Tab Ramos: No matter which side of the discussion you're on, you're right. A look

last point, "sit darwin" was wrong.

 

Correct.
It was like when the Texans coach O'Brien had issues in the locker room with the best wide receiver in the league and thought it was wise to ship him from his team. Well, it appears that the coach was the issue as O'Brien was fired after last season.
So with Ramos, WHY coach???
Why was our best player not on the field for the majority of this season? Not starting Quintero is one thing but to then just let him rot on the bench back in the Spring and Summer when we needed a spark late on in matches is bonkers! Was the man that bad of a cancer in the locker room or did he kick your dog? Please explain what occurred between you and our best player?

 

Oh he played here and there but he got subbed in very late in matches which is not letting a man of his talents get in the flow of the game and on top of that Ramos placed him out of position.
Amigo, I am an old coach. And what Ramos did with Quintero had terrible optics to it soup to nuts. More so now what we have witnessed in our team being much better when he is at the #10 role and the rest of the team is playing hard. We actually have a puncher's chance.

 

it's the farting around and equivocation that gets me. if you're gonna sit your DP they should be traded last winter. you're not happy, do something about it. that way it's not a DP gathering moss when this team needs some goals. you don't carry $1m as an unused sub.

they then suck, get second thoughts, ooops. wrong personnel decision. i do want them responding to reality, but in this particular way, not confidence inspiring. it's like berhalter who keeps tripping over hoppes and horvaths and weahs who for years he had no interest in calling. i start to question your decisionmaking when your accidents are more effective than your choices.

reminds me of romell. i know there were personal life rumors but his montreal stats are eerie consistent. that was us working out some sort of psycho-social-soccer thing and not really about him.

 

last thought on darwin, but if you notice as the season's progressed we've actually rotated back to him, ceren, figueroa, valentin, maric, some others. the deal is a list of people here should be done and we should be picking through the end of the roster and if that looks bad and produces firing-results, so be it.

if you're chasing playoffs and going old, you do that from the starting blocks. at this point it's like stat-padding or trying to save your job. when the team should be cutting loose that whole list and really needs to know more if the end of the bench is serviceable or has no future either.

the metaphor is this. senior day is usually mid season. seniors are still playing senior day. if your team is out of contention, last game my freshman year of college we started a bunch of freshmen and sophomores. at some point it ticks over to grooming the future. you don't let the upper class consume all the oxygen for a team whose season is over. i hope the core of a TORSO team isn't the future.

a no-hoper team needs to at some point pivot to, the season is over, we're looking 2-5 years down the road. we're assessing should some draft pick or HGP be taking your job next season. darwin should have been gone, or, darwin should have started the season, made his go, and then now we pivot once we're out. ending the season pivoting back to veterans makes the coach's retention argument but doesn't help this be better next season, 5 years from now.

 

The word you are looking for is being match fit.
Any coach knows that when you limit the clock a player gets, he or she just cannot turn it on come the time the coach calls the player off the bench.
First and foremost is just conditioning. Match fitness as I mentioned. Then as well have your touch be obedient and the peg you prefer to go with, well this rifle must get the rust off it so that it is in the cocked and firing position, ready to shoot at a moments notice. The combination of being fit to play at a high level of soccer and a player's touch is vital to be remotely on your game.
It is one thing to freeze out a goalie or defender, their job is to destroy the beautiful game not create the beautiful game. Thus, when a coach freezes an attacking player, these core traits of match fitness and touch that are at the core of a player's performance are dented even further.

 

my first response: "know your player." a running berhalter fallacy is treating "club minutes" concerns the same for most of his players. one size fits all. but some people are young fit self-starters who show up ready to go regardless how much they play club. weah, horvath. vs some would probably be unfit or trip over their own feet if played without club time -- bobby wood. he does seem to grasp bobby has an issue -- but that's easy. bobby is the stereotype. in reality weah and horvath could be benched for years and might show up fit and play well if suddenly brought from moth balls. horvath vs mexico. weah vs jamaica.

but since his one size fits all is "rust," weah remains a rotational guy and horvath is back in the wilderness, even though every piece of NT game play says their club minutes don't matter. that they are professionals. if someone can hack mexico cold i think they can hack el salvador regardless how much forest plays them. and yet i'm supposed to pretend a mediocre johnson with a GAA well north of 1.0 must be better. he's not even in my first few MLS choices.

anyhow, darwin's game log suggests the coach misread him. either had a supersub idea -- which is idiotic for a DP (if they aren't starting they should be traded, sold, or released so we can find a DP we want to start) -- or underestimated how little he could play him and get something out.

second thought, i agree with celt texan on, he wasn't even getting minutes in preseason so where did we think fitness would come from? this isn't sanchez's technical play. this is an active bouncy player. think of that goal the other day. he doesn't just stand still and execute. he is not pablo mastroeni with his socks drooping.

basic personal experience in my penultimate adult league season i signed with the wrong bunch i didn't know well and got sat. when i did get in i felt heavy legged and thought my technical play suffered. basically unfit. new team last season, started and played most of the minutes from day 1, much fitter, no heavy legs, couple goals, much better right until i tore my knee to hell. which i could do because i was running around like mad in my 70th minute of work that day. but i digress.

