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

I’m basically you!! LOL! This new ownership and GM change along with coaching change makes me excited once again. They say they want to spend and that is exactly where we have been lacking. Ultimately you need money to bring quality players and coaches. You do that, wins will come and so will people like myself that weren’t wasting our time and money. If I see this quickly, I might even sign up for a couple season tickets again. First, show us how bad you want us back!

 

Please take this and nail it to our FO front door!

Good run down on the memories Bill!
On top of caring about winning, as well knowing our market and location in the hemisphere, beating a Pachuca or Tigres or America in regional competition really does move the needle for our club in a city so chalk full of soccer savvy fans.

 

There's been a ton of conjecture here and on the other thread about whether Ramos is a subpar coach or a good one with a weak roster. We'd never know the answer until he has what's perceived to be a good roster.

Regardless of what his tactical acumen may be or whether he'd been given the right roster to fully realize it, Ramos looked like he didn't want to be here for months now. Also, the players' on-field actions struck me as not caring about winning the match the way they did for prior coaches. If he didn't want to be here, or if he did but couldn't motivate players effectively, there was really no point in keeping him around for the roster rebuild.

He was also a vestige of the Brenner/de la Hoya era. That group has done so much damage to the fanbase that the best way to regain support is a clean break.

I'd actually prefer for Walker and Dionna Widder to move on, too. I don't typically advocate for those things, but policies enacted under their leadership created barriers to entry for Dynamo supporters. Also, Widder supported the actions of her staff and some fans in regards to the promotion of the we-suck-because-of-the-fans culture and pushing out long-term season ticket-holders. It's documented on her social media and YouTube. She even liked a sales guy's multi-tweet attack on a long-time season ticket-holder who, ironically, had been blocked. He'd have no way to see it and respond accordingly. What is that supposed to accomplish? Appealing to a select subset of supporters? Is that a good use of time?

She went on a podcast recently saying she's striving to advance her career in the sports space. Great, I applaud her efforts and wish her the best. She can go onto greater roles, and the club can start over with the fans. Identifying and resolving the root causes of the support degradation that's occurred during the era of fan blaming will go a long way.

Now, I'm just waiting for the prophecy to be fulfilled. #Koke2022

 

As a fellow Day 1 season ticket holder i ditto this post

 

I sent them a bloody great big letter with graphs and survey explaining why I was dropping my season tickets at the end of 2019. The response from Brener and Walker was "meh" lets get together over lunch (still waiting).

Your post sums up exactly my feelings - I'm hopeful, but I've been lied to far too many times to jump in again without seeing a total turn around.

 

agreed - my personal Sales Rep left the organization anyway so I am beholden to no one...
fool me once, twice, three times...OK, I am a fool but I will wait and see what coach they hire and players they acquire before buying more than one or two single game tickets.

 

all due respect but when your only ever senior job is this one it's hard to sell you're better than your table standing of last in conference both years, worst teams we've ever had back to back, and he did get some new toys this year. coyle could get hired someplace else after this because he had some resume. ditto cabrera with the one year.

i get scientifically it's not a control experiment but it's his shot at coaching this level. is what it is. not interested in burning another year testing how much was him.

also fwiw i thought the noob coach was itself an underresource. be serious. this wasn't serious. go get me a trophy coach with a resume as opposed to optimism on a value guy. same theory where we need to shift off cheap moneyball to buying at least one name brand whose reputation precedes them. everything shouldn't be a hopeful guess. the soccer equivalent of dealing for verlander.

personally i'd do it on the flynn rule basis like the USMNT used to do. flynn rule was you didn't make the pile without a trophy on your resume. maybe an exception if you were like midtable in one of the big 5 leagues in europe.

proof of concept.

 

Those matches vs. Pachuca were BIG. You ask any Dynamo fans, even the gringos like me, and we could name at least five or six of those Pachuca players at the time. That's how big that rivalry was. It got me to watching more Liga MX and specifically, Pachuca, because of our rivalry with them. They had a damn good team.

 

If we recall Leo "Ponce 88", a friend to many in our club and my EB brother. He was an hincha of Pachuca and followed Liga MX all his life, followed the global soccer scene as well. He had season tickets to our city's Astros for years. However, he did not follow MLS or even our Houston Dynamo. But when those Pachuca battles occured, he specifically told me that the respect he took away from those nights and the Houston players, he immediately called our FO and purchased season tickets for him and his family. Such is the power of an MLS team actually winning against a Liga MX team of such quality. Not all those fans will turn into Houston season ticket holders like a Leo, but they do send credit to our club when credit is due. Everyone in our Americas knew how solid that Pachuca team of that era really was. They are the only North American club to win a South American trophy! People that really follow association football across the globe here in our town know that regional competition is what makes pro soccer so different than the NBA or NFL.
Which this goes to the point Nigel made about getting men and women in our FO that are true dyed in the wool soccer folks. People that know how to run a club to make profit but not at the expense of going corporate and stale to the core fan in the process. Certainly running off the core fan base year after year like we saw in our previous regime's rule of blaming us fans for not showing up in the stands all while the team continues to be crap season after season.

 

I am quietly glad MLS doesnt have pro/rel, under the previous regime I could have easily seen us become the American Portsmouth.

 

it's not just no pro-rel but the fact that MLS is commercially separate from USL. MLS, like EPL, has its own "league" and separate TV deal, and no pro-rel makes it hermetically sealed. we've been theorizing as MLS expands that they might split it in two but it would be sealed off from USL. all you could do even then is drop to MLS2.

side note: didn't realize it but AFC Wimbledon these days is the same level as Milton Keynes, almost like having to play a columbia blue team twice in divisional play every year

 

with the benefit of hindsight we now see that the delay in firing ramos to pursue a new HC was very costly. we ended up back of the line signing a coach of a poor USL team just before new year's, 2 weeks before soccer practice begins.

the further flaw in your analysis now evident with the benefit of time is the degree of continuity you advocated -- which we appear to be following sans ramos. keeping those people, so far, we don't look any more like a playoff team than recent years. we apparently think we can nibble around the edges despite a last place conference team.

more pointedly, if we took the current unit and even signed the 2 rumored players, still doesn't sound like anything ramos could have coached above the red line. your analysis seems stuck in a basic contradiction where having given the old coach the same components he couldn't take them anywhere. that they in theory could play elsewhere misses that basic fact. what they actually did.

i am certain ramos couldn't have changed a thing even with any winter signings we end up doing. to be fair, if trends continue, it would take a miracle for anyone to make this a playoff team, and based on nagamura's 4 wins this season for SKC2, won't be him either.