This was an interesting caveat for me as well... I thought it was common knowledge that the absolute best way to wear out your opponent, especially in bad conditions, was to keep the ball & play boring soccer... NOT play frantic counter attack, high press soccer. You look at this roster, the only player who really fits that is Morgan Brian. Possibly Hagen if you get someone who knows how to use her hold up skills as opposed to seeing her as just a big target in the box. if they get a new coach worth their salt who understands this, we might see some serious house cleaning at the end of the season, or even before that.
I recall also that the announcers said that, at every opportunity, the Seattle players were running off the field to drink water and apply ice packs -- and the Houston players were toughing it out. Seattle perhaps was better prepared to play in the heat -- which should not have been case.
I do remember though all the harsh criticism leveled against Pat Riley when he lead the Thorns, Some fans(BS posters) were calling him 'the worst coach ever! Well after he got fired from the Thorns. took over the way less heralded Flash the following year & right to the championship. Waldrum's case might of been he threw 'all his marbles' for Carli Lloyd, Obviously for various reasons. she hasn't been there for him. And of course some other poor choice selections. Just was wondering on the complexity of coaching woso; why do the English, a country not known for technical virtuality and/or under achievers on the men's side(especially it's NT) dominate the women's game then?
Pat Riley is a legendary NBA coach and GM. That definitely would be a bad NWSL hire. Kidding aside, many fans tend overreact and are generally idiots. Paul Riley was already a very successful coach. He took Philly to the WPS Championship game, was voted coach of the year in WPS. Waldrum might well go somewhere else and do better if he learned from his mistakes in Houston. If he did the same things, though, he'd fail again. College and pros are very different. It's a difficult jump to make, especially if you've no prior experience at the pro level and a lifetime of experience at college.
We did not criticize Waldrum for 1 bad year, 2 bad years. We only started to do so after 3 years and carried over to the 4th. If your team still messed up the same way in the 4th year as in the 1st, why do you think it will change?
I think the senior leadership on the team over the course of the first two years (Masar, McLeod, Edwards, Bock, Cross, Engen, etc., etc.) made a significant amount of difference. Without the ones that were there in year two, I don't think that team finishes in 5th place like it did. Haven't had that the last two years. That experience and ability to lead, credibility in dealing with issues did a lot to compensate for any coaching shortcomings.
With the difficulties Waldrum has had at Houston, some of the discussion has been about the dissimilarity of college coaching and professional coaching. There's another possibility, which is that maybe Waldrum wasn't as good a college coach as many people think. The statistics say that Notre Dame was on something of a decline from 2008 through 2013, which were Waldrum's last 6 years there. They still were a good team when he left, but well below the level of 2007.
he did a phenom job coaching Trinidad & Tobacco at the Concacaf qualifiers back in 2014. T & T is a nation of only 1 million & a half. yet he took on the might of the United States(aprox 350 mill.) and only lost 0-1 in group play,, then got o.t. & pk loses to Costa Rica & Mexico in the subsequent playoffs. Obviously he did that by parking the bus, he really needed to emphasize defense with the Dash as well, But there seems to be an unwritten rule in the NWSL that everything's got to be played in the open field, which is vastly different from the woso games from Europe where the defense is packed, even at the pro club level
here are highlights of the Dash last game. Looks like they had way more chances, but again, their defense let them down Rachel Daly collapsed at the end of the game due to most likely, exhaustion. Hopefully she's recovered & a ok
Organization has always been a problem with Randy Waldrum teams, both with Notre Dame & the Dash. He's always been great at recruiting top players & bringing out their potential, but as a team manager he has historically struggled to put a team on the field, relying on big time plays from big name players to overcome poor organization on both attack & defense. That worked just fine at the college level for a while, where recruitment & giving your best players free reign more often that not lead to wins. When the competition is as good as you, if not out right better, that just doesn't work any more... if Waldrum had stayed with ND when they had moved to the ACC, I'm not so sure we would have seen him do any better in college than has done in the Pro's, with the exception being he would have played a lot of minnows to pad his W/L numbers.
Any of you Dash insiders heard anything about what they're looking for in the next coach? Like are they looking for someone who has professional experience (whether it's specifically in women's soccer or not) or are they looking at college coaches?
They say "all of the above", including the possibility that Morales is interim until end of the season. They just took the same "interim" approach with the Dynamo last year. It's kind of the low cost approach, which wouldn't shock me. Either way, I wouldn't anticipate they go big dollars on a coach.
