With 5 games remaining, the focus should be how to take our younger players and build a side that can get meaningful minutes all together. I.e. with Teenage, DQ and HH, Thor and Seabass up top, start another five young prospects and let them get 90 minutes, mandatory!
I’m not unhappy about Paulo’s firing, but he most likely wasn’t giving much say or authority in roster decisions,…and didn’t bring out the best in the squad he was given. TIMING didn’t help Pat nor Paulo. Many of you here on BS are ignoring the timing of last year’s team admin and roster build. Pat didn’t have time to completely overhaul the roster as some of you expected him to do. This wasn’t like Austin or Charlotte who had a long buildup to get a coach, and scout and sign players that fit the GM and coach’s vision. Pat had none of that. First, Pat’s hiring was announced November 1st. Roster option decisions had to be made by the middle to end of November. Pat had to evaluate existing players without having a coach, system or possibly even a technical director or head scout in place. Pat hadn't found a coach by then and it may even be true that his first choice for coach strung Pat along only to turn down the offer during the second week of December. Paulo wasn’t hired until late December,…and training camp started in mid January. Many of you are blaming Pat for making roster decisions,…but who else was going to do it? It makes sense that he kept several serviceable players from last year’s team to have a decent base team in training camp to start the season. Maybe he figured that the new coach, GM and Tech Director together could add key players during the season to enhance deficient areas. So, it seems to me that Pat’s hands were restricted because of timing, as were Paulo’s. Paulo might have had limited say in signings after camp started, but he certainly wasn’t responsible for roster construction given he was hired so late. It’s possible that Pat made a few hires in 2022 to get the club on solid footing and evaluate player and coach success based on team play and record without constraining his roster build capabilities in 2023. Seeing that Nagamura wasn’t successful in shaping the players he was given into a solid, moderately successful unit, letting Paulo go now should give Pat more time to find a better, more experienced coach who would then have time to develop a more comprehensive playing style and roster for 2023.
The Chelsea situation today is why you dump Nagamura now if you're not totally sold on him. They look really stupid, embarking on a major roster overhaul getting players he wanted only to fire the guy a week after the transfer window closes. For me, anytime there is going to be a major roster shakeup, which by all accounts seems likely this offseason, if you're not fully committed to your head coach then you need to change him out first so that he is part of that overhaul and bought in.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/soccer-matters-with-glenn-davis/id594664700?i=1000578643511 Good stuff on here, but one thing stood out around 19:30. Pat mentions minuscule improvements have been made this year but if you keep doing that it’ll be 8 years to make the playoffs. Admits bigger and faster steps needed to improve the team.
This is a well laid out discussion making the same point I've been making. It was never reasonable to expect much this year based on the facts @luvwatchingsoccer lays out. I do think there is huge systemic harm in being a team that rotates through coaches as fast as the Dynamo do. Who the hell would want to coach this franchise?
cmon now. football managers are whores. offer enough money and anyone would take over this dumpster fire.
I don’t disagree with this. Money is one leverage point, but another is control and I think you kneecap that with a strong GM, particularly when said GM doesn’t have a successful track record. So while I do think a lot of the “no good coach would ever come here” talk is people adopting a “woe is me!” attitude, I think people arguing that an experienced coach has little desire to serve under Onstad have a point.
that sounds like he read my post the other day where i pointed out -- in response to the incrementalists wanting to protect naga -- that at this pace it would take 6 years to close the gap. i also pointed out -- and pat neglects -- that our form has eroded as the season progressed which meant that his "miniscule" improvements could become actual regression. calculus and changing rates as opposed to linear chart graphs that don't fit a team that peaked in the spring. viewed as segments of the season, this team went from 1.5 ppg to 1.2 to .8. the averages and numbers lag the recent form hence are around 1.0. but this had become a .8 team. we have matched GF from last year but we are still under absolute points which risks being under ppg as well. our GA continues to balloon up where that gets worse and worse and might exceed 2021. i say that because when i got a well duh response on "wins are worth more points than ties" my point underneath that was the road wins could hide this team actually being worse than last year. that we could have fewer positive results and worse numbers but "somehow" have more points and also more losses. i say that because you can read between the lines of the announcement that pat had brought in 10 people but we somehow lost so this is naga's fault. to me the quality of pat's people generally sucks. the coach trying to improve the team or use pat's people lines up with the erosion in the form/ppg rate.
