Hey Matt! Unfortunately streams are not allowed due to the League's new broadcast deal. I'll be here all night with the updates and will provide video and photo after the game!— Chicago Fire FC (@ChicagoFire) February 8, 2023 I figured this was a reason the games haven’t been streamed thus far, this is the first time I’ve seen someone say it
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BUpguKa6QRqSVcpaaGW6y?si=Bt3LgfTXQHSeUATu5-g-wQ Dynamo preview around the 31 minute. Their prediction for the Dynamo is 12th place.
That's fair. At the same time, with as much change as this team has undergone since the end of last season, nobody really knows how good or bad they will be this year.
you can predict quality levels in rough tiers. not worried about playoffs vs borderline vs don't even think about it. my beef for years is i thought we were pretty clearly not even thinking about it since 2018, 2019 at the latest. once you're in you have a shot to do anything. but you have to be worthy of that level to have your chance. that occasionally a portland wins from a weak seed doesn't mean anything to a non-seed. and i still think our post-2007 history with LAG exits as well as 2017 with seattle suggest you can't get around spending and tiering. if your goal is win it all you will have to beat the good ones, and often enough they are the ones who spend. not always, but often enough. but we wish. we would just like to be in the raffle. i think there are some exceptions to "knowing right now" but they involve teams like the 2000s dynamo and their regular summer injections. seattle most years is the heir to that approach. slow spring, veteran roster, make some tweaks, show up in the late summer and fall. but if the dynamo aren't aggressive with their summer then i think it's indulgent to act like we don't in some broad sense have a good idea. a likely range. good coach, good tactics, good game management, top end of range. junk coach, blown games, bottom of range. we suggesting we can win it all this year, no summer tweaks? then you kinda know, really. not to a specific spot, but close enough. there are a few elite teams, there's a minnesota/RSL/portland/vancouver cluster at the line. then the rest. which cluster are we. don't pretend the clusters don't exist. you see them year after year, and you kinda know where we fit. personally i thought in recent years we were definitely not a playoff team -- at peak we were rarely high above the red -- but we could have been better than 13th. bad enough a roster to b*tch about, but not bad enough to give the coach a pass. i don't think this should have been last place when it was. but also not much better than about 10th. what i see this year is a defense that isn't fixed, injuries, poor acquisitions, short numbers, looked bad against america and susceptible to the same issues against pumas though we didn't pay. maybe olsen has some scheme to protect that, but i don't think a press 433 is it. leeds just fired their press 433 coach. i don't think it's a good plucky team formation. i think the offense depends if they get bassi and franco on the field same time or platoon them one slot, if they play castilla, or promote this gonzo kid. but i believe in defense first and i don't think that's fixed. which dooms the rest. i think it would help if we played a more fundamentally sound formation. i do not think we have had a good point grinding formation since kinnear. but generally i see this as like 9th-bottom. this is a parity league so feeling like those are our prospects is horrible. i kinda can't believe people defend it. people forget this was blown up 2020. not yesterday.
Its interesting that the Dash schedule came out this week with 14 games with the following: - 5 games that are either 1 day before or after Dynamo home games - 5 games that are in direct conflict with Astros games (same or nearly the same start time) - 3 games that are at 7:30 on Saturdays with an Astros 3:10 start time (so likely a conflict or near on parking or traffic) Understand they are second in priority (I know that is probably considered a breach of gender equity) but that is a lot of conflicts.
HT | Houston takes the lead 👊#HoldItDown pic.twitter.com/wnjjKbIx1N— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) February 11, 2023
The one thing not accounted for is Paramount+ scheduling requests. They probably have some say in the start times
FT | 2️⃣-2️⃣Houston wraps up the match with a hard fought draw💪#HoldItDown pic.twitter.com/fx6sDc6LiJ— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) February 12, 2023 At least these games are easier to get scores for
dude they used to have a broadcast link, track the game developments on twitter, and have our lineup and subs on twittter and a recap article. i see people completely blaming apple, it plainly ain't that: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/2023-mls-preseason-schedule-and-results there are other teams out there being more giving of information afterwards, even if the games aren't being shown. we meanwhile describe 4/6 as closed door, no recaps, anything getting out is the opponent posting. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/revs-2023-pre-season-r.2123838/page-2 other teams are posting similar appearing pre-game and half tweets but from at least NER it looks like they are tweeting more like we did last season. so no video but tweeted activity and lineups then a recap. we have plainly made a ben decision to keep a lid on as much scouting info as we can control. some of what you're seeing is a new post apple PR package but within that we are being deliberately opaque. NER has goal scorers, lineups, subs. not sure why, looked like a 433 against america and due to injuries and limited churn most of the suspense would be reserve/HD2 contracts ie second half stuff. what are we hiding. ironically trickery to me would be you show up to play RSL without DQ playing, bunkered back, playing completely different than the preseason video. but who knows.
