Forever Blogging the Orange

Discussion in 'Houston Dynamo' started by Brian Gilchriest, Feb 23, 2022.

  1. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Please make this thread the thread for any and all to go to for HDFC blogs and blogging websites.
     
    Brian Gilchriest repped this.
  2. DynamoManiac

    DynamoManiac Member+

    Jan 27, 2014
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
  3. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
  4. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
  5. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    re cappis, dude, it's been coaching, and it's still opportunities, here and abroad. we played gitau all spring but haven't signed him. we played castilla some this spring and he's not getting game minutes now. kids notice that. the U17 stuff is a sign the youth teams are improving but part of the sales pitch to converting that into dynamo players is we will sign you and put you in games. and that's not even getting into FCD's track record on getting them to europe.

    the kid we're playing right now is thor who we didn't even develop.
     
  6. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
    Gitau is in our academy system. He doesn't turn 16 until November (birthdate 11/26/2006), he's on our pre-pro roster, everyone needs to chill out.

    We have 40 midfielders, Castilla played for the U-17's almost all of last year. When he's ready to play, he'll play. He's 17 years old. Relax. We just signed some pretty good prospects away from other programs as homegrowns to develop here. This stuff takes time. I'm all for playing 16/17 year olds that are ready to contribute. This early in the year, I don't care about playing kids just to get them experience.

    I don't want to be FC Dallas. I could care less about all the dudes they sell to Europe because (1) FC Dallas is terrible. (2) They don't do anything with the money the receive. With those transfers Frisco should be one of the top teams in MLS with tons of money to throw at people. But they don't do anything because they suck.

    I don't understand the mindset that 2 weeks into the season, with a new GM, Technical director, MLS Next-pro team in town, Development Coach, Academy Coach, and everything else that there would be guys just ready to go. It takes time.
     
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  7. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
  8. CeltTexan

    CeltTexan Member+

    Sep 21, 2000
    Houston, TX USA
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The kid was born just 14 days after our club won our very first MLS Cup Championship. Marinate on that for a second!
     
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  9. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #11 juvechelsea, Mar 16, 2022
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2022
    you're not factoring in maybe Vancouver just flat sucks. never set your tactics on what works on a lousy team. set them on what works for NYC or whoever is top of the heap this season. at minimum, if we intend to continue to go schizo and bunker some days, open it up others, we will be implicitly carving up tactics based on some mix of opposing GF and table spot. last weekend felt like ramos if he'd used quintero central. i think we already proved we can't ramos every week. please don't follow the form roller coaster up and down and up and down. what makes sense against the full schedule. obviously find some offense. but play ramos ball, little defense? we already disproved that one. so really somewhere in between. the fans don't want to hear that because they want to imagine coco and quintero is the recipe. but did they watch austin and dallas? it's like we go in circles, sorry. be smarter than the improvising coach making it up as he goes along, reacting, reacting.

    it then becomes very obvious to a smart opponent, based on formation and personnel, what the tactics of the day are. ok, coco, quintero, 4231, they are trying today.....road games, easy home games. ok, ceren, vera, 433, parking the bus. a common formation and personnel set, tweaked by instructions, is more disguised. granted, this is an improvement on pure barrett ball. he is opening it up for periods. but there are ways of getting team defense but with more attacking punch on the field, same time, not hekyll and jekyll.

    you're whitewashing that adam gets blown by flatfooted to create the separation for the cross and only then steres can't be bothered marking (again).

    if part of the reason i complete passes and expand possession is i repeatedly call off the dogs and don't take scoring risks, that's not a good thing. fafa turning a jailbreak around to pass back is a completed pass and the possession clock runs. it is also a dead chance pretty much.
     
  10. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    it's not a "mindset." it's they rated gitau and castilla enough they were second shift first team in the spring, several games, not just once. they then sent their seemingly dressable subs down to HD2 instead. that's like, fish, i could put you on varsity and you could help me on the bench. but since you're young i will send you to the JV. that means some guy you were fighting for playing time gets the job without a fight during the regular season. it's caution 101. readily justifiable on convention and age. it's what cautious or seniority types do. weaker dress roster in practice. the best coaches IMO will dress a fish if he will help. if thor and gitau are better than baird or ceren, we know who needs to get traded, don't we? or we can stick with what we know doesn't work because "they are just kids," "will have their time," etc. whose time is it instead? baird? pasher? dorsey? ceren? 2021?

    i was all district my first season promoted to varsity. i was a starter 3rd game in college. my mentality was not thanks for the delayed opportunity, it was what took you so long.

    gitau had a goal on the team we play this week. slalomed half their defense. where is he?

    to use a USMNT metaphor, i would rather have the teenage upside of beasley and donovan in 2002 than the 30+ downside of lewis and reyna in 2006, bet on the future. bet on talent. every. freaking. time. if the only excuse is age, as opposed to some hole in their game, you're just being ageist which is weird at the good end. are we fixing some flaw or are they time serving because their age freaks you when owen and others played at 16.

    odd i'm one of the few being ageist at the bad end on ol' HH. or ceren or quintero, etc.
     