one of my concerns is the announcement made a point of rattling off, "Houston’s roster included 10 new players since the start of the season, headlined by the additions of Designated Players Hector Herrera and Sebastian Ferreira. The roster also includes a third DP Teenage Hadebe, MLS veterans Tim Parker, Steve Clark, Darwin Quintero, Daniel Steres, Fafa Picault, and Corey Baird. The Dynamo roster also includes young international talents in Coco Carrasquilla, Thor Úlfarsson and Nelson Quiñónes." i think that's precisely why they suck. i am concerned we are doing the same jordan bullsh*t where we go after the bench or the coach and don't touch the GM and the leading players. implicit in incrementalism is the GM pretense that they have done fine and it's the coach's fault or nothing a little tweak can't solve. this is a last place dumpster fire. most of that junior high crush list needs to go. we need to admit mistakes. you thought they were as good as you make the list sound. the table says otherwise. the table is smarter than we are. some were touting where pat earlier vaguely said mistakes had been made but this needs to go beyond platitudes and placating and symbolism to ruthless team building. several starters need to go bye bye. pretend time needs to end.
I think we are both right. Certainly, enough money will attract a coach. But your ability to attract proven talent is affected by how they perceive the opportunity. You and I both know that. Two questions for you Rey: 1) Any chance Ferretti is available? 2) You still have not identified all the Dynamo players you think play at the same level as their Seattle counterpart. Go ahead and do that...
I really don’t think Tuca Ferretti should be on our list. For one he’s getting up there in age. 69 or 70??? On his end, he really likes living in Mexico. At this point, he probably wouldn’t even go back home to Brazil. I don’t see him living in the US in a place where he wouldn’t receive that recognition and adulation he gets in Mexico. Although, I would love to see how Tuca would react at a presser fielding a stupid ass question from Generation Orange or The Peel.
Email from Pat Onstad to Dynamo season ticket holders Dynamo faithful, It’s important that you hear directly from me about this week’s announcement. When I was hired, I emphasized the need to improve the culture of the club. We worked with the staff, players and coaches over the course of the past nine months to formulate four key values: Team First, Pursuit of Excellence, Accountability and Respect. This was a difficult decision. Paulo, Jimmy and Chris are good people and true professionals who worked tirelessly for the club. When faced with a difficult decision, we return to our values to provide guidance. In this case, our results this season are far below our expectations, and I felt we needed a new coaching staff to move the club forward. Let me be clear: I take responsibility for our current record. It’s not just on the coaches. It’s not on previous regimes. We need to be better, and it starts with me. We will begin to make changes for next season immediately. We have already begun a formal coaching search, which we wanted to conduct in an open and transparent manner, and we did not want to wait until the end of the season. While today’s letter is about the coaching change, I will speak more about the improvements that we are putting in place for next season in the coming weeks. For the next five games, Kenny Bundy will act as interim head coach for the first team. Kenny is a talented up-and-coming coach who has been developed in our club and most recently led Houston Dynamo 2 to a playoff berth in MLS NEXT Pro. He has our full support. Make no mistake, the remaining five games are important. These matches are opportunities for all members of the club to demonstrate their commitment to our values. I appreciate your continued support and I will keep you posted on our progress.
So this "culture" project we are working on, that needs time, is not final third tactics or working harder and getting stuck in on defense but the F*cking Four Key Values? We sound more like the Texans every day. People have been applauding the slight increase in transparency and self-deprecation but if you listen to what they say it's not comforting, it's scary. Stuff sneaks out about "looking like Houston," "culture," etc.
