Dear Ben, I like you. I really like you. No, not like that, or anything, but I think you're a great guy. My wife is still totally enamoured with you. I'm OK with that. I mean, you're freakin' Ben Olsen. She can lust after you all she wants, whatever, it gives me the space I need for hot Asian girl-on-girl Internet porn and video games. But that's beside the point. I think you were a great player, and you definitely bled black-and-red. I also think you can, one day, be a great coach. You're not there yet, and it pains me to say that. Like, a kick in the jubblies sorta pain. And this is after my hour-and-a-half ride home from the stadium...on a weeknight...when I gotta get up for work at 6am the next day. Yes, you read that right, I drove an hour and a half, from my home in northeast bumblef$#k MD to see our proud lads drop two points because of poor game management. I got most of the cursing done last night on my drive home. Did I mention it was an hour and a half? There was a lot of cursing. I may have circled a block or two, it got kinda hazy for a bit, there. I'll be the first to admit, I don't know what happens in the locker room, or the practice fields. Also, my coaching experience is limited to U11-U13 girls rec soccer (don't laugh, those little b*****s were hard core), but I have been following the sport for a few decades, and United since its inception, and through the good and the bad, I notice things. Like, we've had somewhere around a million games in a 3 week period, and two of our most clearly skilled in necessary areas players don't get put in until the waning minutes of the match, if at all. Clearly, they're RESTED. At the tail end of the first half, Bosko was actually the only player warming up along the quiet side touchline. You put him in with 4 minutes left in the match? Seriously? And is a formation where we ceded the midfield entirely, relying on wing play and deep balls out of the back the best idea in this situation? RBNY, the poster children of ineptitude, special needs, ugliness and, I don't know, dead goat f$cking or something, used all their subs by the 83rd minute, down by a goal. We had 7 minutes to kill off, and one of our best possession players was twiddling his thumbs waiting for you to ^&*^()*^& ^)(*& &(*%( get your (&_(*)_(*&)^ out of (&_*^ *^)^)(*)&(*. Sorry. I'm sorry. I thought I had gotten all of that out. I may have missed some. Rage sticks in between the teeth if you don't floss adequately, and I was tired...long drive, you know. But, seriously, we had 3 subs to use, up by a goal, 7 minutes left, and it's 3 minutes later before Bosko can enter the pitch? Sub clusterf$ck before RBNY's restart aside, you follow that up with Long Tan? LONG F$CKING TAN? I don't know what Salihi did to deserve the lack of playing time. Maybe he shows up to practice late. Maybe he showed up to the stadium covered in blow and stripper glitter, reeking of alcohol (those nights out with KP are rough, I hear). Maybe he came to practice, face full of doughnuts and kicked your puppy, I don't know. But when he does play, particularly when we're able to control the midfield, the guy is dangerous. He reads defenders very well. He finds (or makes) awesome space for himself. He gets himself in dangerous areas repeatedly. Hell, in the last game where he was fortunate enough to be bequeathed a few minutes, when we had a player running down the touch line with the ball to the attacking third, and four United players, marked tight, crashing the 6 yard box, he was the only one with the presence of mind to stop his forward run and backpedal a few steps, leaving himself with literally YARDS of space. Of course, our cross instead finds its way into the hands of the keeper, because by the time the cross was played in, everyone but Salihi was waaaaay too close, and the keeper had that angle thoroughly covered, and Korb is no Etcheverry. Maybe you're upset about his encroachment call in the Philly game. Let's be honest, though, in 99 games out of a hundred, or a straight up hundred games not reffed by a douche named Geiger, that call isn't even made for its triviality. But incompetent, possibly biased, special needs people who are even too inept for employment with the likes of RBNY (the bar is low, I know) need jobs too, and only so many people can be Jersey rest stop gas pump attendants. We should have won these games, particularly last night's, without needing to rely on the suspect competence of Salazar or his ilk. I mean, it was almost as much of a crapshoot on whom he was making a call every time that whistle blew as it was with Geiger, that's true. We gotta win DESPITE the refs. But I digress. The point is, you need to work on certain aspects of your coaching chops. Assuming you Know The Answer to leaving some of our arguably best players on the bench for either too long or for the entire match, you should recognize when a possession game is needed to kill off a match, and your players should as well. They should know to make the opponent chase the ball. They should know to rely on short, nearly absolutely guaranteed passes, rather than opt for a hopeful cross-field or upfield ball that's 50/50 at best, and less likely last night, since our midfield was a sieve. And YOU should know to get the tired legs off the pitch earlier, and burn a few valuable 30 second blocks with each sub, particularly after we got the go-ahead goal. There was no excuse whatsoever to let us grind away for another 14 minutes with the same guys on the pitch and 3 subs just hanging there, two of which are certainly amongst the best, if not the best, on the squad in just this sort of situation. They gotta know to kill off a game, and they need your squad management skills and guidance to help them do it. We need the points, Ben. This team has gone far too long without a decent playoff run. We're HUNGRY, Ben. I don't doubt you are, as well. There's a rule I learned from Scrooge McDuck on DuckTales (don't judge me, everyone gets tired of hot Asian girl-on-girl Internet porn once in a while, except maybe FatBastard, and who can blame him?) that says "work smarter, not harder." We've got players who do just that. Be the coach that does. Please. Wishing you much success in the future, particularly at the helm of United, Stangspritzring, Internet nut
I agree with almost everything you said. But I am conflicted, and here's my problem (and Olsen's defense, I imagine): 2010 - 22 points in 30 games; 2011 - 39 points in 34 games; 2012 - 41 points in 26 games. This is not a minor improvement. So while I like your argument, we are arguing with results, and that is hard.
