FIRE PAYNE and KASPER

Discussion in 'D.C. United' started by Eric Shinn, Oct 26, 2008.

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  1. uniteo

    uniteo Member+

    Sep 2, 2000
    Rockville, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Payne and Kaspar...Not sure I'd be too harsh on them...50% of DC's international moves have not panned out, it's about the same this year - for my money Peralta and Gallardo panned out given how they played when healthy - as did the pickups of Crayton, Guerrero, Doe, Janicki, and Khumalo. Niello, Wells and Martinez did not.

    Two concerns I have about Soehn are that he was unable to make changes when the most costly DCU mistakes were the same week after week. And I think the club needs to look closely at the conditionaing and strength training regimen...so many muscular injuries...part of it is, I'm sure, the training program, part may be the training staff, and is there a strength and conditioning coach? If so who hired him?
     
  2. soyinocente

    soyinocente Member

    Nov 26, 2003
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    My take on it is that if you are playing a game every 3 days, you don't have much time for practice to work on things. I think Tommy gets 1 more year. He has won SS and USOC. Considering that 70% of the Salary Cap was injured most of the season (or at least so it seemed), DCU played an additional half season (RBNY played 31 games, DCU played 47 I think), and the fact that massive turnover usually doesn't mean improvement in any sport, I think the coach and the core players get a shot next year, albeit on a VERY short leash.
     
  3. shawn12011

    shawn12011 Member+

    Jun 15, 2001
    Reisterstown, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    I have been away from my computer all morning. Is TS gone yet????? :p
     
  4. Faster

    Faster New Member

    Jul 30, 2007
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Yes. The Season is gone.
     
  5. Eric Shinn

    Eric Shinn Member

    Dec 28, 2007
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Stop being such a sheep. Dont start whining next season when we are yet again missing playoffs and embarassing ourselves internationally.

    You can't let blind loyalty get in the way of good business decisions, right now holding onto this dolt of a coach and a Technical director that struck out a near complete 0 for 7 this year in foriegn signings is something only a blind fool would do.

    Payne, i understand may be hard to get rid of. But can anyone one really tell me they are happy with the direction our organizatrion has been going these last couple years? We won a SS last year and went out in round one..whoodie shit. This year we won the USOC noone cares about and didnt make the playoffs.

    After a lot of promise the new stadium plans are dead or might as well be dead. The majority owners can only take these financial losess so long before they are going to have to make a decision. Payne's primary job is the financial and commerical health of this franchise...and the outlook isn't going towell right now....some of you think just because he is a great guy that did great things he should keep getting a pass...i think his accomplishments can be respected and he can be fired at the same time.
     
  6. Eric Shinn

    Eric Shinn Member

    Dec 28, 2007
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Those are really good signings? Looks like mostly draft picks to me. Were are the good "signings"?

    Seriously Khumalo? He is fair and a MLS washout. Doe was leftover NY crap, where other than Emilio has be really gone out and made a good signing that contributed a lot to the team?
     
  7. fatbastard

    fatbastard Member+

    Aug 1, 2003
    Lincoln (ish), Va
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Just because you don't think the US Open Cup is valuable .... does not mean it isn't - you are sadly mistaken.

    One can only wonder what else you are sadly mistaken about in that post.......
     
  8. Eric Shinn

    Eric Shinn Member

    Dec 28, 2007
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Have we? I'm not so sure. I think we are pretty par to be honest. When we hit we really hit it (Marco, Jaime, Gomez, and Emilio), but seems to be we swing and miss a bunch. This last 0-5 season (6 if you include Crayton), Donet a couple years back, etc.

    In fact this last offseason was a disaster, do we really want the architects of that mess here to give it another go? I don't.

    Hell i called this shit in pre-season, but back then people just wanted to rag on me because i was a new poster. I just DON'T like the direction Soehn, Kasper and Payne have taken us these last 12-18 months.
     
  9. Eric Shinn

    Eric Shinn Member

    Dec 28, 2007
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Different strokes, i respect the cup but i don't rate it that high on the importance scale during the year.
     
  10. Allan Quatermain

    Oct 23, 2001
    The Lost City of Gol
    Club:
    DC United
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    As to your first group, you shouldn't forget Diego Sonora, who was critical to us winning an MLS Cup in 1999.
     
