Dunno. I can't remember the last time we had any Dynamo feet in Spain looking for God knows who or what (Koke doesn't count cuz he was recruited over the phone lol). That's got to count for something so far I guess. :/ I'm waiting to see several things before I dare look into the crystal ball (HC hire, expansion draft, MLS draft and off season roster moves). Til then it's the same team as last year less Kinnear/Hall/Brunner and an additional warm body currently in Spain on a scavenger hunt.
You'd think we'd already know who the guy is because if not, going to Spain is kind of usurping authority. I've thrown this logic out for stuff going back to the Tally Hall trade. We should be consulting the dude who will have to play these people, about whether they are who he wants or doesn't want. If not, that is probably a disincentive to come here, that it looks like the FO is off on its own mission, and that rather than building your own roster you are just the game manager for what you're handed. I'd think it should be a HC/TD hand in glove evaluating people, HC signs off, player wants to come, TD goes and works out the details/personal terms with their Mr. 10%. I don't know if I want Matt Jordan going beyond contracts and cap structure and the inside baseball and actually scouting and picking players. I want him looking at the numbers and saying, this guy is within the salary bandwidth, not awful on tape, now we scout, here scout/HC you tell me if you like him, and then I will negotiate. The coach has to trust me to make or not make the deal based on team interests, but you don't want the green lampshade also picking the players.
I'd be interested whether we are recruiting DPs or role players, Spaniards or internationals, on that trip. If AEG has handed a blank checkbook -- doubtful but who knows, maybe Dom was the roadblock -- then Spain would be an interesting place to hunt DPs. But if we're recruiting filler I'd think we have some history on suitability, unless systemic change is coming. Tiki-taka would be a technical upgrade but Koke wasn't fit and couldn't really effectively play his style within a hoofball 442. He just disappeared between the lines and lacked the physicality to handle the run of play. When he would finally get ball on feet he would do interesting things, but it's like a poor man's Brad Davis. Now, if you wanted to sign Torres and play touch groundball soccer, maybe. But that's a style change. Those players wouldn't even be suited to team defense. You'd have to head off more Cruyff/ Holland/ Barca. I've argued before that the quality necessary to win that way in MLS could not be secured within the cap limits. Good technical is not cheap. You'd have to be so much better at technical than the other teams are at organized and physical. TFC tried and failed badly. But if you were pursuing expensive people, internationals....
I'm not convinced we are looking for any HC in Spain. Gotta be for a player(s) and I agree with you that is weird unless you don't plan on hiring someone with enough stroke that would care much for this type of usurping. Meaning the HC will most certainly be Ralston or Barrett and Jordan/Canetti would rather get some pieces out of the way before announcing the 'man with no name' or newbee coach that will have far less say than Kinnear did in the past.
I'd like us to target at least one DP that can fill the attacking mid position and open up play. If we go big on the forward and he lacks quality service from the rest of the field we may be setting him up for failure. I imagine Bruin and Barnes can bag some more goals with an attacking mid DP that releases them on way more 1v1 chances until we buy a DP forward he can really get down with. It still sucks not knowing anything other than flight itinerary and catch phrases like 'evolution not revolution'!
From the info I have heard/been told it won't be a La Liga DP player. Perhaps he may be a DP player due to a transfer fee that needs to be paid but not a DP player due to annual salary. Doesn't mean he won't be starter-quality. Hope that makes sense.
well if this is true he can't be a very good player with a agent or a very smart player - what kind of idiot even thinks about going to a new team without knowing who the new coach is. What coach wants to inherit a Player Deal that he wasn't consulted on unless he's desperate for a job? This is all backwards and unsettling as a fan
Makes perfect sense. Boniek kinda deal except transfer fee vs allocation money. I wonder what position is being targeted first forward or attacking mid? I can't agree since we have had at least 2 or 3 players come from no where to make an impact on the team (Boniek/Garrido/Barnes). With regards to the not knowing which coach I'm sure having the GM talking face-to-face is a pretty good store front for the organization and since this is not the HUGE DP signing as Rey said it may not be then I don't see how this not-so-starpower player can be such a primadona already. If we were trying to sign Vela/Gio/Chicharrito from the Spanish league I agree we would have to be name dropping a pretty big name as head coach as well as a salary I would have to expect to be greater than anyone in MLS. I don't see that happening here in Htown yet, not for a long time. Ownership's consideration? I wonder which owner was putting forth the nod? Oscar putting forth a Mexican coach?
Part of the problem right now is the mentality we don't need high performers or primadonnas. DeRo was a little primadonna. Every team left has at least one genuine name star or more, and the team slightly bucking the star power, NE, has a pile of Jones-supporting players who are just a notch below NT players.....people with a few caps but who just had a bad luck car wreck or knee or something. You can't win with a team of lovable lunchpailers. The idea that we can get by on system instead of talent is one of the present limiting factors.
I don't think you have to have a primadonna, but you need the player that genuinely believes they are better than everyone on the field. That is a different thing. Confidence is different than arrogance, but either way, you need those kind of players to be the best.
