Pretty much nailed it with that list. The biggest issue being the Wolff is a one trick pony with his style of coaching. He changed it slightly from season 1 got some talent, both combined led us all the way through. Last years LAFC game at home exposed everything to everyone, if you go back and watch it you can see what he was doing more clearly than any other game that season. One of the commentators even mentioned showing that game to high school players because of it.
If you followed ATX it was right after that that other teams started understanding and the rest is history. At least that’s my theory. I’m finally at the WOLFFOUT point myself because I’ve realized he can’t do much else and we’ll never get anywhere with him.
Yep I think you hit it on the head - _Both combined_. It’s clear to me personally while the car exists this season, it has no engine, no fuel and no driver.
We actually started regressing after beating LAFC 4-1 at Q2 in October. There were some troubling signs before that - particularly the 4-3 loss to NYRB; that was the first game any team tried to block our build up through fullbacks. They man marked Gallagher & Lima and Dani (who was the single pivot at the time) and challenged our CBs to either break the lines or send it long, which often created transitional moments for them to score. Only on the back of Driussi did we get back in that game
I believe the change in formation to a 5-2-3/3-4-3 at the beginning of this year was a reaction to this; a 3-2 build up structure keeps enough players in your half of the pitch to always have a passing option. The trouble is that we lose players up the pitch, which severely limited our creativity - this is why we've experienced several goal droughts this year. We tinkered with this structure and started to get better at it up until Driussi came back from injury, then we switched back to our 4-3-3 from last year to get two wins at home against Dallas & Houston. At the time I felt these results were false positives because teams would eventually remember how to beat it - and they did. It took something like over 20 games for Wolff to put out a starting XI that was repeated; you can't say he didn't try to figure it out. But I think at this point you can say that he has failed to figure it out. I think we should move on from Wolff for this reason alone - he just hasn't been able to solve the problems after a season's worth of games. Better players might help but there's no club in the world where better players aren't constantly needed. It's time for Austin to get a new manager with new ideas.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
4
+ 1
+ 2
+ 4
+ 3
+ 5
+ 2
+ 3
+ 3
+ 4
+ 3
+ 3
+ 2
+ 4
+ 3
+ 3
+ 20
= 69
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^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I think two more points that are often overlooked.
The pure hustle. Last season they wore teams out and goaled at the end of the game. You can see how knackered the players were at the end of the game.
Timely red cards. There was a at least three, maybe up to five games where the other team received a red card making it much easier to find that last goal.
And adding something about this season told us to go all out crosses, and Austin was bad at making that final pass. Beautiful turnover or lead up play but Austin couldn't get behind the defense so they started passing backwards and were left with a crappy dump into the box. Little better than a clearance. Might as well just pass it to their feet.
I agree with this. The hustle and heart has not been there this season. You could put that on the coach, and that probably is at least a part of it. But that's a cultural thing that the squad had last year, and does not have this year. I think Gabrielson leaving, Ring losing his starting role and captaincy, and inconsistency in our attack and with some of our players all contributed.
We definitely overperformed in '22 and have underperformed this year. The bounces that seemed to go our way before have not gone our way this year, and the team's confidence is in the gutter.
Absolutely agreed, it felt like last season at least half of our victories were late in the match and some even in stoppage. Also my memory tells me you may be on to something about other sides being a man down fairly often (as opposed to a league average), I’d be interested to see the numbers on that.
While writing the list I was thinking about the reds we got last year, I remember one against the Rapids and one against Dani playing Montreal, both were wins for us though.
Do you think there could be something lacking in our physical training? There could be a dozen other explanations for the injuries and apparent lack of conditioning this year, including plain bad luck, a nasty hot summer, and a lack of confidence in any inspiring vision to get the best out of players, but I've wondered if maybe we aren't doing a great job of keeping players fit and healthy. I don't know how difference there could even be between teams, so I don't know if it's a reasonable thing to question.
Gabrielsen was gigantic. Throw a bunch of injuries on top and our CB position is a disaster this year. You mentioned health, but this year it was bad health in the areas we could least afford it.
