Matt Jordan: An empty cupboard, a depleted system, and too many misses. A look at his time in Houston.

What a year it's been right?  What are we at now, 15 games without a win?  Miserable heat, miserable fans, miserable product on the field, and a new owner usually formulate letting someone at the top go. I stopped writing game recaps, because it's basically the same every time: We fought hard, we had a couple of stupid mistakes that killed us, and we can't score goals.  It's been a couple of years now since we've had a dependable couple of goal scorers and I've forgotten what it feels like.  Heck.....I've forgotten what being good feels like.  I think we all knew it was a matter of time before someone's head hit the proverbial chopping block, and as the first ax has fallen I'm hoping that it comes with a flourishing of new activity.  So far Ted Segal is saying all the right things, I'm anxious to see if he can actually do the right things.  I talked early in the year how the problem with this team has been a lack of front office creativity and it's funny how people disagreed with me soo much then and are now pointing to Colorado Rapids as what we should aspire to be.  Hopefully the next group gets it right.

The cries had surfaced this year more than usual.  JORDAN OUT!  was now the new battle cry replacing BRENNER OUT, and TAB OUT has replaced DE LA HOYA OUT!.  While I agreed with the need for new ownership, and I also agree that Jordan should have be let go, do you really think it fixes anything? Does firing Tab suddenly make us a championship contender?  Does it even make us a playoff contender?  Does it even make us better next year?  No, no, and probably not.  You know what dumping everything right now is going to bring?  More losing.  If you told me we could dump Tab and get Pep Guardiola, Hansi Flick, Jose Mourinho, or Zinedine Zidane, I'd be all for it.  If you're going to dump Tab just for the sake of dumping Tab, what's the point? (I already hear you "TO MAKE A STATEMENT" shouters, that statement will just be more losing for the foreseeable future). If you dump Tab to hire a retread MLS coach, or a young guy looking for a chance,  I'll still take my chances with Tab.  With Matt Jordan, there are 5 reason's I somewhat gave him a break.  (1) Gabriel Brenner.  (2) Oscar De La Hoya (3) Ben Guill (4) James Harden (5) Jake Silverstein.  I don't know many GM's on the entire planet that would have thrived under these guys, and while I'm fully aware that Matt Jordan could have worked miracles.......I'm also fully aware that Matt Jordan needed divine intervention to succeed with that ownership group.  Seriously, only supernatural powers could have vaulted the Dynamo to a playoff contender with the complete lack of organizational leadership that was going on across the street from one of the best run turnarounds in sports history.  In my last post, we went over the Dynamo's complete failure in the draft.  If they could have landed just ONE of those guys, we'd be a completely different club.  Imagine this club with Jeremy Embobisse, or if Tim Parker would have joined the club 7 years ago.  Put Parker on the backline with Adolfo Machado during Wilmer Cabrera's time and we have a completely different team.  Imagine if we had landed Parker AND Long in 2014 and 2015.  But I digress.

What should the GM's job be?

In an ideal world, the GM should simply be hiring support staff and signing players.  He should hire and be in charge of/responsible for (1) A scouting director (2) An academy director (3) The Head Coach.  What Matt Jordan was doing is actually 3 jobs in most soccer realms. He shouldn't have to scout/evaluate players, that should be the scouts' job.  And given the size of world soccer, they should have EUFA scouts, COMNEBOL scouts, and CONCACAF Scouts.  They should also have North American professional scouts (scouting MLS and USL), amateur scouts (scouting lower divisions and NCAA), and academy scouts.  If you want players, real players, we need a large and organized scouting network.  The GM should spend most of his time convincing players to come here, talking to agents, and signing players to deals. The academy director should be in charge of turning over every stone, building a network of players/teams to choose from, and acquiring all the best talent in the area.  I keep hearing about all this talent that's in the Houston area.  I see guys play in high school stadiums that I think could turn out to be something, but no one is scouting them.  I see players from this area go to college, but don't turn into anything.  Not even solid USL players. We need to figure this out, and the Dynamo need to get involved in youth development all over this city.  