Oh, there's improvement, no doubt, I'm not talking "bring out the Olsen Afuera!" signs or anything, I'm just sayin' there's still a bit of...immaturity, for lack of a better term, in his game management and personnel utilization.
I agree with you 100%, but the results make me think maybe he knows more than I do...it is why I'm conflicted...
Fair point, for sure, but there have also been faster turnarounds, or, at least, faster signs of the "shape" of a team, at least. I also freely admit to being impatient.
my patience has not been tested...I'm exasperated because I feel like I could be seeing better players playing better soccer...but I don't know that the results would be much better (I mean, we are only a few points out of 1st place).
Couldn't agree more. So pissed with that result, should have had that win and we had the road to get there, too.
Very happy that your plan of resting Salihi & Boskovic at Montreal paid big dividends for us last night in our crucial game against the Pink Cows . . . oh, yeah. Obviously, there's a disconnect somehow between Kasper's signings and your lineups or as THE MAN said in Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is failure to communicate." I had thought that the whole point of signing designated players was to boost United's level of play rather than to sign DP's to hold down the far side of the bench.
If we managed our players better we'd be in the hunt for second place, not hoping for a miracle to get the charity 5th place slot in the playoffs and a likely thrashing at an away game in a new SSS owned by one of our rivals. We have a better team than last year -- simply better players. That doesn't change the fact is that we're glaringly misusing them and missing points. Better than shitty isn't good enough for me. Improving but still not quite there isn't good enough for me. Geiger notwithstanding, we shouldn't be where we are in the standings.
Ben, stop doing whatever you're doing and start doing something different. Regards, another internet nut
Too late. Lowcefier already called it. !neslO eriF Long standing meme jokes aside, it does seem that Ben is losing the stands. No idea if he's losing the locker room or not. And no idea if that makes any real difference in whether he learns and adjusts or stays the course. And no idea if it means if he stays or goes at the whims of a front office that doesn't seem much better. Sigh.
fwiw, stangspritzring highlights something I didn't even realize was lacking. I don't think I have ever watched hot Asian girl-on-girl porn. I know! If you wish to see this travesty righted, please bring me a disc to the next tailgate (I have dial-up, I can't download it myself), Filipino preferred, but it's all good (I assume). Other than that, I agree to much more of that post than I'd like to.
Personally, my biggest interest in the team these days is not necessarily about winning every game. Of course, I am emotionally invested in the team. I'm gutted when we lose and want them to always win, but it's really not about that all the time. If I am going to drive 4 hours or more round trip to watch a game, I'd rather watch the team possess the ball and show some sort of cohesiveness. Dudes busting their ass running all night is fun and we all know people who put in 110% effort at their jobs, but it doesn't always mean they should be promoted. It's easy to have this opinion when you are spoiled. I love Ben Olsen. He is my avatar on here. I just wish some of the lineup and substitution decisions were a little more understandable. I like the quote posted above for this situation "work smarter, not harder".