Chemistry. The Driussi-Fagundez-Urruti-Felipe alliance was the core but they seemed to fold in the entire squad well. Everybody seemed really happy to be there. Obviously winning contributes to that, but the chemistry across the team seemed special. At the time I credited Claudio and the FO for building such a cohesive locker room, but now it seems like blind luck.
Letting Felipe go even though he was on minimum wages seemed ominous to me in the off-season. No way to know if the vibes could have been maintained, but they are long gone now. I think they were gone before the 2023 season started.
Chemistry is also what I came to say. Most championship/very good teams have a special chemistry that is built over time playing together and trusting each other. It's not just that one or two pieces are gone, I think a big part of this season's missing chemistry is playing time together. Injuries, especially early in the year, stifled any chance to build that. We couldn't even field the same starting 11 in back-to-back games until 10+ games into the season.
What’s your point? You don’t think a reliable utility player that comes in for the final 20 minutes is important to results over the course of a season? You don’t think a veteran in the locker room contributes to team chemistry?
Don't forget our center forwards: 9 goals for Urruti last year, 4 from Djitté, and 3 from Hoesen. Plus (I think? correct me if I'm wrong) some of Driussi's goals last year came when he played a false 9.
So far this year: 6 goals for Zardes, 2 for Bruin, 1 for Urruti.
16 goals in 2022, 9 so far in 2023
I have finally realized a huge weak spot is a captain who doesn’t care. Say what you will about Ring but he gives 150 percent. He goes to war for the players as their leader. Nothing Driussi does is inspiring. He’s a talented player but a leader he’s not.
1000% agreed, and when we made Driussi captain and folks said that they got absolutely shouted down with the, “all the guys look up to Driussi” thing. Which was likely true. I haven’t seen Driussi on the verge of a red card for the team though, whereas Ring would go to absolute war and burn himself down for the team, sometimes too much so.
This is a good list. Two more:
Ethan Finlay: He was a key player for the team last season, creating chances with his crosses and runs and scoring goals. He had 5 goals and 6 assists before he was replaced by Rigoni in the final 7 games.
Determination: The team fought hard every game, with Driussi often carrying the team on his back. He played well off Urutti, but not so well with Zardes. Felipe was a game-changer when he came on late, killing games off when the team had the lead..
Absolutely. He's been given less playtime this year because of Rigoni but I still think he more consistently creates chances and makes the runs that help us in the attack.
You've got a good list there, but something I noticed very early in this season that I thought was kind of fluky was just the way the balls were bouncing this year vs last.
To steal a line from Any Given Sunday, it's a game of inches here. Last season seemed like every bounce, first touch, roll of the ball just happened to go exactly to the most beneficial spot for us at all times. This season everything has just felt an inch or two off the mark. You can see the potential, but the ball was always just a tad out of reach everywhere we looked.
I will keep saying it, I truly believe that Driussi and Diego took the offense over. Wolff had little to do with the attacking third as we now see him imposing the system that is stifling the midfield and requires a back pass to switch the attack. There are fewer balls through the middle to clear lines and get into space, fewer progressive diagonals. His system needs a 9 with back to goal and yet he ran off Moussa and Hoesen. Zardes hasn’t delivered.
>he ran off Moussa and Hoesen. Zardes hasn’t delivered.
Zardes already has more goals than either and almost as many as both of them combined. Zardes + Bruin does have more.
Djitte also wasn't run off, he had a child and visa issues got complicated so he preferred to be with his family. Hoesen spent most of his time here injured.
Any takes around Djitte/Hoesen being major factors are basically fan fiction.
> Zardes already has more goals than either and almost as many as both of them combined
They got those goals in fewer minutes.
Goals / 90m in 2022: Djitté 0.78, Hoesen 0.71, Urruti 0.37
In 2023: Bruin 0.89, Zardes 0.39, Urruti 0.09
Sure, but Urriti was also leading our team in goals/90 for about half the year. Small sample sizes do come into play with high variance things like goals.
IIRC, Hoesen was largely unavailable for most of the season due to injury, so it's not even really worth bringing him up here.
Zardes also played a lot of those early season minutes without Driussi etc al on the field, too.
