Houston Dynamo v. Toronto FC, Saturday, August 13

All the die hard bandwagons jumping ship momentarily, they will be back once we start winning even if we still have Jordan, Canetti, and Bruin. Good thing is I get cheaper seats at better locations.
Although I don't really like lower bowl, play by play action is better seen from above.

Not a fair weather supporter, gonna stick this out even through all the crap, yes there is plenty of crap but I will never abandon my team! A million excuses to not go to games, I have them as well but I will choose not to use them.

 

Some assorted stats to put things in context.

Previous low win total, 9, 2010. On pace for: 6.something. Even in recent off years it was 11.

Conference finishes since 2010: 725488(10?).

Last (home) win: 7/2/16. Month and a week ago.
Last road win: 7/10/15. It has been more than a year.

The Dynamo have not won any league games this year when they allowed a goal. Conversely, scoring goals is no predictor of success, as we have lost or tied games scoring as many as 3.

The Dynamo have lost more than they won (1-3) and scored fewer than they allowed (6-7) under Barrett.

Minutes played, 2016 draft picks as rookies: 0.
Minutes played, 2015 draft picks as rookies: 456.
Minutes played, 2014 draft picks as rookies: 1779.

Non-Deric HGP (any year) minutes this season: 0.

I am going nowhere but a lot of these indicators look BAD. A team that cannot allow a goal and do better than a tie. A rebuilding team that has literally not played any of its draft or HGP signings a league minute. OK, so we lean on veteran signings and trades. Some had loans not re-upped. Some have been released. Not one impact signing this season. Holdovers like Torres still not performing. In what indicator other than accumulating low-score ties does this look heading up, and is that just a reflection of conservative tactics trying to hide the rest.

 

Only way to go to a game at this point.

 

You sound soooooo darn cute. I just wanna kiss your forehead!

 

We didn't quit on the franchise the franchise quit on us.

 

And the truth is, we'll never get to the playoffs again as long as we have the same FO.

 

i think we might only lose by two this game

 

I enjoy your recent posts too:

 

Don't think you can really characterize anyone who sat through the last few seasons of dreck as fair-weather. Fans that fit that description jump ship the second the team stops winning and don't pay attention again until a championship is in the cards.

If you're still paying attention enough to be on this board, then you probably aren't fair-weather.

 

Cute!

Come on, Dmaniac, there are many folks who are trying to justify their going to the games and buying season tickets. They try to justify their action by thinking that it is WRONG to stop supporting a franchise that quit on us. It's getting harder to go to the games, very hard to be a fan, so they repeat to themselves "I am not a fair weather fan". "Forever Orange". "I'm not a whiner". "Love your team no matter what" "I am not a loser"... Nothing wrong with that.

Canetti is counting on fans like them, who hate to think of themselves as "fair weather fans". And with the 2-year renewals, Canetti's got a strong group of folks that will keep him employed.

**

All things considered, I have always suspected that MLS has chosen some teams to be the darlings of MLS, give them all the support they can to keep them fun to watch and competitive. But MLS also needs bulk, those background teams, the "losers", the ones that will serve as sparring partners for the better teams (and if those loser teams become Cinderella teams, then great!). Maybe even if Canetti and Jordan and Brenner weren't here, we would continue to be:

• a low budget team
• a team with no stars
• a team without long-term plans
• a poorly run franchise.

***

In any case, @ChrizG13 is not a name caller. He was just explaining his fervor for the Dynamo, using terms that other folks here use all the time.

So don't get too mad at me @ChrizG13 bro!

 

The way that I see it:

The fans like @Hydro who come on here complaining, and threatening to quit every day are the superfans.

The guys who just like soccer, and continue to watch and write analysis are a bit more casual.