  11. Allan Quatermain

    Oct 23, 2001
    The Lost City of Gol
    Club:
    DC United
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Oh, and don't forget Carlos Llamosa, either, who is from Colombia.
     
  12. ian woodville

    ian woodville Member

    Aug 27, 2008
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Management, even of sports teams, is a long term proposition. I wouldn't make changes in the front office just because the team did not do well this year. Frankly, I wouldn't even replace Soehn simply because of this year's results.

    You have to look at long term trends and management's basic approaches and I think there's plenty of evidence that DCU needs to go in another direction.

    First and foremost, the front office's efforts to get a new stadium have been a failure and there's little reason to think that anything positive is likely to happen in the near future. Moreover, the stadium is the key to the team's financial viability. Without a stadium and without a prospect of one, DC begins to look like a bad location for a MLS team.

    You could argue that the front office has been unlucky and that it faces a harder challenge in securing a stadium that other front offices. Perhaps true, but, at the end of the day, it's results that matter and management is supposed to understand the challenges it faces and figure out how to deal with them. Payne and company have had 13+ seasons to get a stadium and they haven't gotten the job done. Time for a change.

    Second, the front office's approach to building a roster has been problematic for some time. Draft results have been terrible. In particular, the team had not acquired and developed any outstanding young talent. Where is our Stuart Holden and so on? Moreover, the team had given away, or driven away any number of promising or sort of promising young players.

    On the flip side, the front office has become fixated on South Americans, often with questionable athleticism, but with nice skills. This isn't a new trend, but over the past season, the front office out did itself. It convinced the new owners to double the payroll and then acquired five South Americans of dubious value, but with high salaries. You would have thought that the goal was fielding a team at the bottom of the Argentine second division. The point here is not that the team should avoid South Americans, but that it needs to understand that South American players are overpriced by MLS standards and a team has to shop very carefully. I don't think that Payne/Kasper accept this.

    A sub-theme in the South American love affair has been the failure to recognize that as players age they become less valuable. The Moreno of 2008 is not the Moreno of 2006. Signing him to a two-year guaranteed contract was dumb. I don't know who makes what decisions at DCU, but I also suspect that Moreno and, before him, Marco continued to get playing time because of pressure from the front office. In any case, DCU has left veterans on the field long after they were making real contributions.

    Finally, look at the coaches the front office has hired -- Arena, Rongen, Hudson, Nowak, and Soehn. What does that work out to -- 2 out of 5? With Hudson being a laughable selection. Not a good record.
     
  13. AlecW81

    AlecW81 Member

    Oct 20, 2005
    Durham, NC
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Congratulations on landing yourself on my ignore list.

    If they had an option to add someone to an "ignorant" list, I'd do that as well.

    Tommy simply wasn't ready to be a head coach, he's the man responsible for preparing the team, and putting the best possible 11 players on the field. He's also responsible for making adjustments during the match, and inspiring the players. He failed on all those fronts this year. I have no problem with replacing our whole coaching staff.

    Kasper definitely struck out with some of his signings. Namely, Niell, and Carvallo. As much as I've written off Martinez and Peralta, they're comparable to most of the starting players in their respective positions throughout the league. The difference is, we're overpaying them. That doesn't mean they were bad signings.

    Donnet is a great player, and had we been able to hold on to him, he'd have made a solid impact on our wings. However, he wanted more money than we were willing to pay.

    Khumalo is hardly an MLS washout, there are lots of players who develop at a later age. He's definitely one of them, I look for him to be a solid contributer next year.

    That said, technical directors aren't like coaches, it's not as if we can bandy about names that we'd like to have as technical directors for United. Who's to say that any of them would be any better? Getting players in MLS is no easy task.

    We had a bad year, these things happen, especially in MLS. This isn't the Premiership, where teams can stay at the top every year simply because they have bigger wallets.

    Payne is part owner, and responsible for nearly every success United has had. Calling for his head is beyond imbecilic.
     
  14. AlecW81

    AlecW81 Member

    Oct 20, 2005
    Durham, NC
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    The Front Office has done everything they possibly could to get a new stadium built in DC. Fenty reneged on the agreement the team had in place with the previous administration.

    The FO hasn't been unlucky, they've been screwed by the Mayor of DC. I'm looking forward to our new stadium in PG county, and I'm certain that Payne and Co. will pull it off.