Putting some words to thoughts. These ideas bounce around in my head & I KNOW what I’m trying to say, but you don’t truly appreciate the details of an idea until you say them aloud or write them down. To those willing to embark on reading this, I salute you. I’m not keen to carry on with what Waldrum & the Dash have done wrong over the past 3+ years. Instead, I’d like to focus on a few things the Dash can do to make things right. This depends, of course, on if they want to make the most of the squad they already have & not to tank the season for Andi Sullivan. There is a sports cliche that is universal for struggling players & teams. Simplification. It’s easy to identify what this entails in some sports. Hockey exemplifies this, so much so that even when the best teams & players are winning they will continue to espouse the ideal in interviews. Ask any hockey player what it means to simplify their game, you’ll get the same kind of answers every time. “Shoot. Get pucks through. Crash the net. Look for rebounds.” The most important aspect of simplification, & perhaps the most difficult to follow, is the mindset of the players. In a simplified game, there is no misdirection or deception. You are telling your opponent “this is what we are going to do & we dare you to try and stop it.” Yes, a player may be wide open on the far side of the rink, but that wouldn’t be the simple option. It’s even more difficult in soccer. The size of the field & the number of players increases the options for players at any given time. A degree of discipline is needed to not pick a more appealing option. “Stick” with the game plan. What simplification means in soccer is less obvious, and it is also much more difficult to attain. It can depend on the style of football a team prefers to play. Having the correct type of personnel to implement your strategy is also more consequential in soccer than it is in hockey. The most consistently expressed strategy in interviews is the idea of having width, both in its creation and in its exploitation, and driving endline before a cross. I’m going to focus on how to best implement this particular strategy, but there are any number of other options the Houston Dash can chose from to simplify the game. What matter is that they do simplify things for themselves. Forcing defenders to defend against a cross while facing their own goal is perhaps the most equatable soccer strategy to hockey's “crash the net & look for rebounds”. A well driven ball can ricochet any where off of turned defenders and attackers alike, and a defender facing her own goal will have a more difficult time clearing any dangers. The last goal the Dash scored is a perfect example of this, as the ball ricocheted off a defender & fell to a grateful Andressa, who finished her second chance well before the defense would have ever had the opportunity to recover from the end line drive of Kealia Ohai. The Houston Dash are well suited to this strategy, perhaps more so than most teams in the NWSL. Indeed they are already well accustomed to relying on flank play in generating chances. They have one of if not THE most dominant flank players in the world in Kealia Ohai, & they have a number of other skilled players well suited for driving end line, as well as for finishing cutbacks and driven balls into the box. Despite this apparent advantage in the wide areas, the Dash have been woefully inconsistent in anticipating & preparing for crosses. The frenetic, counter attacking style of the Houston Dash did not always lend itself to organized movement in the 18. However, even when the Dash had numbers to attack crosses, they never seem organized enough to take advantage. The most important element in this strategy (& what will be the most difficult for the Dash) is the timing of both the endline drive & the cross. The goal is to deliver a cross when A) the attacking team has had time to get runners into the box and B) the defenders are turned facing towards goal. If a flank attacker begins her end line drive too quickly, her teammates might not have enough time to get in the right positions to attack a cross. If a cross is delivered too slow for any reason (for example, a defender slows her down or blocks a quicker cross) then a defense has had time to turn back away from goal & re-identify any runners they might have lost track of before. In both situations, the flank player would do best in recycling out of the attack, preferably switching the point of the attack to the other end of the field. As mentioned before, a certain degree of discipline will be needed to implement the strategy & not get off track. This is important not just for the timing of the attack, but also to ensure everybody is on the same page & going to the right places. This is true for whatever strategy a team might choose to implement, not just for the strategy highlighted here. It’s difficult to ask an aggressive player such as Ohai to not take on a defender in ideal conditions when the opportunity presents itself. Yet when you are trying to simplify your game this is exactly what needs to happen. Ohai & the other flank players must look up & ask themselves “do I have the right kind of runs being made into the box?” The answer must simply be yes or no, & the path Kealia takes must either be to wait for the runs to develop, recycle the attack by making the easy pass, or by driving endline & activating the attack. This removes other options for the flankers, such as the ability to cut in & shoot. Everybody, including both teams, knows what is going to happen next. No misdirection, no deception. Pure execution & will. “You know what we are going to do, but we don’t think you can stop us”. Runs into the box must be coordinated and purposeful, designed to give the flank player options to aim at as well as containment in the event a cross is less than perfect. A minimum of 3 runs should be made: a support run, a keeper run, & a far post run. Ideally, late arriving midfielders can provide runs for cut backs & additional outlets. For the sake of simplification, the three runs mentioned above should be assigned to specific players. Positional assignment can be made for the sake of interchangeability, but simplicity is best suited when a specific player is assigned a role. The support run is designed to prevent the wide player from becoming double teamed, as well as offering an outlet should the flanker decided to recycle the attack. A support run can be anything from an overlapping run from a wide back to a 2nd man run from another forward. This is the biggest area of improvement the Houston Dash need to work on going forward, simplification or not. Another runner should ALWAYS be in a position to disrupt the opposing keeper. A cross, even if it is too close to the goalkeeper, should never be an easy catch. IMO the first runner arriving in the box should always be making a near post run in front of the keeper, no matter what. At the very least an attacker in the area would force a keeper to go for a punch, giving the attacking team a better chance to retain possession. A far post run is self-explanatory & puts a player in the best position to score in the event of a well delivered cross. The far post run should check at 6 to 12 yards out, giving the runner a better chance to adjust to a cross by running forward as opposed to backpedaling. Again, there are lots of other strategies the Dash can choose from if they want to simplify their game, but I think this one best suits them at the moment. Whoever the new Dash coach is, I hope he/she develops a strategy to slow the game down, retain better possession, & develop attacks slowly through the midfield & final third… even if it turns into boring soccer. That to me seems like the best way to take advantage of Houston’s heat & humidity. I’d like to see the FO go after Nied, & maybe in the future bring in some Germans like Behringer. Pipe dreams, perhaps, but I’d love to see it. Traveling to the game tomorrow. Can’t wait.