 

I agree about AEG's thoughts about us but I don't think the league is plotting against us
- just cause we are a smaller market team doesn't mean we can't be a whole lot better:

RSL won a cup and developed a good youth system
FCD very competitive / challenging for another cup and developed a great youth system
Portland has won a cup and one of the best fan friendly and best game atmosphere
KC great fan base now open cup / MLS cup winners best stadium MLS

It can be done BUT

You need people with great vision and a great plan and enough money
You need people with cajones
You need people that are good to execute this

We don't have anyone with this I don't think

 

MLS pendulum-swings. The league started out non-transparent and promoting DC and LA, swung in the 00s towards an egalitarian hard cap, and since we won has been swinging back towards rules favoring teams that can afford more payroll.

The mention of DC in there is worth noting, "juggernaut" is not forever, necessarily. As the league evolved to SSSs they got left behind and some years they are decent and others not. Maybe we've learned that ourselves. Pat your back too much while standing pat and you can become less relevant.

Lately we aren't even tripping over decent years. Thing to me is MLS is so even for most of the league -- despite the luxuries it offers to a handful of teams like LA and Seattle -- that the inability to flip a team around after a bad year is a sign of mismanagement and poor scouting. I can understand "it's harder to win silverware" this way. I cannot understand "can't even slap together enough decent players to get us in the playoffs." Because of the AEG history some people tend to fixate on LAG and salary, and obsess and mope about that. But that doesn't explain where we rate relative to SKC, SJ, RSL, FCD, RSL, Portland. That goes to not the inability to spend at a level, but the understanding and ability to assemble a competitive team without hideous flaws.

There have also been a lot of big money mistakes the Red Head Stepchild obsessives tend to sweep under the rug. Beasley is not as dominant as the price tag and history would suggest. And Torres, Bruin, RR, the others sucking up salary (Barnes until recently)? Meh. Back in the day, given my choice of league players, I would have wanted Ching, DeRo, Holden, Davis, Cameron, Onstad. Anyone like that anymore? Exactly.

Also, while LA may outspend us, we are outdone by not just them but similar budget teams like FCD on youth development. We have 0 draft pick league minutes this year. 0 non-Deric HGP league minutes. You cannot have a poor veteran signing batting average plus be completely ineffective getting in cheap kids who can play well enough to see time. RGV may bear fruit over time but the irony is the stats I put up showed Kinnear's last year (and he is infamously the one who "let kids rot") we were getting more than a thousand minutes a season from draft picks, it faltered last season, and now it's non-existent. The team continues to struggle and yet still won't freshen the lineup. I don't know if that's a veteran preference or maybe Barrett doesn't like what he sees. Neither case looks good for us.

This really should be no surprise from the TD, whose Montreal had 3 seasons of misery and 1 playoff season that lasted 1 round before we destroyed them.

And then the coach appears unable to coach his way out of a paper bag. Think what you like about this team, but Coyle managed 3 wins including a 5-0 slaughter from this bunch.

Clear house and bring in Schmid or Bradley. Eliminate the TD and trust the coach to compose a team with players for his scheme. Then we need to improve in every personnel tool at our hands.

 

We are not a small market team. We are in the top half of the league in attendance in the 4th largest city in the USA. We may have small market "economics," but that goes to how the business side is handled, whether we are drowning in debt from the stadium and the ownership shift.

I heard similar stuff about the Astros, ignoring how in the World Series year we were one of the top handful of attendance teams, in a big city. You tend to hear this gibberish (a) when we are not at the level of NY or LA and (b) when a team with debt tries to cut costs and run itself profit-loss wise like a business, rather than, like, I own a sports team because I would like to win, and am willing to dump an extra million in some year if it gives me and the fans more to enjoy.

 

It's interesting that the TFC game thread has basically drifted into a vent session. In past years it would have been how dare you threadjack this, we're going to win Saturday, this is for talking about the game we're going to win. But things seem to have deteriorated to the point you could sneeze here and it would get a why does my team have to suck response.

 

Well, basically the first post of commentary into the thread kinda lashed out and people just responded from there.

Additionally, the situation with the Dynamo is basically as bad as it could get. Other than the team leaving the city, which I don't think they will since they just got a stadium..... we're living through dynamo fan hell/torture.