    The draft is a crapshoot. I don't think it's necessarily that our draft picks have been poor, it's that we don't have coaches that are good at developing young players. That's a problem that needs to be addressed.

    With the success United has had with South American players in the past, can you really blame them for sticking with this tactic? There isn't a team in MLS who wouldn't want the services of Fred, Emilio, Moreno, Gallardo or Guerrero. Were it not for injuries to all of the above players this year, we'd all be singing a much different tune right now.

    You're right, he isn't the same as he was in 2006.
    In 2006 he had 11 goals and 10 assists. He also played 32 games with 31 starts.
    This year he had 10 goals and 10 assists, in 25 games with 21 starts.


    I still see 4 MLS Cups in our trophy cabinet.
    Would you rather have Steve Nicol and nothing worthwhile accomplished?
     
  15. ian woodville

    ian woodville Member

    Aug 27, 2008
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Once it was clear that Williams would not be able to deliver on a stadium, that is, get legislation through the City Council, DCU's front office had to understand that they were back at square one and needed to reassess their strategy. Expecting the next mayor to deliver on Williams' promises (if, in fact, he actually made any promises) was foolish in the extreme. Once it was clear that Fenty would be the next mayor, it was worse than foolish because Fenty had made a name for himself opposing the Nats' stadium.

    And it was clear that Williams would have difficulty delivering once it became clear that Federal legislation was needed, that the site offers some environmental challenges, that the public was upset about public funding for the Nats' stadium -- in other words long before the end of Williams' regime.

    It's not a coincidence that no other MLS team has been able to get a major city to build them a stadium in a central location. Dealing with a small suburban government and building in a less than prime location is all a soccer team in the US can hope for. Payne aimed high -- a stadium in the central city on a subway line. He gets some credit for that. But sticking with an ambitious plan long after problems had cropped up was dumb.
     
  16. AMERICANS SC

    AMERICANS SC New Member

    Feb 1, 2005
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    While you bring up some valid points, your post is all over the place!

    You state that you would not fire Tommy based on the record this year (in the 1st par) but say "2 out of 5 coaches" being a bad record (in the last par) which implies Tommy is not one of the two [at least I think that is what you meant, you did not specifically point out which 2 out of the 5 you considered good].

    The South Americans with quality North Americans has been a formula with proven success (not only in getting hardware, but in playing attractive soccer), hence management has been trying to continue with this formula.

    There is indeed a sell-by-date for aging players, but Moreno managed to get 10 goals and 10 assists, nobody else on the team was close to his contribution. Or would you rather play an unproven young American while not making the playoffs (this cost Rongen his job, who I think you implied was not a good coach).

    You also lump Payne/Kasper together. They have different jobs and different responsibilities (such as Mark Simpson/Francisco Tobar for example).

    ps-Guerrero is Honduran, not SA as stated by another poster (although I attribute this to that poster's emotinal state at the time of posting :D).
     
  17. ian woodville

    ian woodville Member

    Aug 27, 2008
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    I wouldn't fire Soehn based on this year alone; based on the last two years, perhaps. He's really not much of a coach. Nevertheless, I don't see that firing Soehn fixes the basic problems. Almost any coach would struggle with the roster the front office assembled.

    Subtract Moreno's penalty kicks from the total and suddenly his stats don't look so good. And I would argue that his lack of pace and tendency to hog the ball has hurt the team a great deal and slowed the development of a style that suited the bulk of the roster.
     
  18. AMERICANS SC

    AMERICANS SC New Member

    Feb 1, 2005
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Mayor Barry promised DC United a stadium.

    I do not know of the inner dealings between management of DC United and the Mayor's office (or the various office's since DC United existence), so I cannot judge with any certainty DC United's management's work on that front.

    It appear's you hold a grudge against Kevin Payne for not getting DC United a stadium. I too, would love DC United to have a stadium, but one cannot blame Kevin Payne for Fenty's greed.
     
  19. AMERICANS SC

    AMERICANS SC New Member

    Feb 1, 2005
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Tommy won the Supporter's Shield two years running, so based on that alone, your statement that "based on the last two years, perhaps" is not reasonable.

    I do agree with you that he is not much of a coach.

