The first preseason Dynamo match announcement that I've seen. https://www.fctucson.com/news_article/show/1200718 More to come.
FC Dallas' preseason schedule is out, with a trip to Bradenton included with matches in Texas. There's a game in Austin, but no date with Austin FC. pic.twitter.com/6wjXk3hGHO— Jon Arnold (@ArnoldcommaJon) January 6, 2022 Another preseason game just dropped. 2/19 at 7pm in Frisco. NDR but also on there FCD is playing Chicago at Austin FC’s training ground?
I was wondering if they were going to do that La Copita preseason tournament again. It looks like it.
The full preseason schedule is out: Sat. Jan. 29 v. Dynamo 2 @ HSP Wed. Feb. 2 v. Real Salt Lake @ Tucson Sat. Feb. 5. v. Colorado Rapids @ Tucson Tue. Feb 8 v. El Paso Locomotive @ Tucson Tue. Feb 8 v. Phoenix Rising @ Tucson Sat. Feb. 12 v. Austin FC @ PNC Stadium Tue. Feb. 15 v. Toronto FC @ Austin Sat. Feb. 19 v. FC Dallas @ Frisco Times and streaming info TBA.
Just wanted to add for anyone that may be confused, Feb 8 isn’t a typo, they’ll be splitting the squad for those games.
2 things: - they better not do that closed door scrimmages b.s. that started under Wilmer (or was it Coyle). the scrimmages are good p.r. and always fun. - has anyone ever been to Tucson preseason games. they look like fun since they’re usually double headers.
One correction: the game against Toronto in Austin is on Wednesday, 2/16. Same day that Dallas plays Chicago in Austin.
i saw that we were playing at PNC Stadium and asked myself "where in the hell is that???" LOL The branding manager is not gonna be pleased that an OG STH didn't immediately recognize the new name! PS to be fair, I still sometimes say I'm going to the "rob"
game vs HD2 should be a split squad scrimmage. idea is to sort out who is A vs B team on the field. we per usual will just assume we have it split right, which is doubly stupid now that it's one team with a long roster and not literally separate RGV. i've been part of some A vs. B games but IMO good teams use A vs. B scrimmage or intrasquad to sort out who should even be A or B. bad teams are on autopilot, hardened rosters, and limit the value to "prep." i say this because this schedule feels like off a xerox and not fresh thinking. to be fair, maybe we can't dramatically fix it during covid, but it feels like sleepwalking. B team, arizona, some in-state games, rinse, wash, repeat. if the season is going to feel different i need change someplace. new system, new approach, new players, new schedule, some other angle.
Dynamo should be open and inviting to try and get interest back up - I’m not sure what “hidden” tactics Cabrera used that he didn’t want out in the public. Based on the last 8 years maybe we should let the opponents have full access to practices as it might help us
There are so many small concepts that our club can do to get the club's image back out into the community these days. If our Dynamo Girls are permanently gone and are not available to do public relations events with Diesel, then at least open up practices and have some sort of coaches clinic often enough to engage the soccer community. Also, whatever happened to our end of the year club party that the FO would schedule. The rare times that our FO staff, game day ops staff, the players, the Dynamo Girls and all of us fans and supporters could get dressed up and have drinks around the holidays time. I guess this was a cost cutting fallout.
