Booked For Dissent

It’s up on the SE site. It’s got the audio from Payne, which is the main reason any United fan would want to hear it.

They’re not very good. Simple as that. In recent seasons, we’ve seen that team takes a while to come together and when it does, it looks like one of the greatest teams ever seen in MLS. I’m not convinced that this will happen this year.

The problem is that this team, as we heard throughout the off-season, was assembled to win CONCACAF. As a result, very little thought was given as to the week-in, week-out demands of an MLS season. While this team could possibly compete in South America, MLS defenses are different.  Dave Kasper and Tom Soehn should have known that you can’t simply plop down a different style and expect to win. It doesn’t work anywhere else in the world (see Liverpool, under both Houllier and Benitez), so why would it work here?

Yesterday, I remembered a conversation I had early last season with Kasper. I asked him if he thought the team lacked defensive depth. This was before the trade for Burch and Vanney’s arrival. He dimissed it with “What should we do, use a Senior International slot on a defender?” And he was right. It has always been the key to success in MLS that you use the International slots for attackers and put Americans in the back.  Well, there are two international defenders there now and they don’t seem to be doing any better. Adding to the problem is that they’re making over $400,000 combined, thus hampering the team’s ability to make changes.

Further, DC United have had long-term issues that it has not chosen to address. Just because there has been success in recent years does not mean that those problems go away. It only becomes even more apparent when other problems pop up.

The most glaring is that they have never considered a day when Jaime Moreno and Ben Olsen would not be in the lineup, an astonishing oversight given their history with long-term injuries. This is a difficult problem players like that don’t come around every day. Jaime was fully formed when he came here, a perfect combination of skill, speed and youth to destroy young MLS defenses.  This was before the inflation of the transfer market in the mid-90s, and nowadays players of his quality circa 1996 can do much better anywhere in Europe.

Replacing Olsen, however, should have been a much easier issue. As it is well-known, Benny’s greatness lies not in his skill, but in his heart. So what do you do? You find a kid who has the qualities he had in 1998, speed and grit, and you glue him to Olsen so that he develops into him over time.  You don’t just plop him in the reserves and cut him after a year. I think that’s what they were looking for in Josh Gros, and when it was known last year that Gros wouldn’t be here in 2008, they ignored the importance of the qualities he had. Again, Kasper and Soehn said that the draft didn’t suit their needs.

Then, there is corner kicks. This began in 2003. At the time, much of this was put down to Marco Etcheverry’s declining productivity, Eddie Pope’s departure north, and the general offensive woes of the Ray Hudson era.  Yet three coaches and four playmakers later, United still can’t do anything with them. Jaime’s smack off the bar in the 86th minute was, I believe, the only time the team has put one on frame all year, and it doesn’t even count as a shot on goal in the stat sheet.

So how does United address the lack of a target forward? Franco Niell. Bravo, Kasper. This goes back to the idea that the game is different all over the world. You need a big guy who’s not afraid to throw his body around to wear down the defenses, so when you need a goal at the end of the game and you’re throwing in crosses from all directions, you can actually get to one. And remember, this was against a Chicago team without CJ Brown and Wilman Conde.

Brian Ching, Taylor Twellman, Ante Razov, Kenny Cooper. Do these names ring a bell? Even Nate “Lunkhead” Jaqua scored in this league. And in a Cup Final, too!.

I’m going to stop now so that I can get to work on the podcast and you can hear for yourself just how pissed Kevin Payne was.

…leaving a guy wide open in the box isn’t a good thing…

D ripps me a new one:

However, more important to me was the statement, once again, that D.C. United’s mission is “to win championships and serve the community.” That’s our tradition. We didn’t put up a banner on DCUnited.Com with the word “tradition” next to a picture of Ray Hudson not getting a pink slip. We put that word surrounded by a bunch of trophies. Our tradition is about winning and community involvement, not some management practice. If it looks like 2008 is a lost season because of Tom Soehn, I don’t see United’s ownership just letting it happen simply because they never fired a coach before.

D is correct on all those points, but he overlooks a major aspect of why United has a tradition, the way Kevin Payne does business. He is far too loyal to discard a coach so quickly (does 2001 ring a bell?), and would undoubtedly go to the wall for Soehn.  I don’t see that changing so quickly.

I don’t know the terms of Soehn’s contract, but my guess is that it’s for two years with an option. That seems to be the standard. By virtue of his record last year, as well as his success as an assistant here, Soehn deserves to at least finish out this year before a decision on the option year is made.

And I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, never forget what happens when you fire a coach who recently brought you success.

I hear he’s available.

The full audio of it, and post-practice quotes from Soehn and Olsen can be found on the new SE Podcast.

Last year Brian Carroll and Bobby Boswell lost their roles in the starting lineup (and eventually their place in United’s locker room) due to a drop in form. Many people couldn’t figure out why this happened, after Boswell had won the Defender Of The Year, and Carroll had been such an important part of the last three seasons. The answer can be found in the difference in Ben Olsen’s role under Peter Nowak and Tom Soehn.