I don't see any change in how we go about things. I am sick of lengthy corporate process "coaching searches" with layers of CYA reviews and interviews resulting in hiring someone for their first pro job. This is not hiring someone to replace Beth in accounting. Pick a target. Target someone big and proven and wave a check -- as some of you suggest. They need someone with a history of success and if you hire right, that coaching name starts to help you recruit players. I wholeheartedly reject the idea that the USSF has gotten a better "search" result in Berhalter working through an ostensibly transparent and deliberate process with a GM than they did when the executive Flynn used to unilaterally run around and wave checks around in front of name brand coaches, Klinsi, Arena, Bradley. Not sure what they want me to think is "hidden." I don't want the pretend "openness" or "entertainment" of them talking to people and leaking names. I want a result. Hire a better coach. I personally don't care how they go about that. Kind of like, if I am going to hear about "culture" or "values," how about soccer. Otherwise I don't need to hear about corporate cult sounding stuff. I want to hear, we get what's wrong with the soccer team.
I like Tuca -- I proposed him during a previous search because I was impressed with how defensive and disciplined Tigres looked when we played, which felt Kinnear-plus -- but he was unable to work a miracle with Juarez. Not sure whether he, like, say, Simeone, requires some talent and athletic level in order to execute his plans. Re his age, he is just under 70 but he has also been recently rumored to be heading to a couple MX teams (Chivas, Cruz Azul). IMO if they want him they would need to get off their butt.
varus- the current recipe is a coaching career killer. why am i putting my reputation at stake to subordinate to some half baked second year GM or the analytics department of the worst team in the conference. so, you're abstractly half right, a lot of coaches might try houston and MLS, but not on our terms. we go about it this way and we will get more marginals and rejects. no name coach is going to risk their rep to play along with our demonstrably ineffective blend of personnel work and analytics, and worse, as the subordinate not the boss. we absolutely suck so i am not sure why we elevate our silly ideas of identity, organization, and culture over what actual winners think. f*cking arrogant. we act like we have tapped into some sort of ajax/barca magic. we are last place three years running. we don't know sh*t. nor do we secretly have personnel genius i would want to defer to. hire good people that are proven winners and if they want personnel power then onstad's job is to either fire himself or promote himself into the executive suite and turn over day to day soccer control.
...Onstad said. "I know it’s a cliché, but we’re dead last in the West. I don’t feel our roster is [dead last]. We invested a fair amount of money. … We’re not performing to our level.” the tension with this team is both GM and HC are sufficiently bad they can use each other as an excuse and often enough only one goes. this wasn't going to win titles, but it shouldn't be last, but when pat signs tens of millions of players and makes 20 decisions it should sleepwalk to being competitive. based on the first few games it would have taken an excellent coach to make this marginally postseason. i mean, he's right -- but also full of it. "One of the reasons we made the decision now was so we could start the search early. … We’ve probably gotten 60 applicants in 72 hours already," Onstad said. "We have a profile for what we’re looking for. If we can get someone in quickly, great, but we want to make sure it’s the right person." like, a psych profile? "beaten as a child? submissive mother?" i kid, but i think this is the same ol' shit, they hire a Type to play a Way and the Type and Way suck in the table. shift to hiring a person with a track record and let them decide what "we need." what we "need" from a personnel level is hiring a winner. that should be the "profile." the winner should know better than the loser what values, skill sets, personnel, and tactics make a winner. why are we selling we know sh*t? "the expectation is for us to be competitive in these five games," the emphasis should shift to 2023, look at new tactics and people, and either get us 2nd draft spot after StL City or figure out something new that surprises and wins. “I’m holding my hand up with accountability on this; I’m sure there are things I could have done better," which sounds nice but people making bad decisions shouldn't be around forever and how am i supposed to assume next year is better. at minimum i would like to see real transparency like explaining the mistakes in more depth. like he walks up to saying HH was a mistake but neither how it is one nor why we made it. to get better i think they need to acknowledge, say, that marketing overrode soccer, or an expensive player got more stuck in for atleti than here, or abstract production was looked at and not system fit, or that we were just signing kids we liked, didn't mean to play them just yet, and whooops when we had to play them, they didn't fit with sebas. i assume if we ever hear this the player will be gone already. but to me vague "mistakes were made" is like the most basic level of honesty. if we treat it as full honesty we do a disservice. it only feels refreshing because the previous regime literally wouldn't admit it was dark outside at night. https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/what-s-next-for-houston-dynamo-fc-after-departure-of-paulo-nagamura