A while back, I came across an interesting Q&A-styled interview with a University of Bath professor who studies fan engagement. He discusses how teams have moved from a transaction-based methodology (buying tickets, merch, etc.) to a relationship-based one. It helped me understand the changes made by the Dynamo's basketball- and baseball-driven business side leaders, such as the focus on social media and "memberships" and so forth. He also highlights the importance of a two-way street, giving supporters access in exchange for their loyalty. This is something I feel the current business-side leaders missed big time. Implementing the Circle of Suck strategy in myriad podcast interviews and social media interactions for a prolonged period, cutting meet-and-greets with tenured season ticket-holders, closing off practices, etc. It's worth a read if you've time: https://johancruyffinstitute.com/en...gagement-fans-influence-sports-organizations/ The comment below stood out. By seemingly not responding to those concerns (i.e., on-field play, poor stadium services), the criticism grew worse rather than subsided. "I would say that every team wants to have highly engaged fans, but sometimes highly engaged fans can also be detrimental for sports organizations because of the continuous criticism, some disruptive behaviors, negative messages on social media, and all of that. I would say that understanding consumers is one of the things that is important. Shaping the fans’ behaviors is also an important thing, but mainly the idea is to create a two-way communication process. To allow fans to have voice, to help the team, to feel that they are part of the community, and to learn with that to improve the services of the team and the relationship team-fans."
To me the polar ends of going into business are "I think I know a way to make a mint off something I don't care about, not the product, not my customers" or "people love my cupcakes, I enjoy making them and seeing my customers, and I hope that this is profitable enough the doors can stay open." too much about this feels the "first." i own property rights. i sell access. i even complicate access to extract more money. i don't maintain the product well because that would cost money. i just hope people want to buy usually overcooked cupcakes since i am the only shop this part of town. people remember when the icing was good when i first opened up. i got rid of that icing vendor. i engage with the fans some but in a marketing sense of enticing to spend money. the branding proceeds on my whims, it's my store. even when they seek fan input it's like controlled circumstances, select panel which encourages politeness, they seem only interested in the ideas that fit within a certain space. they aren't addressing more primal fan concerns like a competitive team. and the payroll and lack of star power that used to be inside baseball on boards like this is now generally grasped by even casual fans. probably in part because of what the astros pulled and the texans are pulling. the extractive aspect also doesn't help, particularly when the fan experience feels stuck back in MLS 2.0. the STHs talk like they are squeezed and while initially this was a leading SG driven experience, seattle and others pushed right past us. just this weird combination of obsessed with our money but not spending theirs.
my first experience with fulham was i showed up at the stadium at a random hour looking for a box office trying to get tickets with no idea when or how they were really sold. there was no working day box office. a guard talked to me, walked me up into craven cottage (!), and they gathered what they needed and sold me seating. my first experience with the dynamo was they blew will call for the first ever game and my wife got in late. the game was fun but that was the legacy team, and half of me was like on and off the phone for 30 minutes keeping up with her. will call to me is indicative of a key problem with this team of having too few when you need more, to seemingly save a buck. and until the advent of electronic tickets if you foolishly went will call you were still hoping the long line subsided before kickoff, after the stadium move. it's an attitude to money that overrides what should be business lessons.
perhaps in isolation, but we just generally feel like sleepwalking, at which point it's a symptom of disease. a team this bad shouldn't be running off the same template over and over. not GM, not HC, not roster, not system, not how the business runs, and, yeah, maybe item 20 down the list, but i can't imagine a hamster's wheel of a preseason schedule approach motivates or bonds the team unusually well. the only thing i have seen change is hiring a TD, a layer of bureaucracy. and you keep poo-poohing my criticisms as overwrought only for davis or a MLS writer to say the same thing a month later.
Circle of Suck was a multi-level failure. First for a ticket rep to be spouting that almost certainly means that it was percolating in the workplace for a long time. Someone should have shut that talk down at the source. If it was coming from someone like Canetti then it was a major professional failure on his part. The podcasts and Twitter stuff from the aforementioned ticket rep was fallout from that failure. Either they were incompetent (someone should be tasked with monitoring Twitter and the more popular podcasts) or they tacitly signaled acceptance (I think Widder stunningly liked or retweeted one of his angry takes). I think it’s too much to call it a strategy they pursued. It’s more that the organization took on a circle the wagons mentality and then a junior level employee aired grievances that were always meant to remain inside the circle.