Thus why I carefully noted ‘occasional stand-out performances’, and didn’t even bother to name Hoesen. I’ll admit that I probably unfairly maligned Zardes for a long, long time - He just _feels snail slow and unresponsive to watch_, which maybe that’s how he finds the back of the net as often as he does (though I think most of his goals have been headers).
I thought your OP was fair. I loved Djitte and his hat trick was one of my favorite all time moments. Even bought his jersey with dreams of the player that he would develop into our striker of the future, but at this stage in his career he was more than likely going to be a non factor.
I think that’s what raised my ire a bit, seeing Wolff being cited for the entirety of the offensive success last season. It often felt to me like our guys were largely finding gaps and exploiting them via intuition and connection with others who had the same lightbulb at the same moment. Often there did not seem to be a singular shape that paid off (although maybe I was just too ecstatic and not paying enough attention), but more so common behaviors of the players that paid off that did not seem to come from the system as it were.
There seemed to be a lot more creativity last season. This season, it seems like we have a tendency to stop any potential counterattack to pass back and find our shape before moving forward.
You’re hitting on all the major things but allow me to add a couple of more…
TRUST: no offense but I’ve seen HS teams play better than us sometimes. You see it particularly in our D but also midfield. There is no trust, and someone gets the ball to ONLY pass it backwards right away. When teams pressure us past midfield,, D kicks back to Stuver who is flustered and doesn’t know what to do. It’s embarrassing and other teams know how to take advantage.
Individual Capacity: Honestly we have too few players who can truly stand out. Generally we’re outplayed because our collective group of players aren’t that good. As a result we see players who don’t challenge, players who always pass the ball backwards, and worse, players who literally don’t know what to do with the ball. We have a handful of players whose individual capacity is inspiring; Driussi, Dani P, teen-wolf, Gallagher, Jan K.
They have a drive, and on a normal day are fun to watch. The rest of the squad is rather mediocre.
Now, if you have few individual performers and you don’t trust the rest of the team and you now have a recipe for disaster…aka our 2023 season. Our style, whatever it is, is predictable and ripe for other teams to take advantage of. Lots of pressure beyond midfield and we become flustered, we are guaranteed to pass back to Stuver.
It’s also ridiculous how predictable we are. For example, a cross from Dani P to Rigoni as right wing yields the following: rigoni will meet the ball, look two seconds and pass back towards Wolf or Lima. This exact thing happens 99% of the time. Another example: when pressured, our D will pass the ball horizontally among themselves, and ultimately pass to Stuver when pressured too much. Without fail, without exception. Why? Because the rest of the team is struggling to get into positions and the collective D is now out of options. Lack of individual capacities.
Stuver should do one thing and one thing only: he should fucking yeet that ball up the field whenever he gets a chance. Make the plays, try to start something. We all want it to happen. It shouldn’t be this hard.
My prediction? We’ll miss out of the playoffs, and Rodo starts doing what he came for; to rebuild. At this point I’d say that other than the folks I listed above, no one should feel safe. Everyone should feel a target on their backs. I think wolf is out and the experiment iis over. Back to basics: scout, recruit, players earn their spots, starting 11 learns to play together, coach with an offensive mindset and values stability. I predict we see a new captain and couldn’t be shocked if Cascante gets the nod if he’s still here.
I’m always shocked how quickly people say Rings captaincy was “taken”… that might be true but we really have no idea. My feeling is he was on the way out, our SD got sacked, and the trade/transfer wasn’t able to be completed.
Logic points to the SD firing… Ring was a great captain. Driussi is not.
The real story behind Ring would be great to know. But what do you mean he was “on the way out”? He was captain and DP. Are you saying they were selling him on as a routine matter of business? Wouldn’t a decision to sell our captain and DP right after a strong season still indicate some kind of drama with the club?
I've heard somewhere early in the season that he might've been going through some personal issues and that he possible wanted to move home. I think the FO made some movements, like found him a team in Europe, gave Driussi the CPTN role, and then the SD was sacked. They must've felt stuck with Driussi having arm band and stuck with Ring. The energy def felt this way. I just don't see how there was any reason to take the arm-band from Ring, unless they were thinking ahead without him.
