to understand our plight and that we are as y'all say just gunning for 50. but since effort is not sustained, in between we fall back to the back, which makes every change pivotal in its effect. we then lack the competence or cash to dig from the hole.

    we didn't hire a big name coach with history of winning MLS or beyond. we hired a green GM. we let the decent break from the blocks last season dwindle back down into another horrid finish.

    no, i think you're confusing "cubs optimism" -- ie vague "we'll get 'em next year" -- that any team could say in the winter and camp, with actual ambition. actual ambition is you announce "we have ceased to be f*cking around," hire a big name coach, hire an experienced GM, sign some absolute stars, and begin a progressive march to success, perhaps fast, but never taking a summer off.

    i don't believe it should take more than a year in this league unless you deliberately do something like my youth movement strategy where you build slower to clean up cap and last longer at the top.
     
  12. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i think we are f*cked as of the word "identity." to the extent it's a side requirement to get this diverse while getting it good, this FO sucks too bad to have a second concern on their minds. just try and compete. to the extent it's tactics, we are a dinosaur in a 433 thinking press. you watch this world cup and it's a lot of get back and faaaaaaast counter soccer. wing speed, people like messi who can take people on with the dribble.

    possession as defense is dead (at least for a decade or so) or did people miss germany exiting at group round. but then maybe we didn't learn from all those ties under ramos. we seem to fire the coaches but not learn the lessons about how they thought.

    and the US-wales game says all you need to know about running around like chickens for 30' pressing high. we ended up the only team that didn't beat wales. maybe it's i remember earliy frenetic klinsi when he had them run around like mad and gassed at halftime. you need tactics that get you to the final whistle.
     
  13. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #114 juvechelsea, Dec 15, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2022
    i keep hearing this is how leeds plays. leeds sits 15/20 and is a regular relegation battler. i watched them press fulham like mad for 30' on the way to losing 3-2.

    the US also did it but they blew the wales game trying it and were a fairly average world cup side. 1W 2T 1L, out in the round of 16 in a 32 team tournament. holland ate us alive on the counter.

    you wait out a team that comes out hard for 30. i also think that as barca ideas lose their hold teams are more willing to respond with either long balls or "alberth elis" style wide outlet balls. if you want to play way up i will go over the top or wide. only an idiot tries to possess right up the middle from the back into the teeth of a press. berhalter is that idiot. but otherwise, if you lack barca hangups about forcing the ball on the ground, over or around is the obvious response to pushing too far up. i personally thought it was childish anyway. personally i think this high press run around for 30' stuff is what bad teams did to try and compete when i was growing up, and is actually regression from getting back, defending, and countering, which is more fundamentally sound and requires discipline.

    i keep hearing pat talk wide speed but if you press high there is no green space for wide speed to run into. they use whatever speed they have chasing people on defense. i thought our elis experience taught us this already. elis was less impactful if they just sat back.

    i mean, watch argentina or france. are they chasing people past the half line? maybe if you fart around long enough someone jogs past the half circle and steps to ball. the pendulum is swinging back to the 1980s and 1990s.
     
  14. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    Maybe you’re right about conflating but the way i see it you can have ambition to get a hit off a major league pitcher and still whiff on three straight pitches.
     
  15. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    1611150607712239617 is not a valid tweet id


    Familiar faces in the coaching staff
     
  16. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So Tim Hanley, the longest serving coach in MLS, is back to the Dynamo but they made him drop the Y from his name?

    I never liked Colin as a player. Thought he was whiny and too impulsive. Now I have to support him. (tbf, I trust the opinion of Olsen and Onstad on this over my own shallow and knee-jerk opinion of the guy.)
     
  17. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    You’re using the right consideration. I understand how some people are upset but the fact of the matter is the decision makers for this don’t really have a basis in the Dynamo-SKC rivalry. Onstad left the club in 2010, a year before Collin arrived in MLS and the rivalry started popping off. Olsen obviously was in DC. Being a competitor in the league one certainly knows about Collin’s antics but also a more nuanced view of him as a competitor as well. The biggest legitimate criticism of Collin is that he has the least amount of coaching experience on the staff as best I can tell.
     
  18. DonJuego

    DonJuego Member+

    Aug 19, 2005
    Austin, TX
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But Collin is from France. That is in Europe. So he is obviously a better coach than any American could be.
     
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  19. ElNaranja

    ElNaranja Member+

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Jul 16, 2017
    If he were British he'd be next in line when Ben is fired.
     
  20. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    https://open.spotify.com/episode/5P...w&context=spotify:show:751JrRfizxZqw4ONA7WfnY

    Ben Olsen a guest on Max Bretos’ podcast

    • starts of with weather talk as Ben did the interview from his car because the facility lost power during yesterday’s storm, Max gives a story about broadcasting from Robertson. Sounds like Ben liked Houston a lot and the history of the Dynamo.
    • Max gives high praise to Ben’s broadcasting, Ben thought he was getting a lot better but was very happy to get back in coaching
    • Calls his early coaching career “swimming for years” but eventually developed. Called his last few years at DC “stale”. Stepped away from coaching to gain appreciation of what he needed to do.
    • Ben called Asher “a compliment to me” in terms of leading and building the team.
    • Getting people to come here and buy in was a tougher than expected. Recognizes a losing culture was in place and found the guys up for wanting to change it.
    • Ben said Colin would be a massive help due to league experience as well as speaking 5 languages.
    • On HH, Ben talks about how important he is to the team over the next few years. Not putting stock into the HH that the Dynamo saw last year. Referred to HH as authentic and caring about development of the team. HH understands the team’s performance affects him massively personally.
    • A lot of change going on, “not an excuse but it is reality”, will take time to get things where they need to be.
    • Max calls Coco a potential breakout player this year
    • “Team with the best roster wins the game” -BO, still says players with winning pedigree matters.
    • “We haven’t sold enough players for the wealth of talent in the area” Ben on youth development.
    • Ben wants integration between 1st-2nd-youth teams. Youth coaches have open invitations to 1st team practices. Bundy is at practice every day.
    • Gives a lot of praise to the facility noting how everyone is right in one place (this probably says more about how things were at DC). Called it a campus
     
  21. Westside Cosmo

    Westside Cosmo Member+

    Oct 4, 2007
    H-Town
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    thanks for the write up. Downloaded it but hadn’t listened to it yet
     
  22. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This past Friday our club hosted a Coach's clinic out at the training ground for any area youth coach that wanted to attend and learn from club staff some resourceful drills. As well Coach Olsen, new Dash head coach Sam Laity and Dynamo Dos head coach Bundy were on hand to speak to all coaches in attendance. Good stuff. I was able to speak to coach Olsen afterward. he is very enthusiastic about having a team that works hard and reflects what Houston soccer should be known for. Also, both he and coach Laity spoke of the importance of making our home games a tough outing for any opponent to endure. Returning that tradition to the fold where Houston was as tough a road game in all of MLS.
     
  23. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020


    Dynamo assistant talking some strategy
     
  24. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    if we just made a scouting department who was he looking at players with

    if you follow what i am saying
     

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