  11. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #13 juvechelsea, Mar 16, 2022
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2022
    vera, whoever else is playing mid, at some point we need to sort out between system and personnel who is responsible for all the attacks taking advantage of green space down the wings. when i watch kante he's sideline to sideline. no one seems to acknowledge with all the transition issues in recent years, or wing weaknesses, which player is supposed to be stopping counters cold. personally i feel like he's decent but in a parker/boswell kind of way, within a narrow patch of green. it doesn't feel to me like rico hunting people down and tackling away the problem. sorry.

    i get the idea the future on this is the two semi mobile quasi 6s, HH and vera, each take half a field. this lessens vera's mobility limits and doesn't ask HH to cover ground like a kid. but that then makes it real important who the 10 and wings are, if you ever want to score. put differently, can we while playing fairly empty bucket this way with guys barely good for goals and assists, coax competitive chance creation and goals out of the rest. personally i don't see fafa seb thiago quintero as equivalent to the big 4 in 2017. do we pay DP money for coco to be the bench tag team? will we starve for service when the opponent isn't the whitecaps?

    to me if HH and vera consume 2 mid spots then the quality of the attackers has to go up. that 10 needs to be excellent. i think we are so starved for a night like the whitecaps we don't consider will it work most nights. will it hold up on durability.

    i also don't think people noticed that for a lot of that game quintero was kind of hogging seb's passing lanes. this is one reason i suggested 442 is to get them more complimentary and working off each other -- separate runs into different spaces, feeding each other, as on the second goal where quintero coco seb all touch it -- as opposed to stealing his service and hogging the ball. bearing in mind some good team is not going to let quintero run around like that, and seb will usually be the one in dangerous position.
     
  12. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
  13. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    to me the coco poor pass vs memo hits his man comparison is this team in a nutshell and the problem is more often than not it's the wrong weight which is a personnel/ "no 10" issue. HH is not the type player to be making the play we're not quite getting enough from memo/coco/quintero.
     
  14. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i think quintero hogs seb's running lanes at which point the way to find the ball is show below quintero. either that or get accused of not running. i see quintero as lively in a way starved casual fans enjoy but we want more like the second vancouver goal where multiple players get on the ball and each play a role.

    i would agree seb ran hard game 1 and less so since then. i think he wants the attack to go through him but it can't be both him and quintero. it instead tends to just go wide.
     
  15. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
  16. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    at the level of "trying something," easiest decision in the world. the starting frontline is strugging and unproductive. baird in particular hasn't done much. pasher came off the bench, looked lively, and had an equalizer. QED. start him. considering the forward history and his relative expense and status, not as intimidating as benching seb. baird and pasher are pretty much exchangeable. we deserve better than both but that's another day.

    i could complicate that picture with the baird shank just before the baird goal, and the gift wrapped nature of the goal, but it's a production position, he finished it, and we need more offense. same argument being made about thor and he has an actual goal. that's enough for a one day trial.

    he plays forward so the question whether he can defend as well verges on silly. we want more offense. if you are frightened what happens if he doesn't track back or chase then you likely have formation or tactics issues you are trying to sweep under the rug. (we do, on those wings.) anyhow, the real discussion should be offense, but if we have to bring it up, there was an offseason debate about whether pasher can also be a LB. one assumes that's enough chops as a forward to track or chase or whatever and help out. if we're going too deep into how well he presses or defends as a forward that's berhalter-arriola-land screwball.

    the statistical analysis, to me, is just trying to justify what already makes instinctive sense. ditto the +/- list making. CYA. toss it. based on what you've seen, what makes sense, who looks better. pasher looked better. (i also see limits to the statistical stuff particularly in how young roster players get treated. it favors those already used with numbers to offer and tends to result in cycling among conventional choices. at this particular spot as opposed to mid or back, other than thiago who isn't yet legal, or running thor out wide when we need striker oomph too, there is no prospect option.)
     
  17. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    fwiw none of the forwards have looked any good so you could just as easily do it pasher for fafa. push dorsey up top and a different RB. push quintero high with seb and turn the forwards into wing mids. particularly when thiago is legal i would be testing offensive formations and options trying to extract some offense while creating a formation with bodies back to continue the level of defense. i don't even think we're starting the best defenders yet.

    there's been a lot of focus on seb but fafa just turns every play around and passes back, baird is more lively but not creating enough either. due for a shakeup and the further forward it happens the less i'd be worried i am messing with team jenga. i doubt swapping wings is why we allow a ton of goals. i think that's ignoring why the wing forwards get told to track back. ie the 433 is swiss cheese.
     
  18. jake-mb

    jake-mb Member

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Feb 14, 2022
    Hey man, great article. Thanks for the content!
     
    Ethos repped this.
  19. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
    Thanks soo much man!
     
    CeltTexan and Ethos repped this.
  20. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020
  21. Brian Gilchriest

    Eintracht Frankfurt
    United States
    Oct 3, 2020

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