Fire Olsen

Here's my fantasy scenario (at least regarding DCU). Ownership commits to a major roster and organizational upgrade for 2018, then convinces Bruce Arena to end his professional coaching career where he began it, with the goal of preforming a rescue mission in his second stint, as he is doing with the National Team. The World Cup ends July 15, which just about coincides with the opening of the new stadium. Ben coaches the team until then and is promoted to the new position of DPP (Director of Player Pampering). Seriously, he's a protégé of Bruce, and working for/with him would be a soft landing.

Arena might be attracted to finalizing such a deal well before the World Cup, which would eliminate any distracting speculation about his future afterward.

 

Well Bradley is off the market.


https://www.sbnation.com/soccer/201...-hired-as-the-first-manager-of-los-angeles-fc

 

That's a shame, I really like Bob Bradley too.

 

Meanwhile, the Galaxy swapped Onalfo for Sigi the Hutt. Which means Sigi's not available, but our investor/operators are free to do something as awful as I've come to expect at DC United and bring Onalfo back.

 

remove another from the list.

https://twitter.com/kbaxter11
The #LAGalaxy have fired coach Curt Onalfo. Former Galaxy coach Sigi Schmid will take over, beginning with today's training session.

 

Does Onalfo come with Chad Ashton? That would be a winning combination.

 

So will teams stop hiring Onalfo, since he can't seem to keep a job for one whole season???

 

I'm pretty sure Bradley was off the market for us when Levien fired him from Swansea before the winter transfer window opened.

 

I suspect the owners will let the season play out, and if we continue on with 2013 levels of futility, we'll fire Olsen and hire Harkes. I can't wait for the nepotism threads.

 

I blame Obamacare. He's being fired before he works enough to qualify for benefits.

 

While I find plenty of fault with Obamacare I'm not sure I can connect that to Curt Onalfo lacking and soccer coaching skills.


I would turn him down if he wanted to coach with me at my Baltimore City School coaching job.

 

Olsen has dug in to DC so deeply that firing him would seem cruel and heartless. He's the guy riding his bike around Adams Morgan back in the day and selling the city to anyone who would listen. We've sort of grown up with Ben, and I don't want to think about how devastating his firing would be to a very nice, approachable guy. And I don't think he could contemplate staying at a lesser post - say, Academy Director. On the other hand, firing Ashton would be painless.

So, with Bradley and Schmid off the board, who's left? Cirovski? Andrulis? Tabatznik? A second-tier pro coach ?

 

Me I am better than Ashton. My team has been the best in Baltimore City two years running! Oh and I come cheap.

 

But your argument is that if the roster were better, the team would do better. Well no kidding! Of course they should do better.

The real issue is whether another coach could come in and do better with this roster. I think the answer is yes. But we'll never know, will we?

Conversely, they could've brought in Sigi or Bradley before they got picked up in LA, and maybe done worse. That would validate your argument. Really, that's the only thing that would validate your argument, IMHO.

 

If he would ever leave MD, I'd hire Cirovski as Technical Director - someone in charge of unifying the developmental vision, from academy to scouting for the first team. He'd probably end up as head coach eventually, but as we're adding the USL piece is a good time to have someone step in who can put a hand to the tiller of the entire enterprise. I'd hire Harkes as the first coach of the USL side. That would bring two guys in house with DC connections who are valid coaching options and, moreover, stabilize and define elements of a whole into which a new coach would fit.

 

Give up tenure to work for Thorir and Levien? Why?

 

Blackmail, dementia... I was going to say there are lots of reasons, but those are the only two that come to mind.

 

Does head coach position of a MLS club require a USSF Pro license?

 

I believe Bruce Arena still has a few more items in his soccer bucket list, If coaching isn't one of them than Sunil Gelato better watch his ass.

 

I believe that if the roster were better he would do better. I don't think another coach would do markedly better with this roster. That is where we will disagree. Now I am not pounding the pulpit shouting I know I'm right but my experience leads me to believe what I believe.

 

It just occured to me that Bob Bradley probably took an MLS job just so he could beat the crap out of a Levien team on a regular basis. At least a DC game will be cathartic for someone.

 

I like this thought; but he would have taken a job in the East if he wanted to beat us *regularly*.

 

It needs to happen. I love Ben, he's part of the living history of this organization, etc., but every member of the organization needs to be sent a message that this level of performance is absolutely unacceptable. The only way to do that is to fire the head coach. There are at least a half dozen guys on this team who will only be playing professionally next season if their, and the team's, performance picks up significantly. It does them no favor to let this continue to deterioriate. It's time to hire an intirum coach, maybe Harkes or Richie Williams, with the message that he will not be be coaching next season (unless, possibly, if the team turns around big time).

 

I admit I've only seen fan posts and highlights of this season. But to me it seems that DCU is the bad side of a few key factors.

1. MLS Expansion - Affordable / value "U.S." players are more and more scarce and being spread league wide across 22 teams. We are not getting them, others are.
2. Drafting - Other teams are doing average or above average work. We are not.
3. Homegrown Players Required - Sure Hamid and Najar, but who else? Hamid may be off to Europe next year. As DCU's grammatically awkward slogan said, "it takes more"! Especially when you can't draft and don't have the budget for signing "game-changer" DPs.
4. DPs - They are not cheap. But if you have a few of them, you are a contender to go win cups. This is no longer 1996 or even for that matter 2004. I'm not saying teams won't win Cups & fame & fortune with economic rosters, but reliance on "extra high priced" DPs are an almost-must.
5. THIS! Slow Veterans not balanced out by fast players! - https://www.transfermarkt.com/d-c-united/startseite/verein/2440 Too many key players over age of 28. We don't have Josh Gross type players who can run. All are goals against this season are avoidable if we could match those "bursts of speed" our MLS opponents have in the final 3rd. Oh yeah are opponents also are scoring "highlight type" goals against us from distance / outside the box. But hey when you don't have Perry Kitchen type players in your team, its no surprise.
6. DCU has MLS 2.0 playbook - Most (but not all) MLS teams are now in MLS 5.0 or maybe even 29.0. DCU has no budget to keep up. The last time we had a good mix was in the Christian Gomez / Jaime Moreno days. Solid veterans / Good Passing / Fast young players / ok defense. Unless you get a solid team FC Dallas style, doesn't look good.

Not sure Ben Olsen has too much choice. He is set up to fail 4 goal losses with this bunch. Though he should have won with the 3-0 lead in Seattle. That is on him.