Very good find! Will read up on it. Thanks Nate. The Circle of Suck and letting it fester was what Westie coined so eloquently years back with a culture from our old regime at the FO in of dickish behaviour directed to us the fans in the stands like all of a sudden when SHTF as the team worsens and the MLS scene is booming, it is us Houston fans that are to blame. Which should have been buried the second that stench was fermented at our club. But it wasn't! One must recall that our past FO regime demanded season tickets from ALL supporter section members or the infamous "or else" threat that one won't be able to join in on the fun. This was a total shift from the Rob culture of having the North End as an easy to enter, come as you are and bring a newbie to soccer friend to enjoy Dynamo soccer on a Saturday night. We got shoved into that cubie hole down in the lower corner as well which nobody thought was right. OL always had promised us a replication in our new stadium or what worked so well at the Rob and when he moved on that promise got nullified by take a guess. So for sure, Seattle and the Portlands have ran right past us in the supporters culture but not by our own undoing. We got dealt a bullet to the knee cap by our very own FO and it has take us years to recover. Add to this a poor team season after season and it has been very trying. Y'all witness it. Correct. Which other clubs in less of size metropolitan market, with no downtown stadium and local soccer community so engaged with the sport, there are so many other FO and owners that would kill to have a market like ours where making money goes hand in hand with knowing the potential of said market and thus the need to really be ahead of the curve on all fronts like new to soccer fan engagement, youth academy growth and production, scouts abroad, and how one treats the core fan base.
“Open competition” across the entire roster for @HoustonDynamo head coach Paulo Nagamura. Captain for 2022 still not decided. First day of preseason was all about setting expectations. Season goal for #HoldItDown is to make #MLSCupPlayoffsMore to come on https://t.co/u2OhvAAzeg pic.twitter.com/jjfxsgMRZH— Victor Araiza (@victoraraiza) January 18, 2022
Playoffs are realistically possible, so glad they acknowledge that. It’s easy to forget how easy it is to make the playoffs relative to other leagues. There really doesn’t need to be a prolonged rebuild to hit that mark.
A good striker, a mediocre keeper, and a backup CB isn't going to make the playoffs. Look at the statistical profiles of the teams making it vs not. About everyone ahead of us for a while had a similar bad defense. What varied and decided who made it from the bad defenses was how much offense. RSL had 19 more GF than we did. The incremental value of an improved striker is not likely to be 19 goals. And that's for seed 7. I'm thinking mid 40s GF without more. He can't serve himself. From seed 6 up there was one bad defensive team -- to be fair, losing finalist Portland -- but generally teams that high allowed 10-20 GA fewer. A GK 0.2 GAA lower would save you one fewer goal every 5 games. So we're talking 6-7 GA fewer in theory. The defense and 6 are basically untouched. Neighborhood of 50 GA. I think what we have done so far gets us to about SJ in the standings which is 7 points shy of the playoffs. More offense, same defense. Not enough offense to make up a 20 goal gap. The standings to me reflect it's more rewarding to be defensively stout, even with a negative GD. I'm with the MLS newsletter writers on this, it's gaining momentum but without more it's talk about 2023. We shall see. Thor could be a positive x factor and the coach could be a negative one. All offense, no defense. CabreraLand. Even if this goes some place people are going to regret circling wagons around the defense.
how easy it is to make the playoffs sounds like what people have said for the better part of a decade "and yet." i think we continue to resist 2017's lesson on what "trying" actually means. that was 6 transfer players preseason (machado leonardo quioto aj sanchez), 2 summer (senderos martinez), 3 loans (elis cabezas). that got a 4 seed climbing from last and destroyed by seattle. we have picked up a solid but not special keeper, a backup CB, and what looks to be a good striker and understudy. fafa and the 9s might be about it in terms of matching 2017. one wing won't be as good, inferior 6, no 10 so far, 2016 style defense. gimme more.
https://www.houstondynamofc.com/news/houston-dynamo-fc-announce-2022-kickoff-week-schedule This seems like a pretty cool series of events. Don’t think they’ve ever done anything like this before