In 10 *&^%$# years how many times has Ben had a MLS Cup caliber roster? Anyone? I am waiting here............................. Has he had an Etch? A Gomez? a Jaime Moreno? Bosko was good but not MLS Cup good. Chicken.................Egg....................I am sticking with the Egg.
This is like a conversation with a Covid-19 denier where they believe it's not that serious since few people are in the more at risk demographics of people that die. To them, it's binary. You live or die. There's no consideration for the hundreds of thousands of people who have had symptoms, been extremely ill and have permanent damage to organs. What the ******** is a MLS Cup caliber roster?
Ben Olsen couldn't win a home playoff game with Wayne Rooney and a MLS best XI Luciano Acosta. The one time he had a legit shot he did nothing with it
I don't know, maybe, probably. I think tactics play a big role, but so do continuity of the roster and skill/ability/etc. Pipa came here with a coach title so he can work on getting his licenses. I am not sure how much he'd be providing the game day setup. And I think that as long as we're turning over a significant portion of the roster because players are were acquired at older ages or were last man found to fill a spot we're going to continue to struggle. You're just not going to build anything as long as you have to play roster lotto with the last 7-10 names on the roster. A season and a half of Rooney was a diversion from the status quo. Nothing has actually changed. We're still filling out the roster with crap, we're still dramatically under investing in the academy, the club still has multiple people performing multiple roles, but Taylor Twellman isn't going to chirp about it any time soon. Firing the coach because he's been here a long time without winning is not necessarily the right reason if you're not correcting the underlying issues, which is that the talent just isn't here, doesn't serve much purpose. All that does is put a fresh face on the sideline every couple of years with the same questionable level of quality of players. I think another moving piece is counterproductive. Replacing Chad Ashton might be a really good fix, but I am not sure a guy like Ben would allow it and I like Ben as the kind of coach you're afraid of coming over to the sideline if you've put in a weak effort. Bottom line, this team will never win anything (else - 2013 US Open Cup) while we're run by the likes of Erik Thohir, Jason Levien, and Steve Kaplan who are solely motivated by profit margins and limited by their cash reserves. While they cry about losing money on the operation of DC United (especially at RFK) they were and still are balancing the books with the funds from SUM dispersals or coming darn close. When you look at the new owners coming into the league, there's no way our owners can ever hope to compete. Its been plain for a while that DC United ownership is a front or an angle for the real estate business aspirations of our owners. I've said this before, Audi Field is an MLS2.0 stadium built well into the MLS3.0 era. Its missing much more than 2/3 of its roof. At some point, Levien/Kaplan will look to sell this team and I think the stadium will be unmasked as a giant albatross. Its not a stadium that can generate the kind of revenue that other MLS stadiums can in places like LAFC, Atlanta, Austin, Cincinnati, Columbus, and other stadiums of that vintage. It will be interesting to see what Charlotte'''s in stadium experience will be because Tepper seems intent on using it Like Atlanta without expressly building it in that manner like Atlanta did. And yes I know those are NFL stadia and built on a different scale, but that's the competition. And just ask Dan Snyder who plays in one of the oldest NFL stadia in the league and can't get a replacement built.
This league is borderline garbage, you don’t need an incredible roster to win the MLS cup. The teams we played in this tourney weren’t world beaters. That aside, I just want a team that plays well a majority of the time. Even the times when Olsen led teams were winning it was ugly, usually, or dragged across the finish line by a single individual (dero). In the end, it’s clear the team won’t accomplish anything anytime soon. Maybe we should just be resigned to being nobodies in a league with new teams joining every year. They are much more interesting anyway.
Yes, Bosko was good - very good. And Ben never realized how good he was until he was gone. I mentioned that once to Ben and he hung his head and admitted he had made a terrible mistake in not playing him more. Boskovic was MLS Cup good.
Every offensive player who comes here progresses or regresses to the mean after 6 months - that's part of the problem. I don't think Jaime plays at the same level under Ben, at least not for years on end. Asad, Gressel, Kamara and Flores have all started looking *worse than* Segura. I like Segura - he's a perfect offensive swiss army knife, good for 1500 minutes, playing 2nd or 3rd string at several positions... but he's not a starting quality anything. We shouldn't accept this as normal. I've said elsewhere, if the team isn't playing attractive, effective soccer and the players are stagnating, aren't we doing something wrong?
Asad wasn’t even getting paid to play soccer the last 9 months before he came back here. Besides Hamid, who else on our team walks into that Atlanta team? Gressel had a shit ton more talent around him in Atlanta. Kamara didn’t make the gameday 18 three quarters of the time on a relegated team in China. Flores surely had more around him in Peru. but by all means shit can Ben, and then the next guy in 2-4 years and the next guy after that too. Until ownership invests in an MLS 3.0 roster will will continue to suck. Tata Martino couldn’t salvage this team.
I been an Olsen fan since '98 – I liked him as a player and still do as a person – but at this point I do think change would be good. Sometimes things just have to be shaken up. As other have said, though, if Levien won't/can't invest in the roster don't expect significantly better results no matter who they bring in (and you know they wouldn't spend on a top level manager). IIRC with Rooney on the team we were (barely) in the top half of MLS roster spending for the first time in eons, and now we're well down in the bottom half again. Sadly, negative, boring soccer is a legitimate approach to scraping points when you're outmanned.
Maybe the argument here is fault versus responsibility. No, its not Ben's fault that the club isn't consistently at or near the top of the league. But it's his responsibility to make the most of the talent he has, and given his tenure with the club player acquisitions are partially his responsbility too. And if management isn't listening to him in building the roster, by definitation a new coach is needed that management respects more. Let's see what this season's salary stats tell us. Yes, Rooney's salary inflated the average, but that's the case with the DP(s) on nearly every club. Take out every club's DPs and it would be interesting to compare average salary.
And I have said this 1,000,000 times. One of Ben's flaws, I readily admit, is his reliance on Ashton for the tactics. That is on Ben. I have had conversations with Ben. He is more than capable of instilling tactics but he gives in to Ashton being senior in time of service to him, especially on tactics. Everyone sees it. When player A is subbed in Ashton has a tactical talk with him and Ben pats him on the ass on his way into the game. So to suggest that Ben is the one tactically holding back a Gressel, Asad, Kamara or Flores (Flores is holding back Flores, by the way) is wrong. It is Ashton who Ben keeps around.
Right, but even the appearance of changing coaches because we care might make an impression. Right now, we're a losing team with a losing culture that obviously doesn't care because we can't be bothered to change anything.