and then to me it's like the failure to marry coaching to personnel work, he should have started, coaching error, but if he's not, GM error, he should be gone. and to me it's just stilly to be playing a bunch of 30-somethings after you're eliminated, headed out of contract, even if it slightly props up results. you start rather than finish the season this way. the idea now is to be bridging to next season. who will be here 2022. who can help me 2022. who could help 2025. i appreciate darwin getting a chance to show up ramos, but based on how this went, he should be gone for 2022, and we should be looking at are the kids on the roster potentially able to dress and play as subs there. ditto ceren figueroa valentin lundkvist and anyone else over or approaching 30 who disappointed and are out of a deal or might get moved. what else do i have, who else should get cut.

this should be palomino hoffman bajamich etc. time, like, did jordan eff you up just the same. is there anything good around here. try and accelerate the process where we don't sort this out in 2022 instead.

based on what i've seen of mccue, he might have struggled in NCAA and i'd want the kids on first team tape to justify blowing most of this to h*ll as jordan's folly, even the developmentals. in fact, if they hurry up and hire onstad now, he could be in town watching the games.

personally i think this would have been a good year to have something like RGV going so marginal players were on tape someplace. without that outlet and with us being unable to rise in the table, i would be playing kids so that onstad has some way to sort the edge of the roster without basically giving them a do-over next year -- at the expense of rebuilding more. i kind of think we just waste seasons, sell DPs then don't replace them that year, which is basically throwing time away. make effective use of the time. accelerate the process.

 

this sounds cute except you seem to sanction opposing team counter tactics. the general appearance of this team on the field is a sieve on defense. and that bothers you most....for forwards?

you seem to have bought into berhalter malarkey where we pick forwards for defense. did you notice how bad our GF were? that we are still in a GA hole trying this your way?

we know with the benefit of hindsight this team is headed to a similar WLT pts home road GF GA place as last season. setting aside the stereotypes, personally, watching this thing all year, the defense is soft as heck. we didn't replace darwin with arriola. and i think giving away forward goals for defense is overrated.

now, if the team was competitive and scoring goals, then GA on counters is marginally interesting. but as it stands you have a tepid offense, down a guy, to help what ends up an abysmal defense he can't save. a vicious man marking defense didn't step into his place. this is the softest zone i have seen this side of holland. we didn't start darwin to play like this? really?? dutch teams may not play defense but they field all their offense to play only one way.

i brought up quioto on purpose. we love our fall guys and oddly we like to start the season with them rostered even after the standoff develops. dero was supposed to be locker room trouble before he was MVP. quioto, if he had any personal issues, has rebounded on the field and put up consistent montreal numbers. to me it's like a corporate narrative thing and way i judge such things is step back and did the right decision get made, all talk aside. mouths shut and it was wrong.

personally i thought he was a bad idea because the starters just get older and older. but if he's rostered i shouldn't be playing some glorified bench player (based on season stats) instead. not while we're trying to compete for table position, at least.

 

people do realize that ramos is out of contract? the whole idea on year 2 was ok we will give you your contract year. like we might have to give a pay raise for the idiotic privilege.

 

This team has had far too many stinkers to bring back Ramos. With Onstad being named GM tomorrow, expect Ramos to be announced as “not renewed” or “not coming back” for 2022 within the next 10 days.

 

the real reason to fire the coach early and be done with it, rather than run the contract out, is not cruelty or punishment, not to show how mean we are......

but so the players can be evaluated under different coaching that same season. if the coach rearranges players and coaches different and they respond incredibly well and nearly make the playoffs, the coach was the "only" problem and you make some tweaks to the roster but keep the interim. to me the "keep coach and tweak roster" folks sound crazed, like we sparked to life and just missed it, not finished ~16 pts back of the line.

if the team doesn't respond but some players suddenly spring to life, then the coach was their problem, hire a new coach and keep the players who showed well under at least one regime. if players suck under both regimes it's also a personnel issue and you tick off the ones who couldn't thrive under anyone this year. save yourself effort in 2022, cut down to the hopeful ones.

i assume the idea is stability but who wants "this" stable. and most teams, fair or unfair, don't run their organizations as extended control experiments. i mean one of the arguments against our chances of getting a good coach under jordan was if you were bright enough, you must have seen he would saddle you with trash. you would not get a separate "control" year under onstad. you'd get canned too. or instead -- is actually our history til now. so i am not going to bet my career on jordan. so i am not going to sign up here. one good reason for onstad is simply to cleanse the pallette and provide a reason to coach here.

ramos signed up here because this was his easy chance without having to serve the usual assistant apprenticeship. wade barrett took the same shortcut.

teams usually try to fix multiple problems at once, not tweak a thing or two a season from near last, to be fair to each employee. the GM got years, Ramos got 2, the players got their tenures, in pro sports, that's plenty. part of the game is setting oneself up for success.