    Your other sentences implied that Kasper is your problem, we will have to see if Kevin Payne agrees with you on that. I for one am very skeptical of the Gallardo signing, but we shall see how he does next year.

    Moreno was placed in games to hold the ball, to settle down other players (who perhaps are running around like a chicke-without-a-head) and provide experience. While the rest of the team liked the more up-tempo type of game they were unable to achieve any results with it, hence Tommy put in Moreno late in some games to change the tempo.
     
  20. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    :confused::confused:
     
  21. PJohnson

    PJohnson Member+

    DC United
    Dec 16, 2004
    South Dakota
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Sheep? :rolleyes:

    I realize it must be pretty tough to go through life with your Pampers all in a bunch. But you seem to be the only one "whining" here. Those of us in the adult world are looking at things a bit more rationally. Now here's a nickel, go buy yourself a sucker. And then go play in the street a$$hole.
     
  22. AMERICANS SC

    AMERICANS SC New Member

    Feb 1, 2005
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    My bad.

    DC United won it two years in a row.

    Tommy won it in 2007.
     
  23. ian woodville

    ian woodville Member

    Aug 27, 2008
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Fenty's greed? What does that mean?

    Ok, Mayor Barry promised a stadium?!? Mayor Williams promised a stadium?!?

    Well, maybe. I know they said things that you could interpret as promises, but frankly talk is cheap. Until a mayor submits legislation to the council or signs a binding agreement, I would not count any chickens. (Payne should have realized that.)

    What, in any case, does that have to do with Fenty? For my money, Fenty is a dimwit who is making a mess of the schools and child welfare services. Nevertheless, I don't recall that he said anything that could be construed as a promise to build a stadium. Actually that was one of the smarter things he has done. I don't see that he has anything to gain by helping DCU. A stack of academic studies demonstrate that public funding for sports facilities is wasted. It doesn't generate any new economic activity. Fenty made a name for himself opposing the Nats' stadium -- a deal that looks worse every day. Until the latest downturn in the economy, it looked like DC could get Poplar Point developed without DCU. And why should Fenty help an organization that was buddies with his predecessor. Politics is all about "what have you done for me lately?" I don't see any greed here. Maybe political cunning, but not greed.
     
  24. AMERICANS SC

    AMERICANS SC New Member

    Feb 1, 2005
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    Fenty promised a stadium (in RFK no less). But you are right, talk is cheap.

    Fenty wants his pockets filled with gold...
     
  25. Bolivianfuego

    Bolivianfuego Your favorite Bolivian

    Apr 12, 2004
    Fairfax, Va
    Club:
    Bolivar La Paz
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    Re: FIRE SOEHN, PAYNE and KASPER

    What direction are you talking about? We won in 04' the MLS cup, won the SS two years in a row following that, yes we havent had much success lately in the MLS cup, but really thats just all about what teams hot at the moment and on a roll. IMO it doesnt work for me in soccer, maybe in the NFL and NBA, but not for soccer.

    And you keep talking about Payne like hes the biggest problem, last i checked you stated before you started watching DC in 05' right? So you dont even know what our success was like before 05'! Your talking out of your ass....

    If it wasnt for Payne, we wouldnt be the most respected MLS team by south america, nor would we accomplish what we have.

    You seem to forget with the loss of our play maker in gallardo and moreno coming off the bench injured, we lost that spark to get us through tough games.

    Moreno came in vs. NE and injected life into our squad, not so much vs. Colombus, but the guy is playing friggin' injured!!!

    Imagine Moreno 100% and gallardo sneaking in passes to tino', emilio, and fred!

    People forget how injuries killed our team this season, not only mentally, but gelling physically.

    Next year with our same roster and all players 100% we will dominate.
    How so? South America builds on what US players lack, touch, vision with the ball, small sided passing in tight spaces, and eveyrthing that generic South Americans bring to the table.

    This is a elite part of our play here in DC, we dont play that mindless soccer that exists in the EPL.

    This is the signifigance of shopping in south america, and even Africa like Khumalo who has that playing style(yes i know he came from the riverhounds, but that skill is purely african).

    I dont know about you, but Moreno was our best player next to Doe who finished off passes he had when coming off the bench vs. the Revs. I think Moreno this season looked tons better than he did in 06' when people were ready to throw in the towel for him.
     

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