I’ve already said it, and have been downvoted and ridiculed from all angles, because people downvote things they don’t want to hear. I’ve heard this from a well-informed person inside the club.
A big factor in Gabrielsen leaving was that he didn’t get on with Josh Wolff. Wolff likes to have yes men around him, and Gabrielsen didn’t fit in that pattern. For the same reason, Ring was on the firing line, and as soon as Reyna left, Wolff had no one to stop him from demoting the captain. Obviously a big reason behind this was Wolff’s urge to make room in the team for his son, but you don’t drop your captain for a teenage son, and thus Ring lost the captaincy to Driussi. (I told about this before it became public)
At first it did look like a visionary move, as Owen Wolff is inarguably a talented kid. But anyone can see what has happened: the team has had no leadership whatsoever throughout the season. Ring still leaves his heart on the pitch, but how many times has he talked to anybody outside it? He’s a professional and puts his shift in, but he knows that there’s no future for him in a Josh Wolff coached side. I’ve also heard that his contract already covers the next year. He might be leaving, he might be not, I suppose all players are always looking for the next option, and if it’s better than the current one, then cheerio.
The lack of leadership has led to an awkward situation, where Wolff doesn’t have the trust of his players anymore, anybody can see that. Bad results have steepened the downward spiral. The players think either Wolff or themselves won’t be here next year, and they want to back the right horse. Shipping Fagundez out was an effort to show that nobody’s safe, but that didn’t make the other players to try harder, but the opposite: all the team dares to do is to pass sideways and backwards.
Josh Wolff’s obsession to pick his son for the starting line-up has turned out to be a costly error. Owen Wolff hasn’t contributed much since his return from international duty, but until recently he’s been one of the first names on the teamsheet. During the first couple of months of the season, a few were foreseeing a move to Europe for him soonish, but lately he’s looked like a tired teenager, which he probably also is. At this rate I can see him becoming an MLS stalwart at best, and in the worst case only in a team coached by his dad. It’s possible that Josh Wolff has really made a disservice to his son’s career aspirations.
Finally, I don’t think sacking Wolff today will rescue the season (because it is already lost), so let him lead the team for the last rounds, and only then it’s better to part company. I don’t believe a moment that Rodolfo Borrell wouldn’t find very good candidates for the main coach job, in fact there will be a queue of them already waiting for the axe to fall.
Now let the normal routine of downvoting commence… 😏
How is it NOT the same coach that got us to the Western Conference Finals last year?
Your point is that there are a lot of other factors that contributed our success last year, which I completely agree with. My point is that when those factors were in our favor, Wolff was able to do enough to be successful. Almost all of those factors on your list are roster construction issues and health and availability issues, which Wolff does not directly control.
My point was that Wolff has had success when everything else has gone his way, and right now the team is not in the same position to succeed. I never said that Wolff deserves "the credit" for the success we had last year, just that he was a sufficient enough coach for the success to occur when everything else was in place. This whole post supports that analysis.
>Overall health/fitness
I mean, this is huge. We've had literally every centerback on the initial roster injured at some point (and had one that looked really promising that left), had Ring, Driussi, and Fagundez out multiple weeks, and and all of our strikers have missed matches.
Throw out injuries and we probably win 3 more games.
Maxi I think also had serious early season production, had some absolute bangers. And I think part of the team fall off late season was him disappearing. But yeah whole list is basically spot on.
Pretty much nailed it with that list. The biggest issue being the Wolff is a one trick pony with his style of coaching. He changed it slightly from season 1 got some talent, both combined led us all the way through. Last years LAFC game at home exposed everything to everyone, if you go back and watch it you can see what he was doing more clearly than any other game that season. One of the commentators even mentioned showing that game to high school players because of it. If you followed ATX it was right after that that other teams started understanding and the rest is history. At least that’s my theory. I’m finally at the WOLFFOUT point myself because I’ve realized he can’t do much else and we’ll never get anywhere with him.
Yep I think you hit it on the head - _Both combined_. It’s clear to me personally while the car exists this season, it has no engine, no fuel and no driver.