The two coaches that have won MLS Cups (that didn't ride on coattails) gave the team an identity. When you watched an Arena team, you knew what was coming, whether it was UVA, DC, the Nats, etc. Nowak played the 3-5-2 like he was being forced by the government. When it worked, it was truly awesome. Olsen has tried, I think, to stamp the 'hard work and effort gets results' identity on this team. They have that, but it's not really their identity. To me, their identity is constantly in flux, a team always trying to find itself. He's young, but this is his failure to this point. My fear is he doesn't have the ability to think in synergistic terms, using what he has to reach what he wants in the most efficient and effective manner.
The problem is the "hard work and effort gets results" is utterly naieve. Hard work and effort gets you that, nothing more. The key is thought -- strategy and tactics -- which so far has eluded Olsen (not that he's going to get much help from Ashton). The team is a mess because Ben wants hard work and punishes those -- Salihi and Bosko -- who don't seem to show that work ethic. The problem is that everyone just runs around -- passes go awry because teammates don't know where each other will be. McDonald lofts hopeful (hopeless?) long balls, because there is nothing more in the "hard work" playbook. You're absolutely right that Arena's teams and Nowak's teams came out and dictated play and adjusted and adapted to their opponent's responses. Ben's teams just run hard for 90 minutes -- sometimes they win, sometimes they lose and sometimes, like last night -- they get a draw that is inexplicable except for Gaudette's pathetic goalkeeping and Conde's miraculous strike. Point being a better coached team dissects a slow Red Bull backline and makes Gaudette look like the USL-Pro journeyman that he is. Instead, with Ben's simplistic approach, every game is a coin toss. If the team comes out sleep walking like Chicago, hard work tears them apart. If the team comes out like KC working hard and with a tactical sense -- DCU gets torn apart because Ben has no response to another team's "hard work."
I think Ben appreciates creative soccer and he would like the team to me more than hard work ... otherwise he wouldn't be signing players like Pajoy. The problem is the formation doesn't flatter the personnel. Too often his persistence on playing two strikers has left our midfield undermanned especially on the road. Ben should model this team after Dallas, we have very similar personnel once you eliminate Salihi and Boskovic which Ben is intent on doing. Don't let Dallas's place in the table fool you, Hyndman has that team playing good soccer ... they've just been decimated by injuries beyond belief. Something like this : ---------------------------------HAMID NAJAR--------------DUDAR------------JAKOVIC-------------WOOLARD(Korb) ----------------------KITCHEN----------SARAGOSA -----DELEON---------------DEROSARIO----------------PONTIUS ---------------------------------SANTOS(Pajoy)
This lineup makes me sad, because there's absolutely a place for Boskovic and Salihi in it. Drop Saragosa for Boskovic, especially, and we instantly have much better free/corner kicks.
They did not have any decent subs anyway, the only one that could have done anything was nursing a sore toe (Maicon Santos).
3 days rest and at altitude, fresh legs are almost bound to be better. And did you see McDonald? RSL didn't even bother defending him
i was noticing that too. when he brought the ball up the field they just backed off and waited for the inevitable bad cross. i'm a huge fan of bmac at cb but i was pulling my hair out when that was allowed to continue for so long.
Dear Ben, What gives? All year long you've been reluctant to play our two Eastern Europeans in favor of a series of journeymen and people of lesser skill. I assume you were involved in the decision to get Salihi and know you had a say in re-signing Bosko. You have moved lineups around and around and around but the plan doesn't seem clear to me and I'm pretty sure I've watched -- and in some instances painfully re-watched -- every minute of the team's play this year. We've lacked consistency and consistently lacked the class/soccer smarts European players are supposed to bring. What's more, its unclear that Salihi has had enough time on the field for us even to know what he's capable of (or not). All season long you have shunned Salihi and Boskovic as if you never wanted them here. As part of the braintrust you have pursued inferior talent who everyone thought of as depth and played them ahead of two of our three most expensive and experienced players. And based on what we've seen in the last 5 games, we'll miss the playoffs in part because of these decisions. The quality of play in the last 5 games has been poor, but the style of play has been abysmal. Not playing either of them in Montreal is, well, it bends my imagination to see how -- even if you hated them -- you wouldn't play them there. So here's a request, as someone who has respected your play -- and not just your grit -- since day one: COME CLEAN. United spent a helluva lot of money and raised our expectations (along with ticket prices) touting these great players. Explain why you won't play them. I may not agree with your answer, but assuming its not petty, at least we can understand. Right now to diehard fans like me who again now EXPECT us to miss the playoffs -- and in this season, not because of the quality of the roster -- are feeling pretty pissed, and pretty beat up. What's the gig?