I know a lot of posts have already happened in the roster thread but figured this would be a good idea. Multiple reporters with The Athletic, ESPN and Glenn Davis to name a few are saying Olsen has agreed to terms to be the next Dynamo head coach.
Dynamo ownership once again rewards incompetence by letting decision makers to continue to make terrible decisions. I will be withholding my hard-earned money from the purchase of future tickets. I will occaisionally watching the games on Apple TV IF: 1) I have nothing else to do and 2) I have time to waste Only consistent competitive performances and wins will bring me back. There has been too many players coaches and bad games that have come and gone for me to be a fan anymore. I pray that I am proven wrong. I will be rooting for them but I will not emotionally and financially invest in following the team until they improve.
From 2014 to 2019, DCU made the playoffs all but one year. Over that same period, the Dynamo only made the playoffs once. Apart from the very end of that period,, the two teams had similar payrolls. In fact, in several years, DCU was lower on the spend list than the Dynamo. While I wasn't initially ecstatic about this, guy has a ton of MLS experience and by any reasonable measure outperformed the resources he was given. I'm going to hope for the best and see what happens.
What exactly is the direction of Houston Dynamo Football Club with the reported hire of Ben Olsen? https://www.thestriker.com/2022/10/...question-about-direction-of-houston-dynamo-fc Column from Victor Ariza, I’ll share some excerpts. “Last offseason, around $4 million was spent to acquire Paraguayan forward Sebastian Ferreira, the most expensive signing in club history. Shortly after, Mexican national team midfielder Hector Herrera was signed on a pre-contract to a reported annual salary of around $5.2 million in guaranteed compensation, a move that has catapulted the team's payroll into the top ten among in MLS teams.” “Under Segal's ownership, the hope was to finally be in contention for a more high-profile name, similar to what Atlanta United did in hiring Gerardo Martino, especially with Houston's global population. As Onstad undergoes a second coaching search in as many years, the hopes for that type of hire have been rebuffed.” “After retiring from the Dynamo, Onstad played briefly and coached under the D.C. United legend who will become the next head coach of the club, which is a simple summary of the relationship between the two. For starters, even if Olsen has the qualifications, the "hire a friend" policy was one that was supposed to have ended with the prior administration. Onstad was supposed to adopt a more serious way of running a club and the Segal era was expected to be one of realized potential.” “Moreover, the expected announcement of Olsen as a head coach is a gut punch to the hopes of seeing the club aspire to a pedigree worthy of the fourth-largest city in the United States, a supposed goal of the club under Segal. Instead, it is a hiring that signals more of the same mediocre attempts that have led the club to miss the playoffs eight times in the last nine seasons.” “The Houston Dynamo missed an opportunity to make an impactful signing that could inject confidence from the Houston soccer public. The club could have brought in an experienced coach to instill an exciting playing style and dig deeper into the player development side of things.” “With about 14 expiring contracts, the opportunity is there to inject a lot of fresh new faces. The hiring of Olsen, a coach praised for his ability to motivate players, seems to point to more players staying than going, though that remains to be seen.” “The one guarantee is that the club's three Designated Player spots are spoken for, with Herrera, Ferreira, and Adalberto Carrasquilla in those roles. Only if MLS adds a rumored fourth DP spot can the Dynamo add another high-salary impact player. Given those conditions for the Houston roster, Olsen will have to get more out of that trio than what he got from his two MLS Best XI stars at D.C. United — which included the second all-time goalscorer in the Premier League and one of the top assist men in MLS. At least at this point, it's a losing situation.”
Solid winger in his day, both in MLS and in a few stints abroad. So the man knows the MLS scene and what playing in Europe is like. Is Olsen the sage, veteran I was hoping for, naw. But again, who wants to coach here these days???
his peak year (2012) they went out in the conference semis to whatever team it was dom kinnear was coaching that season. surest sign you have gone downhill is when your new coach's claim to fame is the year he lost to you when you used to be good.
so we hired pat who used to play here, who hired asher his buddy from columbus, then ben his buddy from DC. "i know a guy who knows a guy....."
Whenever I see pundits or analysts talk about "exciting playing style" I realize the pundit doesn't really know what they are talking about. This is throw-down pablum of meaningless nonsense. Every team everywhere that starts focusing on "playing style" becomes a losing organization. The only exception is perhaps Real Madrid -- and that is because they literally paper-over the nonsense with endless amounts of money. What matters is winning. With whatever style is required to win. Period. Anything less and you lose to the teams that are focused on winning.
First -- if Olson is appointed Dynamo coach I will support him and give him the benefit of the doubt. He does not have the profile I think this club needs but I will root for his success and support him, defend him against unfair and unsound criticism, and try to learn from what he does. Now, having said that. Olson's appointment would be a sign of very low ambition for the exact facts that DynamoManiac relates. Competing for the playoffs is frankly easy and meaningless. Just be average and you'll consistently compete for the playoffs and make it about half the time. And your just fooking average and you are not trying to win MLS Cup or a Supporters Shield. SMH. I think we are in a 3-5 year period while mr Lottery-winner Segal gets educated on just how little he is prepared to own and lead an MLS franchise. He is likely still deluded into thinking he is wealthy because of his smarts and virtues and not because he just got lucky. (This is not an anti-capitalist rant. I'm a market oriented capitalist. This is an anti-hedge fund rant. I don't think anyone who has gotten wealthy off of hedge funds is anything more than lucky. That "market" is pure gambling.) I'm now about ready to become a believer in Promotion/Relegation. Segal needs to have his fortune at risk rather than be average and let the ambitious teams drag him along.
