How are we defining the past 3 years? Does that include scoring 14 goals with the Galaxy while generally deferring to Zlatan in 2018? Does that include the 3 goals in 5 games he scored here in 2019 after coming back from China? Does that include him leading a woeful DC United in goals in 2020? Or does that include 2021 where he hasn't played a minute yet? I'd only really consider one of those years a disappointment in MLS, and that was a lost year for the entire team.
It’s been downhill since his year with the galaxy. Got kicked out of China and has done Jack here since arriving. It certainly isn’t all his fault but he’s done nothing recently to suggest we should be optimistic about his return. I have not included the 2021 where he showed up unfit to play. It’s fine if you want to be excited but it’s also fine if some are underwhelmed by his recent play.
Yes, I'm excited because I choose to be optimistic about the possibilities, not defeated and pessimistic like so many people on BigSoccer and Reddit are about Kamara.
After 10 years of mediocrity and the gradual ageing out of the '96ers, it's not a surprise that most current followers of this club are skeptical of any real change. I believe the Losada hire is a step in the right direction as were the hires of Rushton and Johnson. The next step will be tangible results. One disturbing thing about this, however, are Losada's comments made during his weekly presser and reported upon by Pablo Maurer. He noted that in Europe there are often 5 or 6 assistants working to get the team ready. Here, he was "permitted" to bring one (Frutos) and saddled with two holdovers who were not of his choosing. May give us further insight into why neither the Armas nor Pineda "hirings" never came to fruition. Also makes me wonder how long Losada will tolerate what he may consider an insufficient commitment by the FO to building the club. We know Levien has no money -- the focus is on Kaplan and how much he has and is willing to invest in DCU to make it a competitive team in MLS for the long term.
There is a lot to be excited about with the club and there is still a whole lot of blah we need to deal with. The FO seems to be finally going in the right direction though.
Beerschot has 5 coaches. United has 4. That one coach is all the difference? I'm getting a little nervous with all the excuse making. Maybe it's important to make United's shortcomings public, in order to improve. But to me, Losada knows or should have known the deal when he took the job. I thought he would be excited to put his stamp on such an unstable org. If he can succeed here, he's looking at a nice promotion to a better club in short order. In short, enough whining, more winning.
Actually he has one assistant, Ashton and Thornton are holdovers because they were still under contract and DCU didn't want to pay both them and their replacements. As for shortcomings, my guess is that he thought any professional soccer club ran to minimum standards -- he is finding out that minimum standards in MLS is below even the Belgian Second Division.
I'm writing all this under the assumption he knew what he was getting into. He had to have known he wouldn't be able to hire his own assistants, except the one. If he didn't know that and just assumed certain things, that's a mark against him, not anyone else. It's way early in his tenure to be crying about his staff, imo. It's time to get on with it. Change the team into something worth investing in, and then make demands.
Once again we will be shorthanded for a match and it's fair to ask if Losado's training methods are too extreme. I had a college football asst. coach who was a fanatic about high-risk training. We lost several starting players who were injured in his pre-game warmups.
Given that these are the same methods he used in Belgium, I would say any issues lie with the players, not the methods.
Official list of unavailable #dcu players: Birnbaum, Hamid, Arriola, Pines, Paredes, Reyna, Odoi-Atsem, Canouse, Robertha, Greene.#crew96: Molino, Morris, Hairston, Kitchen.— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) May 7, 2021
So apparently Yow is back, which is good news. But I don't understand how a vaccination reaction could cause Canouse to miss his second match.
Depending on how bad his side effects were, they could have definitely set his fitness back. I've heard of people being impacted by them for a few days after the shot.
Late report from Goff is that Sorga got injured in training and may be out a few weeks. Guess we'll see one of Smith, Perez, or Kamara starting up top tomorrow. Goff also said Yow is still out.
Welp, Hines-Ike is out tomorrow due to a head injury. #DCU defender Brendan Hines-Ike (who took part in media availability this week) announced via Instagram that he didn’t travel to #Crew96 due to this eye injury: pic.twitter.com/6yi87bl8o8— Emily Olsen (@EmilyTOlsen) May 7, 2021
1390784932092469249 is not a valid tweet id Are we going to get short-term loanees from Loudoun United? Won't mind if we get Kairou Amoustapha, Ted Ku-DiPietro or some other academy player even for the short term...