Roster Building:

There are 6 essential roster-building functions in MLS.  (1) International Signings (2) Free Transfers (3) The Draft (4) The Academy (5) The use of TAM and GAM to both buy down player contracts and help get other MLS players (6) Trades.  This is what makes MLS unique in the soccer landscape, and whether you like it or not they are all valuable tools to build a roster here.  There are two essential MLS Systems that have completely failed this club: (1) The draft. (2) The Academy. Between the two, during Matt Jordan's time in office, they've produced 1 full-time starter (Memo) and one rotational player (Junqua).  Without any sort of investment from the ownership, International signings must be on the cheap. You can say that Matt Jordan has failed at this, but I don't necessarily agree.  You can try to not give him credit for Elis, Manotas, Vera, Lundkvist, Maric, and Quioto, but he did work deals to get them here.  He made a nice trade for Quintero, which worked out last year and this year seems to be the only person willing to make a dangerous pass in the final third even though few of them find the mark. He's had way too many misses as well, such as Bizama and Tomas Martinez, and made trades for guys like Zarek Valentine who wasn't really an upgrade at the position. What's really startling is that almost every year we have about 9 guys that walk on a free and no one else really wants.  

But I can't blame the total system failure on Matt Jordan necessarily, because I don't really know what Matt Jordan was working with.  Eddie Robinson stated during the game against Minnesota "....when I first came to work for the Dynamo all the Academy guys were part-time employees.....Seriously!"  Eddie Robinson didn't clarify in much detail, but he started working there in 2012.  I don't know who's doing the scouting for the draft, but I know the Dynamo need to hire a full-time, North American scout who actually knows what they're looking at.  The GM doesn't need to do that, a scout does. In most "Football Clubs" (You've got the FC on your name now, you get the tag I guess), your GM doesn't select the players your GM works the deals.  Your Scout, Sporting Director, and Coach select the players, the GM goes and gets them. Is he responsible for the draft?  Absolutely.  Should he be scouting players and deciding who we draft?  Nope.  Tab should have some impact.  His years of working with the US Youth systems should help him.  But that will also take some time to see the effects.  

International Singings:

Without any influx of young talent from the academy and the draft, Jordan's only option to bring young talent into the club was limited to fairly inexpensive international transfers and guys out of contract.  From MLS.com "In 2021, a total of 216 international roster slots are divided among the 27 clubs. These roster slots are tradable, in full season increments, such that some clubs may have more than eight and some clubs may have less than eight during any given season. With trades, there is no limit on the number of international roster slots on each club's roster."  The Dynamo currently have 6 International Player spots filled (Bajamich, Bizama, Carrasquila, Hadebe, Maric, Vera). 3 of those came in the last 12 months.  I would say that 4/6 have been hits, Bajamich still may pan out.  Bizama definitely didn't pan out, and was loaned to Charlotte this year.  At 27 years of age, we can say that was a bad move on all accounts.  Lundkvist has been a hit, but he no longer counts as an international, since he received his green card.  If we look at Jordan's track record on signings, getting Rommel Quioto here for TAM, landing Alberth Elis for $2.4 million (worth every penny and then some), and while he doesn't get full credit for Mauro Manotas, he did make the deal permanent by buying his full rights.  That basically bought out the sell-on clause in Mauro's contract.  That becomes important later on.  From 2014-2017 Jordan was basically working with a limited amount of Target Allocation Money to bring guys in.  
The majority of our best players during his time have been international signings, and a few of them were high-level talent gotten on the cheap. "But......but......MATT JORDAN DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT!" I've heard it, I've read it, it's wrong.   He did what a GM should, he found a way to get them here and sign them to a contract.  GM's turn reports and recommendations into players on the pitch.  That's their real job.  Quioto, Elis, Hadebe, Machado, Struna, Lundkvist all came here and made an impact for cheap.  Have the Dynamo failed under his leadership? Absolutely, but this is one area where he actually somewhat performed at.  But....but...JORDAN BOTCHED THE ELIS AND MONATAS DEALS!  I'll say it again, he offered Elis the biggest contract in the history of the Dynamo.  Elis turned him down.  With months left on his contract, and Elis surely to walk away, he took the best deal he could.  He got $1.2 million for Elis, plus an added sell-on clause worth an undisclosed amount.  This could turn out to be a decent payday for the Dynamo.  As for Manotas, he got $4mil for a striker that had just scored 3 goals in 1800 minutes and had seen his production regress over the last three years.  By the way, that $4mil is by far the largest transfer fee in Dynamo history and the 17th largest in MLS history.  To put it in perspective, that's more than the $2.89 million RBNY got for Tyler Adams (and yes, I'm aware of the brother-in-law deal they got).  
Does he have a glowing record here?  Again, no.  But it's far from terrible. It's all he had to build with, he put all his chips in it, and some deals just haven't worked out.  Tomas Martinez didn't pan out.  Tomas Martinez was also relatively cheap ($1.8mil) compared to what other teams are paying for top level attacking talent in this league.  It's the 94th highest transfer fee paid on record in the history of MLS.  Tomas Martinez, Mateo Bajamich, and Jose Bizama really hurt when they don't hit and you don't have any money to spend.  That would be like using your rent money to buy a car and that car would drive above 25 MPH (Martinez) or blew up (Bizama) or you figured out a bike got you to work better (Bajamich). 