I can’t quite pin a reason but I don’t think it’s too much to raise an eyebrow at. Glenn broke the news of the Nagamura hire on December 27th and the team didn’t make an announcement until January 3rd. It doesn’t make much sense but it is a pattern.
You do bring up some valid criticisms but I think it’s interesting that one of your critiques on the move puts us way outperforming our record since 2014. While yea, we should be asking for more, right now we are currently stuck in a rut of finishing bottom of the barrel. If Olsen can just give us 2-3 years of 45-50 points it would be a huge boost for the club, way bigger than signing HH imo. Hopefully we have Olsen here to do the dirty work of getting the terrible mentality out of the players and get them to a point where games in August and September matter. He’s got his work cut out for him.
re playing style, the deal is if you want to compete with your league's elite, you need to be very good one side of the ball at least. you either need similar GF to the best teams, or you need low GA where you can stay in the game with those teams and try to win 1-0. the dynamo to me are a muddled mess in the middle and i cannot tell what they are trying to achieve. only cabrera year 1 did we commit to offense d*mn the consequences, and had 58 GF. we made the playoffs. the only time since then we've even looked half committed to directness and attacking is bundy but he didn't have the same level of personnel to just go end to end with the league and devil may care. you had 4 Fs as good or better than sebas plus an actual 10 (alex). since then we have generally favored two weak 8s instead of a 10, and the forward quality is dropped off significantly. so it's a team that plays a 433 and seems half interested in attacking but with second rate forwards and no playmaker. to me the idea of emphasizing offense with an underpaid team is naive -- how do you compete on the attack with the best paid teams in MLS -- who can afford even better attackers. and i don't trust the brass to get lucky like 2017. but if we're going to attack, don't just "kind of" do it, fafa, corona, coco, baird. go get some actual attackers and creative people to feed them. the other model is 2007. we did not have the best offense, but we had weapons. but what we had was the best defense in the league by 5 regular season goals, 23 GA in 30 games. you then need just enough offense to progress your rounds while you pitch shutouts. the dynamo allowed 3 goals in 4 playoff games on the way to the title. the midfield selections all seem tilted to defense, but they actually aren't great at it, the defense itself is bad, and we seem to keep trying to have attacking wingbacks and a 433, which is no way to defend stoutly. we instead prefer some sort of a half baked blend that is poor on defense and mediocre on offense. no advantage either way. but if you want to replace defense the whole back 6 needs to be good at marking, and ideally athletic to cover ground. IMO, on a budget, they need to pick one to start with and finish the job. we are going to emphasize offense, have a 10 and some good forwards, go end to end, and try and outscore the league -- 2017 -- or we are going to be airtight, frustrate the league, and then grind our rounds -- 2007. as long as it's mixed messages, shoddy setup play, weak defense, uncompetitive. i agree about the buzzwords. i feel like i am watching muddled fashion tactical concepts fed through a second or third rate roster/GM/HC. i cannot quite tell if pat gets it but is being overruled and ordered around, or whether he in fact believes other things and what sounds like acknowledgement is really the fans with basic wisdom being patronized. eg, should we have a 10. i don't care which, i want results.
i think it's horrifically naive to try coaching bad players with the wrong attitude into something different. generally speaking the answer is GM work -- go get better players with the right attitude. we need to do the surer thing. the surer thing isn't hire a mediocre coach and hope good ben shows up. the surer thing isn't hope he can whip hand a bad team into better results. it's hire a consistently good coach and give him a new set of superior players. i think you might be able to get some players to grow but making a team bet on that is likely to result in a lot more of the same. the odds favor most of the holdovers will be the same or worse.
Suspect it may be MLS league-driven to have teams not make major announcements in the week leading up to MLS Cup. Other leagues like MLB and NHL sort of do news embargoes during their championship series. I think the MLS off-season transactions calendar, expansion protection lists, etc. all ramp up next week so I would assume if it is a done deal, announcement next week likely
Eh, finishing 7th in an exciting manner is better than 4th/5th with a lot of 0-0 draws. At some point the 90 minutes has to be entertaining. Wade Barrett had some improved results after Coyle was fired but a full season of that would get old
Also having all of Houston’s sports media in Philly for the rest of the week doesn’t help either now that I think about it.
Good point. Busy sports week pro and college (and even HS). Astros sucks most of the oxygen up and the Texans/college FB uses up the rest.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Atascocita vs North Shore varsity gridiron game last week drew more viewers locally on FoxSW broadcast than our last home game versus LAG. Which is symbolic of a lot with our club. I mean North Shore is ranked top 10 nationally once again. But in our soccer savvy and turbo diverse soccer loving market, the interest for our players and our crest has never been lower in our city.
Release: the Dynamo will introduce the new head coach on November 7. Ted Segal and Pat Onstad will be in attendance. #HoldItDown— Foxtrot (@DynamicFoxtrot) November 3, 2022 I’ll give you credit, you called it.
So they are announcing our new head coach on 11/7 when no one will notice as the USMNT World Cup roster will be released that day. I guess they don't expect this to be an announcement that sends a positive message -- best to have it buried.
well, depending upon Astros and Election Day, it may still get swallowed up. The reception of this hire will be interesting - is it visionary? No. Will he be able to grit out a playoff spot? Much better chance than Nagamura. Feels like a low ceiling/higher floor type of hiring
I obviously got this wrong. For some bonehead reason I thought US Soccer was announcing WC roster on 11/7. My bad. I take it all back.