I appreciate the above post. I'd like to chime in my few points. . Before you can put numbers on offense, you have to have the energy to do so. Hence I propose going back to a defense that does not waste a lot of the player's energy: 4-4-2. . With 2 forwards, we won't have 1 single forward constantly shift back and forth while the opponent's backs pass the ball among themselves. We have our choice of Daly, Beckie with Hagen off the bench. . 4 midfielders. With either the diamond mid or flat mid field, we have the width covered naturally and not asking our wide forwards to drop back to cover the touch line in the 4-3-3. We can play the diamond mid with with Brooks in front of the back 4. Our problem is we only have 1 other player suited for the wide-out-mid (Ohai) but we have 3 players better suited for attacking mid or a position in the middle (Andressinha, O' Sullivan, Brian) Prince can play wide out but whom are we putting on the bench? . 4 Defenders. We have to put Van Wyk back in that middle to anchor that defense. The rest of players are adequate, we will just have to play with whom we have. After that, movement on offense is what we need to stress, make yourself available to receive the ball. That is true up and down the field. Our forwards are ok but not great about holding the ball at the top of the 18 so we have to mix those with wide and deep end line runs and crosses. And yes, when our player is ready to cross, make those runs please, near post, far post, keeper run. Make hard run to the ball and not half-hearted ones.
My point wasn't Daly can't play FB. First point was u can't replace Daly with Prince. This was even a bigger reach than assuming Beckie could slide into the midfield. Second, Waldrum made a lot of moves to get to the full backs he had. He can't just back off those players and be forced to move starters from other positions to cover them. Either they were the right choices and should play their position or they were bad choices and shouldn't have been on the team.
Age old managerial question of build a team around your tactics or build your tactics around the team. Right now, the Dash don't have the personnel to be effective in a 4-4-2. You force that system on this team and, well can't say the results will get worse because that would be hard, but they won't get better.
Noticed you mentioned Neid & German's; I believe Silvie Neid was paid $600K an year for being Germany's NT coach(that would probably break the Dash budget, lol). I doubt if American fans would of taken a shine to her, her game style was based on a very disciplined, tedious short passing, ball control game, but would always gamble by bringing her FB;s way up field, thus exposed her flanks, if the ball ever got dispossessed from her team. Let's just say, her style, wasn't for the feint hearted, arm chair quarterback's among us! German soccer is sort of an enigma(as compared to the US) They lack the athleticism of the US or France or the physical size of the Scandinavians/ nor to they possess any world class forwards(in either woso or men's). Their current #1 GK, Shulte, simply looks atrocious in her last several games for Wolfsburg, but she along with 4 ridiculously slow CB;s( the two starters & subs) & disappearing FB's, somehow managed to win Olympic Gold. So yep, tactics is everything! The player you mentioned, Behringer, is a tad slow, even by German standards. She's an excellent free kick specialist though, But the German's might arguably have the 3 best AM's out there; the more heralded, Maroszan & Magull, but I fancy this girl, Linda Dallmann, since she don't play for a rich club(SGS Essen) this would be a great pick up for the Dash or anybody else she only stands 5ft tall, can she play in the way more speedier US?. Well in her only game ever vs an US squad(2014 u20 WC)with the score tied 0-0. she came in as a sub with 15 mins. to go against the likes of Ravelle & Pugh, proceeded to dominate the middle, and within a few minutes Germany won 2-0
You don't know the answer to that. I do know it will save the energy for some of our attacking players.