What you need is talent and quality and if it happens to come with attitude, so be it. You see what happened to Liverpool minus Suarez. The Texans and the Dynamo have a lot of "high character" people who can't quite win. FWIW, I identified with Sherman last year because I could remember getting crap in college for telling people I would take care of my marking assignment no matter who it was, conference player of the year, whatever. And I usually did. Some of what people take as ego is simply, I know what I am capable of. Legal problems? I get it. Red cards? I get it. But this team got so regimented we were on down to basic personalities being an issue. I remember people talking about DeRo's attitude and that being one reason people were not sad to see him go. But you see now the downside to that attitude, we have had not a hint of that quality at that position since. We ran off Kamara from up top for similar justification. When people say, Bruin needs service, part of what they are getting at, IMO, is players like him would benefit from a tablesetter. But tablesetters are often artists. Our mentality has instead trended lunchpail, 2 DMs, and you wonder why we have x amount of chances and only score so many. I don't like the sound of what I am hearing a la Spain because this team needs some outsize talents and personalities to create for it. I think it's been several years of this incrementalist BS and the team is never quite good enough. You get an initial push when a Boniek comes in and then year 2 they figure them out, they aren't so incredible they can lift the team alone and overcome scheming, and the achievements fall off. This team needs a 15-20 goalscorer, it needs a Davis replacement at that level of assists, and it needs a shutdown CB. You're not going to do that hunting value and seeking modesty.
Put differently, I don't recall the Dynamo ever winning the official MVP, rookie of the year, or even coach of the year.
Interestingly enough, Kinnear won coach of the year in 2005. Pat Onstad also won Goalkeeper of the year in 2005. Of course they didn't win MLS Cup until coming to Houston.....
Before losing in round one of the playoffs. Thus proving a quarter and a supporter's shield will get you a cup of coffee. Since people like to act like that's the same as MLS Cup. Some of it may be media bias against a plucky flyover side. Some of it may be being initially a very strong team where it's how do I reward just one where later on the talent wanes and it's like, is there anyone special. You could make Davis or Kinnear arguments some years. Some of it may be we have generally been so competitive we aren't picking rookies in the Clowney slot. Or Kinnear often traded picks or downplayed his rookies. But to me it does kind of reflect something when you never have the absolute star player, the best rookie, the best perceived coaching performance. You look at last year's team and was there a standout player, rookie, or coach? I guess I'm wandering towards my belief that to beat a LA or Seattle type team we need to meld the team ethos with some players with outsize qualities.
Giovanni Savarese of the NY Cosmos turns down the offer from the Dynamo. http://www.empireofsoccer.com/savarese-dynamo-coaching-30424/ After a contentious departure from the Red Bulls, Savarese landed with the New York Cosmos as their head coach and technical director. Once again, he was tasked with building a program from scratch. In 16 short months, he did just that, leading the club to a Fall Championship trophy and the 2013 Soccer Bowl, all while accumulating an outstanding 20-8-13 record. According to one source, the Dynamo were “flabbergasted” by the outright rejection. Nevertheless, it does little to deter their search, which is said to be moving on as planned.
Harsh. Didn't even entertain an interview. I wonder if Fergie straight up declined too... I guess we are really looking outside of the circle though. This means it isn't specifically a current assistant or an assistant in the playoffs, although we still may hire either of them.
Big whoop non event, minor league coach who didn't apply doesn't want to interview, move along nothing to see here. Cosmos is a dead end job because they won't expand to NY3 for a decade or maybe decades. He has the best roster in NASL and loses to San Antonio, etc. Cannetti apparently thinks he can build teams from scratch but for NASL he is running the equivalent of the blank checkbook team at that level. You want Marcos Senna? Here. You want Raul? Here. Where SA Scorpions are more like the "value" team composed of big league castoffs. Guess who won the trophy. I would be more concerned if there is a pattern developing where the HC runs away, people inside the American scene don't want to interview, and your choice is between foreigners with no idea what's going on here or people like Jordan and our assistants desperate for continued employment despite not much production. That might hint that we have poisonous ownership or FO issues. I know of nothing firsthand but if people don't seem to want to be here that could suggest a problem exists that we don't have visibility to but is nonetheless there. People forget Luck was running the team back in the day, not Cannetti.
There is actually a fair amount of history of foreign coaches succeeding here, but it generally helps to either serve a coaching apprenticeship or play here or both. 2010 was Smith, English, who was an assistant then interim then HC at the Rapids; 2004 was Nowak, Polish, who played here. Yallop won twice before that, English-Canadian, played here. Gansler, 2000, Hungarian born, played here and coached in the NT system. [Heck, technically Kinnear was born in Scotland then won twice after playing and apprenticing here.] You see where there has been a lot of winning by foreign born coaches but that it might help to be immersed in our game first. Gullit and Winter had nothing to do with US Soccer or MLS and thus were at sea about basic aspects. So, it arguably would make more sense to approach, say, Thierry Henry, than a big name coach with no association with the league. This theory would argue against Pulis taken literally, however an argument could be made that his style is so similar to Kinnear's, and he is familiar with American players, where he would be less "foreign" to the league than others.
Seeing people jumping off buildings on social media because Savarese declined to interview for the job. Who cares? That is part of every job search whether it is for a manager in MLS or a manager at Corporation XYZ. You cast a broad net by putting together a list of candidates to have a look at. You narrow down and approach some for interviews. There will always be those who for any number of reasons decide they are not interested right now. Not the end of the world, it happens all the time.