been watching the wrexham documentary -- which reminds me of my occasional visits to watch smaller lower division teams other than the SW London teams. the hollywood folks seem to have a more definite punch list than we do, though they are also dealing with an even more thorough dumpster fire. but what popped out to me is the "what is getting done" aspect. they said they'd buy the team. done. they said they'd buy and start renovating the stadium. done. they said they wanted to get the team promoted. they have signed a league striker and are literally just short of that. the soccer portion is moving towards getting done along with the business end. when i step back and look at us, they have consolidated their ownership, cleared out most of the minority stakes, put their stamp on the name and logo, and then our real estate mogul has gotten to work on the stadium, new seats, club area, etc. they did the fubo deal. this is the checkboxed stuff actually accomplished. this is generally business side stuff though the branding starts to bleed over into the soccer. i put this here because what continues to be slighted is product, ie, roster, GM, HC. i don't know about whether the summer was tepid so they could complete the minority share buyout. but my concern is a real estate person has bought the team and the things actually getting done are business and property type stuff. my team. my logo. my stadium. we played along with it hoping the soccer side would change but i remain skeptical the soccer side is a priority. they took some sponsor money and dumped it on some MX people they thought would sell tickets. they didn't spend their own money and depending why the summer "had no budget" they didn't display that they would continue to churn the roster sparing no expense including their own, until this is competitive. the feel is instead that when a sponsorship or tv rights deal comes up, pat gets to spend that. i then have to trust pat has a clue as this is not going to be a sustained owner funded effort but rather "as available." if we don't have a constant flow of owner money and willingness then we need a higher personnel batting average -- and arguably a different personnel person -- as a winter mistake is not going to be fixed by a summer release and rebuy -- unless that money can be found in the sponsor budget. i say this because as i have argued all summer -- and against the contract expiry date folks -- that winners find ways to ditch bad players regardless when their deal is up. but the more i think about it, those efforts require "resources" and ones of a less expected and sponsored nature. you have to be willing to put away the short term self sustained expense oriented green lampshade stuff and say, if we want to compete, we need to eat that $7m fee and $1m+ salary sunk cost, pay whatever it takes to release someone, then pay again to fill the slot better. the contract expiry thing is an obsession for a cheap team that just passively carries deals and thus has to live by how long it promised to carry someone. the teams that win in this league are generally the ones who will "spend the same money twice" if that's what it takes. the dynamo under AEG used to routinely cut their losses which is allowed under the roster rules but also likely costs some money. they didn't spend the money to buy people very often but they would at least spend the money to undo mistakes. that to me is just as important on a good team and in our situation is critical. side point, the people who are pro pat and also passive on contracts need to then acknowledge that when pat is f*cking up right now if we don't spend to fix things, pat is committing us on paper to 2024 or 2025. just like jordan's legacy is outlasting his tenure. you aren't just betting the coming season. you are betting the 2 beyond that which pat is contracting players for -- even if pat is gone end of 2023. inasmuch as i think talent is more important than coaching, and some of you want us stuck with deals forever, you need to consider the implications of committing hard to a sketchy GM. if we aren't going to spend to fix mistakes then the GM has to be a machine or we will be stuck for years from now.