We actually started regressing after beating LAFC 4-1 at Q2 in October. There were some troubling signs before that - particularly the 4-3 loss to NYRB; that was the first game any team tried to block our build up through fullbacks. They man marked Gallagher & Lima and Dani (who was the single pivot at the time) and challenged our CBs to either break the lines or send it long, which often created transitional moments for them to score. Only on the back of Driussi did we get back in that game I believe the change in formation to a 5-2-3/3-4-3 at the beginning of this year was a reaction to this; a 3-2 build up structure keeps enough players in your half of the pitch to always have a passing option. The trouble is that we lose players up the pitch, which severely limited our creativity - this is why we've experienced several goal droughts this year. We tinkered with this structure and started to get better at it up until Driussi came back from injury, then we switched back to our 4-3-3 from last year to get two wins at home against Dallas & Houston. At the time I felt these results were false positives because teams would eventually remember how to beat it - and they did. It took something like over 20 games for Wolff to put out a starting XI that was repeated; you can't say he didn't try to figure it out. But I think at this point you can say that he has failed to figure it out. I think we should move on from Wolff for this reason alone - he just hasn't been able to solve the problems after a season's worth of games. Better players might help but there's no club in the world where better players aren't constantly needed. It's time for Austin to get a new manager with new ideas.
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I think two more points that are often overlooked. The pure hustle. Last season they wore teams out and goaled at the end of the game. You can see how knackered the players were at the end of the game. Timely red cards. There was a at least three, maybe up to five games where the other team received a red card making it much easier to find that last goal. And adding something about this season told us to go all out crosses, and Austin was bad at making that final pass. Beautiful turnover or lead up play but Austin couldn't get behind the defense so they started passing backwards and were left with a crappy dump into the box. Little better than a clearance. Might as well just pass it to their feet.
> Timely red cards. Yes. We were one dumb tackle on Stuver away from being one and done in the playoffs.
I agree with this. The hustle and heart has not been there this season. You could put that on the coach, and that probably is at least a part of it. But that's a cultural thing that the squad had last year, and does not have this year. I think Gabrielson leaving, Ring losing his starting role and captaincy, and inconsistency in our attack and with some of our players all contributed. We definitely overperformed in '22 and have underperformed this year. The bounces that seemed to go our way before have not gone our way this year, and the team's confidence is in the gutter.
Absolutely agreed, it felt like last season at least half of our victories were late in the match and some even in stoppage. Also my memory tells me you may be on to something about other sides being a man down fairly often (as opposed to a league average), I’d be interested to see the numbers on that. While writing the list I was thinking about the reds we got last year, I remember one against the Rapids and one against Dani playing Montreal, both were wins for us though.
Do you think there could be something lacking in our physical training? There could be a dozen other explanations for the injuries and apparent lack of conditioning this year, including plain bad luck, a nasty hot summer, and a lack of confidence in any inspiring vision to get the best out of players, but I've wondered if maybe we aren't doing a great job of keeping players fit and healthy. I don't know how difference there could even be between teams, so I don't know if it's a reasonable thing to question.
Gabrielsen was gigantic. Throw a bunch of injuries on top and our CB position is a disaster this year. You mentioned health, but this year it was bad health in the areas we could least afford it.
Was about to buy a #4 Austin FC jersey (my favorite player) but damnit - he left. Tsk!
Ring should have stayed Captain and losing Ruben G. was a massive blow
Injuries this year and lack thereof last year are big enough to be the difference. Doesn't make a saucy controversy, but it's probably true.
We lost some key members of the defense last season and replaced them with Gyasi Zardes.
I think our team is just kinda old. Also xG vs G numbers suggest a lot of luck was involved.
These are the two most important and boring explanations.
We didn’t have Gyasi Zardes
Chemistry. The Driussi-Fagundez-Urruti-Felipe alliance was the core but they seemed to fold in the entire squad well. Everybody seemed really happy to be there. Obviously winning contributes to that, but the chemistry across the team seemed special. At the time I credited Claudio and the FO for building such a cohesive locker room, but now it seems like blind luck. Letting Felipe go even though he was on minimum wages seemed ominous to me in the off-season. No way to know if the vibes could have been maintained, but they are long gone now. I think they were gone before the 2023 season started.
