Some of the other threads have me looking back at old articles from this season. Here are some quotes that I found interesting. "Ryan Nelsen is under contract for two more years with the league and isn't going anywhere," Hudson said. 12/7/2002 "There's some risk involved in what we're doing, but it has to be done," Hudson said. "And it's our responsibility, mine and Dave's and the other coaches, to make it work." 12/25/2002 "We were overwhelmed by very systematic teams," Hudson said (after three pre-season losses). "Technically and physically, they were better, but I'm not too worried." 3/15/2003 "I've said it all along: It will be a choppy year until this team really does come together and we find out what our best pieces are and where," Hudson said. 4/28/2003 "It's that decisive play," said defender Mike Petke, who has scored one of United's goals this season. "We've done everything except for that final pass, that selfish shot. It has to happen soon." 5/19/2003 That was just through the end of may. Oh, and there are a thousand "we're just not lucky enough, we have to get the breaks sooner or later" quotes too.
Amazing that we like Hudson's comments so much more than Rongen's. Either way we get the same results.
I put that on Hudson's shoulders because Martins and Cerritos for sure, and Eskandarian had he been properly developed, should be doing that, without question. That none of the three are says something.
Not really. Statistically, either Rongen was a ton better than Ray, or Ray is a significant (if not huge) improvement over Rongen. Rongen all time with DC: 43W (7SOW) 44L 8T 162GF 169GA Ray all time with DC (so far) 19W 25 L 13T 68GF 75GA of course, that's comparing three seasons versus two. Average it out and you get Rongen (avg.) 14.3W 14.6L 2.6T 54GF 56.3GA Hudson (avg) 9.5W 12.5L 6.5T 34GF 37.5GA Of course, to be perfect, you'd have to normalize for the longer season during Rongen's tenure, and the fact that during his first season we had no ties (DC won 6 shootouts and lost 3). But it's still pretty clear Rongen was better for DC. In 1999, we led the league in scoring. Now, does anyone believe that Rongen was better for DC? Of course not, because we're comparing averages over a period of years, and what isn't showing is that Rongen inherited a Bruce Arena team in 1999 and made almost no changes. As soon as he started putting his mark on the team (the Mark of Nurgle, IMO), DC went from being a 2.2 points per game (PPG) team to being a 0.9 PPG team, then 1 PPG. Under Ray we were 1.1 PPG, then (so far) 1.3 PPG. In other words, it may only be a slight improvement, but we're trending upwards, not down. I'm inclined to go one step further, and throw out 1999, statistically, as evidence of what Rongen was capable of. We coasted on a team already in place. If you compare 2000 and 2001 (when Rongen fully controlled the team and chose players) with 2003 (when Hudson did the same), the contrast is even starker: twice as many (or more) losses per year as wins under Rongen, goal deficits of -8 and -19, versus a nearly 50/50 W/L average and a GD of +2. It's frustrating to see the team lose games in OT. It's frustrating to see them put out less than 100% in a crunch situation. Some of Ray's decisions have been questionable, and others have certainly looked down right stupid. But he has taken a team that was finding new meaning to the word "cellar" and turned it around. We've stopped dropping and we're starting to rise. We have a decent chance of making the playoffs (though it's infuriating that it comes down to the last game of the season. But no, in no way do we get "the same results" with Ray that we did with Thomas.
Yup. Plus it's actually tangentially related to the work I do (playing with numbers, anyway, not footy, more's the pity).