 

I agree that the Dynamo and its supporters/fans are going through hell. Winston Churchill said, "If your going through Hell, keep going!"

 

Imma just continue to piss and moan until something changes

 

Did y'all watch Gionvico's bender over the goalie last week?!?
Or his spanker to the back post before that one???
I ask cuz the man is on the war path and taking scalps like his life depended on it. He is set to feast on our D come Saturday night.
Perhaps Rico can man mark him in some sort of 5-1-3-1 that focuses on the lil I-tie not getting many touches on the ball.
Also, the heat might help sap the TFC players. Water breaks be damned. Which I still think are funny in a way at the upper levels of the sport. Being that for over a hundred and change years, players in hot climates just, ya know, played two halves of football and dealt with the requirements of such a task.

0-0 against a TFC that is firing on all pistons would be a big shot in the arm as it all stands right now. C'MON BOYS!!!



Good on ya' Don for the Churchill quote. All Anglo-Celtic rhetoric aside, that Limey has always been one of my heroes! Up there with Sam Houston and the like. That man as a leader at the time God placed him on the planet, he knew what woulda happened, how big the stakes were, if Britain does not hold out against Ze Germans until Hitler fuks up and invades the Soviet Union there in mid 1942, breaking his treaty with them and really costing him the chance to win a second World War.

 

gotta believe that we will defend the Ant with 10 men leaving just about everyone else open. wouldn't be surprised to see Jozy get a brace. the heat might have slowed them down in the past, but now with the juice box breaks the teams get, running them out of gas isn't an option.

we most certainly will have to score first and score early if we want a chance. i give the team a 10% chance to win for being at home and another 10% because sometimes sh^t happens.

not sure im gonna make it past the 70th mnt anyway. my liver will probably be on operation shut down

PS

what do you call it when your cirrhosis has a drinking problem?

 

Again, CeltT, you are wishing for a tie. That is telling. Thanks Canetti!

 

I agree with your post, Ace. Except that i am not suggesting that "the league is plotting against us".

I believe that MLS is trying to form these super clubs that can compete against Mexican teams in CONCACAF, and one day compete against European clubs. I believe that they cannot elevate all the MLS clubs, so they have decided on a few, and they will do whatever it takes to let them have the stars.

Call it "big markets", "small markets", wahtever you want, there are chosen teams that will carry the MLS flag. I'll call them the chosen and the unchosen.

That does not mean that MLS will intentionally PLOT against the unchosen. An unchosen team like the Dynamo can, at a minimum, be a sparring partner for the chosen teams. The unchosen teams can be moving orange cones that allow the chosen teams to practice.

Or if the unchosen team has great leadership, careful planning, great fans, and a lot of luck, the unchosen team may become a winner, posing needed challenge for the chosen teams. They will have to defeat the odds, without international superstars, with poor-man budgets, without the love of MLS and the media, but it can be done.

MLS wins either way, whether an unchosen team wins or loses. It's a win for them anyway.

I agree with you that even an unchosen team like the Dynamo can win the MLS cup again, but as you said:

• You need people with great vision and a great plan and enough money
• You need people with cajones
• You need people that are good to execute this

Canetti? Jordan? I agree with you that we don't have the people who can do it. We need new leadership.

 

I'd agree with most of this. MLS wants to have strong clubs that can compete at the international level. MLS wants to have stars that put butts in seats. I don't think, however, that they have picked their favorites. I think it is more the case that there are only a handful of teams that are willing to spend those huge dollars.

MLS can do whatever they want for Houston and a lot of other teams (like give us all a bucket load of TAM), and we aren't going to spend it. LA will, the NY teams will, Toronto will, etc. However, they can only do so much within the confines of the MLS salary system, so the league finds mechanisms to make it possible to bring in more international talent. It looks like those mechanisms disproportionately benefit a handful of clubs, but I don't think that is by design. It is simply by virtue of the fact that those are the only teams that will take advantage of it and spend.