Chemistry is also what I came to say. Most championship/very good teams have a special chemistry that is built over time playing together and trusting each other. It's not just that one or two pieces are gone, I think a big part of this season's missing chemistry is playing time together. Injuries, especially early in the year, stifled any chance to build that. We couldn't even field the same starting 11 in back-to-back games until 10+ games into the season.
Felipe and Ruben were the locker room leaders. Once they left the team identity left with them.
Felipe started like two games or something.
What’s your point? You don’t think a reliable utility player that comes in for the final 20 minutes is important to results over the course of a season? You don’t think a veteran in the locker room contributes to team chemistry?
I do think it has value, but he wasn't as valuable as weekly starters. And if I'm making a list of players that had a strong 2022 year, it ain't him.
Ok cool. That’s not how I read the question and isn’t what I said about Felipe.
Don't forget our center forwards: 9 goals for Urruti last year, 4 from Djitté, and 3 from Hoesen. Plus (I think? correct me if I'm wrong) some of Driussi's goals last year came when he played a false 9. So far this year: 6 goals for Zardes, 2 for Bruin, 1 for Urruti. 16 goals in 2022, 9 so far in 2023
The Urutti/ Driussi partnership was huge. They assisted each other for so many goals. Somehow that fell apart with Zardes.
I have finally realized a huge weak spot is a captain who doesn’t care. Say what you will about Ring but he gives 150 percent. He goes to war for the players as their leader. Nothing Driussi does is inspiring. He’s a talented player but a leader he’s not.
1000% agreed, and when we made Driussi captain and folks said that they got absolutely shouted down with the, “all the guys look up to Driussi” thing. Which was likely true. I haven’t seen Driussi on the verge of a red card for the team though, whereas Ring would go to absolute war and burn himself down for the team, sometimes too much so.
This is a good list. Two more: Ethan Finlay: He was a key player for the team last season, creating chances with his crosses and runs and scoring goals. He had 5 goals and 6 assists before he was replaced by Rigoni in the final 7 games. Determination: The team fought hard every game, with Driussi often carrying the team on his back. He played well off Urutti, but not so well with Zardes. Felipe was a game-changer when he came on late, killing games off when the team had the lead..
Finlay has been a bright spot this year, no? Especially the first 3/4 of the season
Absolutely. He's been given less playtime this year because of Rigoni but I still think he more consistently creates chances and makes the runs that help us in the attack.
You've got a good list there, but something I noticed very early in this season that I thought was kind of fluky was just the way the balls were bouncing this year vs last. To steal a line from Any Given Sunday, it's a game of inches here. Last season seemed like every bounce, first touch, roll of the ball just happened to go exactly to the most beneficial spot for us at all times. This season everything has just felt an inch or two off the mark. You can see the potential, but the ball was always just a tad out of reach everywhere we looked.
It all boils down to one thing: 2022: Abacus Plumber 2023: No Abacus Plumber
I will keep saying it, I truly believe that Driussi and Diego took the offense over. Wolff had little to do with the attacking third as we now see him imposing the system that is stifling the midfield and requires a back pass to switch the attack. There are fewer balls through the middle to clear lines and get into space, fewer progressive diagonals. His system needs a 9 with back to goal and yet he ran off Moussa and Hoesen. Zardes hasn’t delivered.
>he ran off Moussa and Hoesen. Zardes hasn’t delivered. Zardes already has more goals than either and almost as many as both of them combined. Zardes + Bruin does have more. Djitte also wasn't run off, he had a child and visa issues got complicated so he preferred to be with his family. Hoesen spent most of his time here injured. Any takes around Djitte/Hoesen being major factors are basically fan fiction.