side point, certain actual trolls on here act like preseason doesn't matter but our struggles and tactical tensions were foretold last season in the last 2 preseason games and the first 2 league contests. when they opened it up with DQ good teams beat them. when they saw what happened in preseason and tightened it down they had no offense and could only sometimes execute a bunker. at which point they reverted to opening it up. the dynamo pattern is generally struggling to beat playoff teams when they go end to end with them. this is why i keep saying either the personnel needs to get a lot better or they need to fix the defense. i've decided what happened last season is they tried out of the gate but had a flattering schedule and at some point hit the buzzsaw eg FCD and Austin, eventually quit on the coach at some point, started losing even games they should win, coach fired, revived to trying for the last 5 games under bundy. the last 5 games were .500, so, meh. but that does back the idea this was not a bottom of barrel team if coached right. it should have been a better loser. the objective disagreement about the team would be this. they tore out 2/3 of the productive offense from a team already marginal. they should. but it then matters if the new folks are up to it or better. it then matters if some prospect they may sign is ticketed to the B team instead. likewise, the defense was trash, they tore out about half of it. it then matters if a player demands a trade. it then matters if a replacement is an ACL rehab. it then matters if an LB signing looks like a dud to me. it matters who you swap in. cutting bad players is the easy part and we don't even fully do that. and you don't win cutting people, the signings need to be superior. we have put a lot of our effort into players in second divisions and lesser leagues. this is not signing world cup stars. a boom should not be assumed. to that point nothing i've heard so far has the attacking signings getting any of our G or A, 4 games into preseason. what i saw was sebas baird and i heard thor was one of today's. those are all old names. we're depending on new names being as good or better than DQ, or it's last year's offense. this is an objective disagreement about a soccer team that is starting from 13th place, has one win in preseason so far against a second division team, and made specific changes that have to work and that can be judged. i think labeling a critic or skeptic of that a troll is obnoxious. to be crystal clear a troll is some who says things they don't mean or does things to deliberately play mindgames with posters. nope. never been that. this is sincerely what i think. no one else is saying it which is why i am. i speak for the normal dynamo fans not drinking the kool aid. if you think that's trolling you aren't a real dynamo fan anymore, you're a flack. my job is not to be optimistic for them, it's to judge precisely what they do. with a team this bad doing anything else gives them too easy an out.
the fundamental problem with this team is the poor quality (and often unproductive positions) of the DPs. we have 1 decent attacking DP. we have a bad DM DP and a mediocre defensive DP. we badly need DP type production up high. we instead have defensive types. the defensive types then are not so amazing we become a great defensive team for that allocation oft he DPs. so you're getting the benefit neither end. they then try to fix things with sub-DP signings but the academy sucks and the batting average on cheap signings is somewhere between bad and ok. it says something that last year the most impactful player was a guy who had been benched and was a sub DP who was out of deal, and that this year likewise rides on whether sub DP trades work and signings from small leagues or second divisions are diamonds from the rough or as risky as their backgrounds suggest.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/mls/ Don’t really trust on them more than any other prognosticators, but I can see 24%
this is like mr. stats and his xG thing. they predict -15 GA and 38 pts which would be regression. they rate our offense third from the bottom, and overall second from bottom ahead of DC and StL expansion. they rate our defense second from the bottom. they have a graph with odds for each spot finish, >10% at 10-14 just like i have been saying, <10% for 1-9. if you add up 1-7 you get the 24% figure. that 24% figure is nominally higher than the individual low finishes but put together the real odds are 51% 10-14, ie greater than a coin flip. and what you get from that is the 24% number....... this graph also does a pretty good job of showing the tiering which defies absolutist notions of anything being possible. there are a handful at top with near-lock odds of making the tournament and a higher odds on being a top 4 seed than we have making it. heck their SS odds are nearly bigger than our playoff odds. you then have a few teams bottom of the table with like 1/4, 1/5, 1/10 odds of the season amounting to anything. i also think that most big moves up the table usually involve personnel aggression which we do not radiate. one of the reasons i b*tch is for a team this bad we seem on a 3-5 year plan and no urgency. last point, 538 is predicting SJ is a midtable team. after the 2 LA teams left us behind 2 years ago. after AUS and FCD soared up the table last year. that's the whole cluster of teams around us in the cellar in recent years, flying off. we are the only team that stays where we do.........
