An all around Terrible display: Dynamo 0:2 DC United

 
Normally when I write these, I sit down and re-watch the game from the night before.  I make notes, I research stats, and look for anything I can to see why the game result came out the way it did.  When I woke up this morning, I couldn't stomach the thought of watching that terrible display from last night ever again. So this won't be an analysis, it's going to be a rant. 

I know that it's early in the season, and I'm fully aware that we are just 10 games into Paulo Nagamura, Pat Onstad, and Asher Mendlesohn's tenure here in Houston, but what we saw last night (and over the last three games) was such a terrible display of soccer I don't know how we ever make it right.  I'm not holding them completely accountable for this roster, although they hold some responsibility.  The Dynamo are so talent deficient there is no chance they can succeed.   This team is so poorly constructed, that they can't do basic things needed to simply get the ball into the attacking third.  They don't compliment each other, they don't have any sort of attacking threats, and they don't have the means to even be competitive.  Last night was more than an embarrassing, uninspired display of The Beautiful game, it was evidence of exactly how poorly constructed this team is.

The first half was an abysmal display.

The scoreline didn't even reflect how bad we were.  There were soo many bad touches, bad passes, and bad dribbles we looked like a JV team.  Coco was extremely poor but looked like a World Class player compared to Darwin Quintero.  El Cientifico del Gol had 41 touches and lost possession 17 times. In the first half, he completed 35% of his passes.   He picked it up a tad in the second half, but this is the second straight game that our best creative player literally did nothing against a press and killed our attack before it even got across midfield. Coco himself had 16 possessions lost (on 74 touches), but actually picked it up down the last 30 minutes of the game.  Vera? 47 touches, 10 lost possessions. When you lose 43 possessions in your starting midfield, you aren't beating even the worst team in the east.  DC United is long, athletic, and play the passing lanes well.  But that doesn't account for all the times we gave them the ball or passed it directly to a black shirt.  It doesn't make up for the times that we one touched it to nobody or lobbed it to the touchline (20 yards away from the nearest orange shirt).  It was soo poor, you couldn't even tell what the Dynamo were trying to do going forward, because they couldn't organize well enough to execute anything.

There is no secret recipe to beat the Dynamo, it's a well-known game plan.  Press high, force them to play through the middle and hit them wide in attack.  They have no pressure release except to pass backward or bang it to open grass and hope Fafa can outrun 2 lines of defense to chase it down. The midfield is slow, small, and can't play with the ball at their feet.  Fafa is the only guy on the roster with enough speed to beat someone, the rest of the roster is small, slow, and not very skilled.  Pasher isn't fast enough to get in behind anybody, and on the rare occasion he does he can't control the ball and make a play.  Dorsey did absolutely nothing, and Sebas is spending so much time in the defending third that he might as well be playing a #6.  He got 1 touch inside the box.  We just went a full 90' without our #9 taking a single shot.  That shouldn't be surprising, since in the last game he had to take one from 61 yards out to score.  It's not that they aren't getting him the ball, it's that they CAN'T.  This isn't about philosophy, mindset, or tactics, it's that this is a team completely incapable of getting a target #9 the ball in front of the net.  You can change formations and tactics all you want, but unless you get players that are capable it's not going to change.

The backline seems content to play with a 5-yard gap, allowing attacking players to pick and choose what they want to do with the ball, and giving them the space they need to run right past them.  This is a reactive defense, not a proactive one.  In order for this team to compete, they have win possessions back, but the last three weeks Dynamo defenders have sat off and allowed the opposition to pick and choose what they want to do with the ball.  It doesn't matter if they are up a goal in the 85th minute (FC Frisco), up a goal to start the game (Austin FC) or down a goal going into the half, the dropping off and switching off has to be fixed.  If you give a player like Fountas space, he's going to bury it.  End of story.  

