SÄCK HENRIK RYDSTRÖM

Whatever else you might say, everyone seems to be tiptoeing around coming right out and admitting that the players just didnt like him or buy in to his ideas, and management didnt see any hope of it changing.

(And pretending that this was a 100% solo decision from Issa is too ridiculous, even for Arace)

But nobody seems to have a problem crapping on this assistant coach, who I admit I couldnt pick out of a police lineup. They apparently detested him for whatever reason. Can't have helped.

Maybe the team will have a big burst of the famous " Ding dong the witch is dead" syndrome, otherwise known as "At least this guy isnt the last guy" and play like world beaters on Wednesday out of sheer relief. It happens all the time.

If they do, it may give us a clue.

 

The players complaining that the training sessions weren’t fun. What now? You aren’t u-6 rec soccer players.

 

In Sweden, HR reportedly made his players do homework and take tests. Wonder if he was doing something like that.

I also wonder how much input Courtois and Williams had on the team. Maybe the comments about Theo were not from players but from the other coaches.

The coaching staff will need built out along with the roster. Theyll have 2 months. I know of 2 former Crew captains that still live in town.

 

These people are all highly paid professionals who won two trophies under the last coach playing more games than any other team in the league, and some of whom did well under Caleb, so maybe we should believe what they're saying?

 

Exactly

 

And Amy Klobuchar's staff should have been better at dodging binders.....

 

Yeah, that tracks. Can't say I blame them.

 

It's literally a mirror image of Nancy at Celtic. There was a story that he (or one of his assistants, can't remember) was telling a veteran player how to properly trap a ball with his foot at training. Between that story, and Nancy's insistence on literally changing everything overnight, it seems like he went to a situation where he didn't understand what he got himself into, and had a much much higher opinion of himself than the players ultimately had.

Fast forward to today, and it's all the same stuff that is trickling out about HR here. And if Issa really wanted a continuation (to a degree) of Nancyball, he sure seemed to pick the right guy. Even got the same results as Nancy at the end of last year!!

 

Sometimes your boss just sucks. It happens. When it happens, everyone knows they suck. It's demoralizing. You can 1950's man just deal with it all you want, but people are people. Having a shitty boss and work environment sucks, especially when the boss doesn't seem to know what he's doing.

 

I also feel as if he has been writing the same columns on the Crew/CBJ/whoever for 20 years. And while I am in no way a fan of relocation, the whalers moved almost 30 years ago. No one in Columbus wants to hear about it for 20 minutes during every podcast.

 

Someone in the discordecke said this: HR was a bit of a snake oil salesman promising an exciting playstyle, achieving nancyball objectives with a different play philosophy (relationism instead of positional play) but after 2 games he went pragmatic, and things have been downhill since.

 

Now imagine how many fans will like the post when they announce Tall is out.

 

Ive got the monty python meme already in the hopper. We will see what happens come July

 

Seems like a good opportunity for a poll. Will he stay or will he go. And if he goes, when? My guess is that he';; stay initially, be given very little to do, and quietly depart later in the summer.

 

And that raises more questions. If he didn't have the players to fit his system, why come here?

Also, changing because you can't play your preferred style is fine, but why couldn't he get anything to work? We scored goals the first couple weeks, but the D sucked. Then he fixed the D, but we couldn't score (some of that is the WAA injury). Then he tries to balance it all out, and it just made everything suck.

Worst of all, after being hired because of a strong philosophy identity, this team ended up having none. And we know this group can have an identity, because they did with Nancy. Other than Nagbe (big loss, but still just one guy) the team is basically the same. They should know how to play together at this point (and do, we know they do). The only new variable is HR.

 

I think he is here all year. I assume Bez will be the final decision maker, but a full time GM is needed for day-to-day and detailed scouting stuff. If Prez Bez is running three teams, he won't have time to be a daily GM too. Probably better to hire an Issa replacement in the offseason.

 

Stefanski was at home and unable to screw things up in the playoffs.

 

I swear that game was at Pittsburgh. 28-0 first quarter. What a game

 

Stefanski was out with covid

 

To do that, we'd have to fire Bez's pet, Issa. That has not happened yet, and won't.

HR may have had his issues, but this is a roster issue. We have never adequately replaced Matan & Ramirez, much less Cucho, Morris, & Nagbe.

 

Kinda like Issa saying they weren't gonna try & convince players to come here?

HR just spoke the truth. We suck.

 

No, still Timo. The evidence there is what we did later that year with mostly the same roster (Friedel helped, obviously).

I think all of the following a true:

1) Issa has done a terrible job and should be fired.

2) Rydstrom was not great, but he did not have much to work with.

3) The players did not buy in. Similar to Nancy at Celtic. Whatever Rydstrom was trying to do, if the players do not buy in & implement it well, it is going to look like crap. I think there was a lot of that going on.

4) I bet the FO is getting a lot of negative feedback on ticket renewal prospects and they wanted to do something to change the narrative becore the WC break. Semi-panic fire.

 

Who is Sigi Schmidt?

 

He was and is correct.