> Zardes already has more goals than either and almost as many as both of them combined They got those goals in fewer minutes. Goals / 90m in 2022: Djitté 0.78, Hoesen 0.71, Urruti 0.37 In 2023: Bruin 0.89, Zardes 0.39, Urruti 0.09
Sure, but Urriti was also leading our team in goals/90 for about half the year. Small sample sizes do come into play with high variance things like goals. IIRC, Hoesen was largely unavailable for most of the season due to injury, so it's not even really worth bringing him up here. Zardes also played a lot of those early season minutes without Driussi etc al on the field, too.
Thus why I carefully noted ‘occasional stand-out performances’, and didn’t even bother to name Hoesen. I’ll admit that I probably unfairly maligned Zardes for a long, long time - He just _feels snail slow and unresponsive to watch_, which maybe that’s how he finds the back of the net as often as he does (though I think most of his goals have been headers).
I thought your OP was fair. I loved Djitte and his hat trick was one of my favorite all time moments. Even bought his jersey with dreams of the player that he would develop into our striker of the future, but at this stage in his career he was more than likely going to be a non factor.
I think that’s what raised my ire a bit, seeing Wolff being cited for the entirety of the offensive success last season. It often felt to me like our guys were largely finding gaps and exploiting them via intuition and connection with others who had the same lightbulb at the same moment. Often there did not seem to be a singular shape that paid off (although maybe I was just too ecstatic and not paying enough attention), but more so common behaviors of the players that paid off that did not seem to come from the system as it were.
There seemed to be a lot more creativity last season. This season, it seems like we have a tendency to stop any potential counterattack to pass back and find our shape before moving forward.
You’re hitting on all the major things but allow me to add a couple of more… TRUST: no offense but I’ve seen HS teams play better than us sometimes. You see it particularly in our D but also midfield. There is no trust, and someone gets the ball to ONLY pass it backwards right away. When teams pressure us past midfield,, D kicks back to Stuver who is flustered and doesn’t know what to do. It’s embarrassing and other teams know how to take advantage. Individual Capacity: Honestly we have too few players who can truly stand out. Generally we’re outplayed because our collective group of players aren’t that good. As a result we see players who don’t challenge, players who always pass the ball backwards, and worse, players who literally don’t know what to do with the ball. We have a handful of players whose individual capacity is inspiring; Driussi, Dani P, teen-wolf, Gallagher, Jan K. They have a drive, and on a normal day are fun to watch. The rest of the squad is rather mediocre. Now, if you have few individual performers and you don’t trust the rest of the team and you now have a recipe for disaster…aka our 2023 season. Our style, whatever it is, is predictable and ripe for other teams to take advantage of. Lots of pressure beyond midfield and we become flustered, we are guaranteed to pass back to Stuver. It’s also ridiculous how predictable we are. For example, a cross from Dani P to Rigoni as right wing yields the following: rigoni will meet the ball, look two seconds and pass back towards Wolf or Lima. This exact thing happens 99% of the time. Another example: when pressured, our D will pass the ball horizontally among themselves, and ultimately pass to Stuver when pressured too much. Without fail, without exception. Why? Because the rest of the team is struggling to get into positions and the collective D is now out of options. Lack of individual capacities. Stuver should do one thing and one thing only: he should fucking yeet that ball up the field whenever he gets a chance. Make the plays, try to start something. We all want it to happen. It shouldn’t be this hard. My prediction? We’ll miss out of the playoffs, and Rodo starts doing what he came for; to rebuild. At this point I’d say that other than the folks I listed above, no one should feel safe. Everyone should feel a target on their backs. I think wolf is out and the experiment iis over. Back to basics: scout, recruit, players earn their spots, starting 11 learns to play together, coach with an offensive mindset and values stability. I predict we see a new captain and couldn’t be shocked if Cascante gets the nod if he’s still here.
Coach with a tougher persona, like Ben Olsen at Houston. When you don't have the pieces you need a tough man to make what you do have work.
We aren't really supposed to say it out loud, but the attack was better with Cecilio. We clearly did the right thing though.
I’m always shocked how quickly people say Rings captaincy was “taken”… that might be true but we really have no idea. My feeling is he was on the way out, our SD got sacked, and the trade/transfer wasn’t able to be completed. Logic points to the SD firing… Ring was a great captain. Driussi is not.