This team can't win balls in the air, mostly because they have a high concentration of players that are under 5'7" who make up for their lack of size with a lack of speed and jumping ability. Want to beat a team that presses as high as DC United?  Here's how you do it: 

(1) Find a guy that can go up and get the ball, put him in the middle of the field, and lob him the ball. Paulo is using 5'4", 34-year-old Darwin Quintero in that slot, while our star #9 is defending underneath him.  Darwin matched up against most 6'3" defenders in this league has a 0.0% chance of ever winning a ball, and he doesn't have the footspeed to blow past people any more.  It's going to be a long season, even after HH gets here.  

 

(2) Get your wings in behind their backs.  You can't do this when your wings are slow and defending two lines deep.  You also can't do this when your deep-lying midfielders can't hit through balls, 

(3) Get the ball at your feet and take people on.  Coco can do this occasionally.  Quintero can't do this because he's always playing high.  This leaves (much like we saw with Urruti last year) our #9 tracking back to midfield to hold the ball up and play it backward.  Darwin needs to take on more responsibility for breaking these pressing lines.  He seems content to set the high line and stand there.

No sense of urgency:

One can sum up the entire last two weeks with one visual: Steve Clark, standing with the ball, pleading for someone to move.  10 other guys are standing around, man-marked high, totally content to stand there and let Clark have no one to pass to.  How many times did it happen last night?  When the only person in the attack that has a desperation to move the ball is your goal-keeper, you aren't winning any games.  Time after time Clark would have the ball at his feet, or lining up to take a free-kick, or had just scooped up a ball and was running around in the box with no one to pass to.  Nobody moving, nobody making a run, nobody breaking to the ball, everyone just standing around.  

This entire midfield has to go.

Vera is just good enough to help you beat bad teams.  He's just bad enough to be unable to do anything against a press.  It's not all his fault, but he's been here for long enough to know he can't get us over the hump.  Vera is clearly maximizing his talents, but this is his ceiling.  There's not another step up that he's going to take.  Coco is in the same boat.  He does some good things but isn't helping you beat anyone good.  He can't handle the press, is a poor passer against pressure, and is just slow enough to leave gaping holes in front of our back four when he tries to get forward. Coco might have some room to grow, but I don't see a massive upside with him. Darwin Quintero is the best creative player we have but has been unbelievably terrible the last two weeks.  He's lost several steps, he can't pass out of tight spaces, and while he can still find pockets and put the ball on target he offers very little going forward and almost nothing in defense.  Memo, Ceren?  They can go too.  They give you energy and defense, and they play hard, but I would say the two of them are actually regressing and offer you nothing in terms of building a solid midfield rotation.  I love Memo, he's one of us, but I just don't see how he adds anything on the pitch. The worst part about the midfield isn't just that they are bad, it's that they have all either reached their ceiling.

We all know......

That both wings, both backs and all three midfielders need to be replaced before this team can seriously compete.  Our entire bench needs rebuilt.  We need one player capable of coming on and scoring a late goal, or a couple of players who can create anything when we are chasing a game. Our bench is full of the same guys.  Guys who are ok defensively and offer nothing going forward.  Zeka hasn't played a ton of minutes but has yet to do anything to show me that he's different. He's not making plays with the ball at his feet or with the pass.  He's small, not very fast, and has yet to make a serious play.

Paulo has his work cut out for him.  I said it last year and I'll say it this year, expecting ANYONE (and I do mean anyone) to win with this roster is an unreasonable expectation.  I've already seen some of us out there calling for Nagamura's job.  That's not going to happen this year.  

Next Up:

The Dynamo are about to go into a brutal stretch of 6 games in 21 days.  With a USOC matchup midweek against San Antonio FC, Nashville, Seattle, LA Galaxy, and RSL coming up, it's going to be very demanding on this squad.  Paulo is going to have to get creative to get the most out of this roster over that span, or we could be looking at 8 straight losses before June.

Thanks again for reading, remember to #HoldItDown and stay #ForeverOrange

Brian