 

Today was not a ringing endorsement to keep Tab.

 

for some reason seemed a propos:
"...Dolphins fans have become trend-following New Age zealots, quick to tell you the team's latest braintrust knows what it's doing, last offseason's moves were shrewd and the undrafted rookie who caught a one-handed pass in minicamp is the next Mark Clayton. Since the fans have no knowledge of how successful franchises operate, these beliefs are all they have to cling to, so it's both pointless and rude to remind them that they believed the exact same things last year, and the year before that..."

 

fk it. bring back Dom.

 

is this a serious discussion still? hahahaha

 

Tab is not coming back, he’s not Bill Belichick trying to find his way in Cleveland. Tab has the worst PPG record of any manager with 50 games in MLS. You can’t possibly bring him back with any credibility

 

Also in that piece:

✔️A one-on-one interview w/ Pat Onstad. The new Houston GM has a decision to make on Tab Ramos, who now has the worst PPG average of any coach in MLS history who has managed at least 50 games.
✔️Galaxy pick up te Kloese's optionhttps://t.co/B2kjMmMMSG

— Sam Stejskal (@samstejskal) November 4, 2021

Second source to that claim

 

Just now: Ramos has been let go.
https://www.houstondynamofc.com/new...nMe1vflA0IZAIT-fx6S1W9ppP2J9Zt3Jj0OPRpmxCDS3I

"Ramos was announced as the fourth full-time head coach in Dynamo history on Oct. 25, 2019. After his first season was interrupted after just two games by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ramos led the team through the return-to-play process and the MLS Is Back Tournament before resuming regular-season play. During his two-year tenure, the team posted a 10-26-21 mark, including a 9-8-10 record at home.

“I want to thank Tab for everything he has done for this club over the last two years, on and off the pitch,” said General Manager Pat Onstad. “In the short time that I have been here, it was apparent that he has made a tremendous positive impact on the culture of our team and has helped make Houston a more appealing destination for players within MLS and abroad. There is a strong foundation here and we are grateful to Tab for that.”

"

 

I was correct within 10 days, figured they would wait until next Monday. Really no choice, had the worst PPG of any MLS coach with 50 or games coached. 10 wins out of like 60 games

 

So why do you not accept the explanation offered: That Quintero had fitness issues.

 

Which season? When he was our leading scorer or when he got handed the role of coming off the bench?

 

I'll bite on this thread.

1) Day one season ticket holder until about five or six years ago. Went to every game. Loved the team. Loved the passion. Loved the crowds. Loved the banter on this very forum. Most of all, loved the success.

2) My opinion from day one as the Houston Dynamo began the slow burn towards ineptitude to where they are today (irrelevant) has been and always will be due to the following:

1. Ownership. From being the red headed step child of AEG to the absolute non-impact from Brener/DeLaHoya and the minority holders. I think at least AEG cared about winning. I never, ever saw that from the most recent ownership group. Guess what. It showed in the end product.
2. General Management. Always lagging behind MLS 2.0. Always signing the wrong DPs (and I mean ALWAYS.) Never getting the name DP that would at least put people in the stands. Just an all around clusterf*#k of more ineptitude. (Landin, Torres, Carracio? and whoever else we brought in...ALL FAILURES.)
3. MLS. Yes, the MLS brass hasn't helped. From dumping Beasley's salary on us (yeah....750K a year for a left back...) to really not helping in the DP stakes by making sure the name DP's make it to the big markets, we've always been second fiddle in their mind and always will be. The financial shenanigans played every year to make sure that the LA & NY clubs get what they want is breathtakingly astounding.
4. The Academy. This one took way too long. Two genuine players making it to the first team from the academy in how many years? (Forgot the first guy, scored a worldy vs. FC Dallas? but the second being Memo) It was clear from early on (Kinnear's reign) that the academy was a failure and needed to be blown up and started over from scratch.

That leaves me where we are today. An crap team with no interest in the product on the pitch, burning bridges every where they could with bullshit promotions that mean absolutely nothing to me, a genuine football fan. I care about one thing and one thing only. Winning and end product. That's it. Right now, I don't care and that's the worst that can happen to your fan base. Not caring.

It's to the point where I don't even know who their playing and how they did the previous week. THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKE ME OUT THERE. Do not think that we're in the minority. We aren't. Season tickets sold and empty seats at EVERY match tell me we aren't. AEG/Brener/DeLaHoya/MLS have allowed this to be burned to the ground.

So, in conclusion, you probably won't me again for awhile. I won't care until ownership starts to care. When they care, I'll care. Then I might try a game or two again. Then I may become a season ticket holder again, and be damn proud of it.

I remember full houses at Robertson stadium. Everyone of us can point to a memory that will live for a lifetime in Dynamo past (Dalglish winner vs. Chivas USA, Ching's tying goal in MLS Cup vs. NE and Onstad's save to win it, knock down drag outs vs. Pachuca in SuperLiga, etc...) I want us to get back to those times.

Make it happen Dynamo and stop with the excuses and i want fans to stop with bullshit excuses too.