In Nowak’s 3-5-2, the approach was to disrupt the midfield, force turnovers and quickly counter. That’s the way Nowak’s Fire teams played, and it’s how United played from 2004-06, with Olsen gritting out the tackles and Carroll reading the passing lanes. This left comparatively little for Boswell to do but clean up, head out crosses, and come forward for set pieces. It was an ideal situation for a team that had lost Ryan Nelsen and replaced him with an undrafted rookie.

But with Nowak’s departure came a change in offensive scheme to one based on possession and wing play. In the 3-5-2 of the first few games, this gave Olsen more offensive responsibilities, like going wide when Fred moved centrally rather than staying back.

The problem was that this exposed both Carroll’s lack of physicality and Boswell’s tendency to lose focus. The change to a 4-4-2 with the more physical Clyde Simms replacing Carroll, and Devon McTavish helping out Boswell rectified this, and the team finally gelled, even more so when Vanney came aboard in July.

This was overlooked because United won the Supporters Shield, but the decline of those two players last year exposes my issue with Soehn and development. Yes, Boswell and Carroll are veterans and shouldn’t be categorized as developing, but they were two important members of the lineup who were exposed as a result of Soehn’s lack of understanding of his players’ skill sets. And his inability to show them what they needed to do to improve is a main reason why they’re no longer here.

This year, Carroll, paired with an (even more) physical d-mid in Danny O’Rourke, has regained his form and been a big part of Columbus’ surprising resurgence. I haven’t seen much of Houston this year, but reports are that Boswell hasn’t regained his 2006 form.

But for all that, those of you calling for Soehn to be fired immediately should stop it. This is an organization that has never technically fired a coach (Rongen’s contract wasn’t renewed, and Hudson’s third-year option wasn’t picked up). And for all the talk at the United-Volkswagen press conference today about the importance both “brands” place on “tradition,” I don’t see them breaking away from any of that in the near future.

Cross-posted at the SE website.

We’re the same sad story that’s a fact
One step up and two steps back - Bruce Springsteen, 1987

For every game like last Saturday’s to give United fans hope that the team has turned a corner, here comes yet another example of how for this team still has to go. My belief that United’s problems stem from an indifferent approach to youth development by Dave Kasper and Tom Soehn remains unchanged, and we saw this again today.

It was best expressed in the difference between Rod Dyachenko and Nick LaBrocca. Both were given similar roles - play behind the more-talented playmaker, and in front of the destroyer. Dyachenko, in his third year, continues to show signs of displaying his potential with a good performance like the one last Saturday, but quickly retreats back into mediocrity when given more work. LaBrocca played all of 67 minutes in his rookie year, but has been a been a revelation for the Rapids in 2008.

The game will be written about as the battle of Gomez v. Gallardo, with Gomez as the victor, but LaBrocca’s performance allowed Gomez more space to be dangerous all game long, while Dyachenko seemed to suck the life out of the entire midfield. Simms had one of the worst games I’ve ever seen out of him.

In other words: Fernando Clavijo is better at youth development than Tom Soehn.

But that still doesn’t explain what’s going on with Luciano Emilio. Once again, he was invisible out there. Even when he was struggling at this point in the season last year, he didn’t look this bad. It’s quite possible that he is the reincarnation of Alex Pineda Chacon.

This Thursday against Chicago will be a tough test. With a short week of practice, I don’t know if United can make the necesary adjustments against a team that is playing very well and perennially has our number. It could just be a home-and-away thing, in which case United right now is no better off than it was under Ray Hudson. Again: one step forward, two steps back.

I was going to lead off by saying that the great thing about playing Colorado is that Omar Cummings is proof that, if you’re a half-talent who has a good game for Clavijo, you win a spot in the starting lineup for a long time. But as I had finished writing that, Dyachenko killed another attack with a giveaway.

The best line of the day was by Kim, who, when the empty seats at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park revealed 85% of the “COLORADO” painted into the seats, said, “Maybe they should have put the number for tickets instead.” 

Coverage of last night’s victory over RSL is up at the Screaming Eagles site.  Quotes from Soehn, Wells, Burch, Quaranta, Simms and Moreno.

Former Washington Bullet Gheorghe Muersan.  I’m 6′2 and I came up to his elbow.  I think he ate Franco Niell.

I came dangerously close to saying, “Is that cabbage, Gheorghe?” I wouldn’t dare mention “My Giant.”  He was with a group of children, so I guess the “score one for the kids” commercial (couldn’t find it on YouTube) wasn’t just lip-service.

Late last night, Goff posted a transcription from John Oliver of the Daily Show’s recent stand-up special in which he said that, if he were to ever utter the word ‘”soccer,” “somewhere in the world, a British person dies.”

Now that’s really funny, but it’s also something I’ve heard a lot from the British, as well as American Eurosnobs and Latinoposeurs - that the word “soccer” is anathema, and that there is only one true football (they’re right, there is only one true football - Super Bowl XLII Champions New York Giants, but that’s beside the point).

I’m sure a lot of you get that as well, so the next time a British person complains about your preference for “soccer,” simply remind them that, if the word is so horrid, why did they invent it?  That tends to do the trick.

For a different, but equally hysterical take on the sport from the Daily Show, here’s the superlative John Hodgman (whom I’ve been fortunate enough to interview) on the eve of World Cup 2006.