i do not understand the lack of urgency when the scenario i see for possibly fixing this isn't peripheral tinkering but replacing the core. the core is a big chunk of why this is what it is. the 3-5 years analysis is that's when key player contracts expire and we could passively swap the core. if we do not give them a push. even if the periphery first strategy works we'd be dragging the core. since the speed of this possibly taking off is the speed of a core swap no idea why we are in no hurry to do that. to me we have heavy pressure on the non-core part because the core doesn't get it done, which is rough pressure on when we acquire lower salary players. it should be "nice" if non-core bring in 10G or 10A, not "necessary" to make up for the core failure. if we have mukhtar or acosta plus sebas then you're cooking with your other attackers. if you have HH or coco hogging salary and doing nothing then you badly need the wings to supply it all, and since we're on a budget they are statistically inconsistent players from paraguay or the french second division. no one is ever a lock but those are diceroll signings. this is the different between a playoff lock and a team that can just hope. some are accusing me of constant negativity but back in the day i would be lauding what holden or dero or davis did in the balance of saying if a game had been handled different we should have won. it is far different to be talking 1 seed vs 4 seed, and happy to watch the games but seeking optimization, than a constant cellar dweller asking why i bother. if it seems negative now there is good reason. not sure what you're even watching. and i'm particularly amused with westie's flip-flop because if anyone else should understand being skeptical of years of repeated optimism fits, only 1 of whom was successful (and which was obviously different in quality), it should be him. the 2017 team you could tell from the quality of the signings and them making people look silly in preseason. and i was still the only booster that year early on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Houston_Dynamo_season since people need a reminder eg we won tucson that year
i think some of you want to be hopeful they could overperform ignoring a recent history of actually being mismanaged to a point they are perhaps even less competitive than they should be ie underperformance. to me this should have been a 10-11th place team in recent years but sputtered on down to 13th, while some thought it had a playoff chance. to me this year resonates of the same happy talk ignoring that the "shoulda" scenario is lower and we have managed to even miss median scenarios for our roster lately. kind of like i thought HH wouldn't do much but wouldn't be as bad as he was. people need to consider our pattern of going completely to sh*t in their happy analyses and realize the competently managed median scenario is in between. they are still signing people -- did just the other day -- so they still have my time. but if it's reserves and van der kunst i don't think we're out of the loop. and since people want to bs the loop has been teams that have marginal potential then blow up to less than you would even expect.
Dynamo preseason 2023: Times are CT Feb. 1: Club America 6-1 Dynamo Feb. 4: Tlaxacala 0-2 Dynamo Feb. 7: UNAM Pumas 0-0 Dynamo Feb. 11: CF Montreal 2-2 Dynamo @ Ft. Lauderdale, FL Feb. 15: Columbus Crew v. Dynamo @ Ft. Lauderdale, FL Feb. 18: Dynamo v. FC Dallas (closed door scrimmage) 7:30 pm The Dynamo have posted a recap of the game on Saturday. There is a brief video clip in the article. Úlfarsson and Carrasquilla scored the Houston goals. https://www.houstondynamofc.com/new...-montreal-play-to-2-2-draw-in-fort-lauderdale The second and final game in Florida is on Wednesday
Unless they move a DP away, which I don’t see as most of the non-MLS windows closed, this is pretty much the Opening Day to Summer roster.
I trust em less. 538 is supposed to be statistical and probability analysis. What stats could they have access to that inform probabilities for this season? Absolutely none.
Yea I feel like I saw this posting several weeks back so I think they’ve known about it for a while. I don’t really know how those postings go from the recruitment standpoint but it could be a matter of not taking it down until the role is filled or forgetting to take it down. I will say though if they can get someone in soon that one benefit of this role with the dynamo is the late home opener. You can get info from Apple on what’s been working and not working with other teams in the league for broadcasts
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3456112392 Per LinkedIn it was posted 17 days ago. Still a little too close for comfort imo but we don’t know other circumstances. Someone did mention a lot of staff turnover as well so that could be part of it
Fair enough. They may have a Director already over there and this is just a manager position. But it seems a little tardy given that this deal was announced last June in the outline, for it was pretty much done in terms of production back in October.. I tell you what I’ll do I’ll create a 2023 Offield discussion thread, so the stuff will be in its own area
Dynamo has a pretty tough opening nine games, especially the road contests only really San Jose was a bad team although NE struggled. I do think there has to be something positive out of the first two road games
surely you see the implications of this, i know USOC is now ESPN, but this probably means they can't show any streaming games outside apple, eg, friendlies, charity matches, USOC, preseason.