to me it will be telling whether this winter focuses on the core or instead on the margins. to me it will be telling whether HH or sebas is scapegoated first. to me if sebas goes first then we are still about appearances and marketing, as he gets some goals and wins some games. i think we should get rid of all 3 DPs but i think the most useless is HH. is this about winning, teambuilding, analytics, or is it about an image and the yeti. as long as this is about marketing and image this will continue to suck. they need to start making "soccer decisions," ie, figure out why we win and lose games and how to change that. if you don't help us win now then i don't care if you sell a few tickets and used to be seen as one of the best players in the region. half the problem here is this has descended beyond being cheap to being a marketing exercise. because cheap but smart can occasionally get you alberth elis but buying 30+ over the hill players to sell tickets for a couple games is generally a defeatist image exercise that won't even arrest the broader fan and economic slides. i mean, it kind of looks like our keeper can't dive without consuming a handful of ibuprofen. personally i am skeptical whether the soccer side grasps what it takes to compete in this league, what tactics might work better, and to get players that fit the tactics rather than as marketing or a youth investment. our tactics don't work and we seem to routinely overestimate the quality of the roster. it's so consistently done without a ton of accountability that i start to wonder what priority the soccer is. kind of feels like the GM just buys some incoherent names within a budget and then plops them on a coach schizophrenically instructed to both (a) adhere to an identity but also (b) make the mismatched mess somehow work. the championship and runnerup teams were built to a kickball system. even the 2017 team was basically give or take cubo we're gonna get out and run up top and then veteran bangers in the back. at this point it's like we're vaguely committed to the same formation as 2017 but not even bothering to sign players to execute either half of the concept. that is the identity. the actual roster is then a mess but if you get too creative trying to match roster to tactics one assumes you get an email reminding you of the Way The Dynamo Play even as the this half baked attempt at the Way gets last. if they want to keep playing like we have elis then they need to go get some defenders and some productive track sprinters wide.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/toronto-fc-sign-homegrown-forward-hugo-mbongue https://www.torontofc.ca/news/toronto-fc-sign-homegrown-forward-hugo-mbongue i have zero faith in our reading of the roster rules anymore. this suggests you can sign HGP outside roster compliance. bundy was essentially brushing off complaints about us promoting players, pointing at compliance. i assume he got that from pat. "don't you know the rosters are frozen?" except....... pat doesn't seem to know "the score." (1) corona boomerangs back on us and we have to loan him to sweden. (2) we lose a U22 slot for the year because he loans rather than sells bajamich back home. (3) we maybe misread the rules on whether pasher was now a domestic and he ends up gone. (4) we have to release pasher to sign quinones because we have the slots count wrong (IMO), which may also have undermined a second window signing as we then would have had to move someone else. (5) even raines, it's like, did we anticipate that whole mess or did we think we were signing someone who could come in and play this year, and that's the workaround the league imposed. (6) the question whether HH could have been playing a week earlier as it appears the hangup should have been his AM contract expiring -- you are a free agent -- and not the transfer window -- which doesn't apply to free agents. he was out of contract 7/1 and should have been playing immediately. (7) then this. to be fair, i want them being aggressive on raines types but the rest feel like f*ckups. and that's not even getting to the core question of how well the job gets done. that's just the sense we don't know the rules.
this will be somewhat backhanded but to give us some credit for a change, i saw where the 22 under 22 long list of eligibles was announced and raines and thor are eligible. i think we might put a player or two on the list for a change, which is good -- though to be clear they aren't our academy creations and neither is quinones. memo, beto, castilla, and palomino are. the fate of the last 3 isn't advertising the bridge yet -- as MLS' web commentary pointed out the other day. they still aren't getting promoted much and playing so it's a mixed message that still doesn't sell join the academy. you're better off being drafted or bought is the message still.
underlining "don't know the rules" (or at least fight to enforce them), RSL got something for raines and we couldn't use him immediately if we wanted HGP. what about FCD and our kids/territorials? as i understand it they are considering changing the rules where you won't have absolute academy rights within your area anymore. ok, so how did FCD get away with it......
in a mood to pull out some receipts on HH so i said he was neither a 6 nor a 10 he so far has 0G 1A i said he had injury issues and showed his age he has played in 8 of 14 possible games, only 6 starts i said he wouldn't help us win our own GM questions if we are worse when he plays QED people got pretty nasty with me on this one. people had fun at my expense or said i was negative for the sake of being negative, care to reconsider that? care to apologize? part of the game on accountability on here is y'all have elephant memories on whether we should sign perk as a backup keeper but bury bodies in the desert on much more important stuff like backing the team on this horrible DP choice. you rip me if i anticipate but i guess the idea is we don't revisit the concrete points later on when we can talk reality. to be more constructive about this, perhaps maintain some degree of objectivity next time.
Y’all he was right here. The team wanted to show they could get a shiny toy and we ate it all up. There probably is a chance HH’s time here can be turned around but it relies on things that are mysteries at the moment.
Stop it! Don’t agree with him. Absolutely no one ever said HH was a 10. He’s never been a 10 on any Liga MX, European club team, or the Mexican natl team. This is the part where he claims he was right and we were wrong even though we never argued that point.