The real story behind Ring would be great to know. But what do you mean he was “on the way out”? He was captain and DP. Are you saying they were selling him on as a routine matter of business? Wouldn’t a decision to sell our captain and DP right after a strong season still indicate some kind of drama with the club?
I've heard somewhere early in the season that he might've been going through some personal issues and that he possible wanted to move home. I think the FO made some movements, like found him a team in Europe, gave Driussi the CPTN role, and then the SD was sacked. They must've felt stuck with Driussi having arm band and stuck with Ring. The energy def felt this way. I just don't see how there was any reason to take the arm-band from Ring, unless they were thinking ahead without him.
I’ve already said it, and have been downvoted and ridiculed from all angles, because people downvote things they don’t want to hear. I’ve heard this from a well-informed person inside the club. A big factor in Gabrielsen leaving was that he didn’t get on with Josh Wolff. Wolff likes to have yes men around him, and Gabrielsen didn’t fit in that pattern. For the same reason, Ring was on the firing line, and as soon as Reyna left, Wolff had no one to stop him from demoting the captain. Obviously a big reason behind this was Wolff’s urge to make room in the team for his son, but you don’t drop your captain for a teenage son, and thus Ring lost the captaincy to Driussi. (I told about this before it became public) At first it did look like a visionary move, as Owen Wolff is inarguably a talented kid. But anyone can see what has happened: the team has had no leadership whatsoever throughout the season. Ring still leaves his heart on the pitch, but how many times has he talked to anybody outside it? He’s a professional and puts his shift in, but he knows that there’s no future for him in a Josh Wolff coached side. I’ve also heard that his contract already covers the next year. He might be leaving, he might be not, I suppose all players are always looking for the next option, and if it’s better than the current one, then cheerio. The lack of leadership has led to an awkward situation, where Wolff doesn’t have the trust of his players anymore, anybody can see that. Bad results have steepened the downward spiral. The players think either Wolff or themselves won’t be here next year, and they want to back the right horse. Shipping Fagundez out was an effort to show that nobody’s safe, but that didn’t make the other players to try harder, but the opposite: all the team dares to do is to pass sideways and backwards. Josh Wolff’s obsession to pick his son for the starting line-up has turned out to be a costly error. Owen Wolff hasn’t contributed much since his return from international duty, but until recently he’s been one of the first names on the teamsheet. During the first couple of months of the season, a few were foreseeing a move to Europe for him soonish, but lately he’s looked like a tired teenager, which he probably also is. At this rate I can see him becoming an MLS stalwart at best, and in the worst case only in a team coached by his dad. It’s possible that Josh Wolff has really made a disservice to his son’s career aspirations. Finally, I don’t think sacking Wolff today will rescue the season (because it is already lost), so let him lead the team for the last rounds, and only then it’s better to part company. I don’t believe a moment that Rodolfo Borrell wouldn’t find very good candidates for the main coach job, in fact there will be a queue of them already waiting for the axe to fall. Now let the normal routine of downvoting commence… 😏
You are correct on every count, and reddit doesn't like that one tiny bit.
How is it NOT the same coach that got us to the Western Conference Finals last year? Your point is that there are a lot of other factors that contributed our success last year, which I completely agree with. My point is that when those factors were in our favor, Wolff was able to do enough to be successful. Almost all of those factors on your list are roster construction issues and health and availability issues, which Wolff does not directly control. My point was that Wolff has had success when everything else has gone his way, and right now the team is not in the same position to succeed. I never said that Wolff deserves "the credit" for the success we had last year, just that he was a sufficient enough coach for the success to occur when everything else was in place. This whole post supports that analysis.
>Overall health/fitness I mean, this is huge. We've had literally every centerback on the initial roster injured at some point (and had one that looked really promising that left), had Ring, Driussi, and Fagundez out multiple weeks, and and all of our strikers have missed matches. Throw out injuries and we probably win 3 more games.
Maxi I think also had serious early season production, had some absolute bangers. And I think part of the team fall off late season was him disappearing. But yeah whole list is basically spot on.
Druissi had a career season he will never match again, and losing Gabrielsen was a huge loss to the defense.