Trades:

This is another area where Matt Jordan was really poor.  Other than trading Kiki Struna for Maxi Urruti, there just haven't been any really smart trades done by this club in a long time.  Even Urruti for Struna has been a wash, as Urruti hasn't registered a goal or assist since July.  Trading Rommel Quioto for Victor Cabrera?  Terrible.  Tommy McNamara for Wilfred Zahibo?  Bad.  Zahibo is sitting at home without a club, and Tommy Mac is playing quality minutes for first place New England.  There are a bunch of other examples, but these are the most recent.  He's made a couple of nice moves for GAM, like getting Tim Parker from the Red Bulls, but there wasn't enough of this either.

Final Thoughts:

I know that many of you out there disagree, and think that getting rid of Matt Jordan will fix all of Houston's problems.  But the matter of fact is, the problems extend well beyond the GM's desk.  While Jordan definitely didn't do enough to help, he also didn't get the help he needed. I've read the angry ramblings on Reddit, Big Soccer, Twitter, and Discord.  Let me say this:  You are right, but you are also wrong.  

Glenn Davis said recently on his  August 31st Episode of his Podcast Soccer Matters "....I understand how this was emotional for many, many people and the focus was mainly on that....but I want to clarify a couple of things here. Uhm, Matt was hired by ownership, Matt was hired by a president, and....I think.....to just go after Matt Jordan...uhm....to me is missing the context of the big picture..."  This is what I've been trying to say for a couple of years now.  Was Matt Jordan bad?  Yes.  Did the results and this roster warrant him being let go?  Absolutely.  Was everything his fault?  Nope.  Owner Ted Segal also stated on the same Podcast that they were basically leaving no stone unturned in looking for ways to improve this club.  The club needs facility improvements, they need a bigger staff, and they actually need to split the GM duties into a Director of Operations and a Director of Sport.  One needs to oversee the day-to-day business dealings, the other needs to focus squarely on improving the club and finding players.  The world of football and even North American football is too big for this to be done with one guy, especially if you have large aspirations.  Segal has talked about expanding payroll, he's talked about improving the academy, he's talked about looking at every possible angle to make this better.  He's stated he wants an MLS bread GM that knows the ins and outs of this unique league, and hopefully he finds a good one.  

Until then,

#HoldItDown and stay #ForeverOrange

Brian

The Dynamo and the Superdraft: Missed opportunities to build a winner.

There is one clear-cut spot that the Dynamo front office has to improve: Finding gems in the SuperDraft.  It's a place to find young talent that's cheap, and....just like in other drafts from other leagues, if you know how to use your assets you can build a competitive team.  The Dynamo have not done that.  In fact, since the Dynamo selected Will Bruin with the 11th pick in 2011, the only player they've drafted that's had any sort of impact on their roster is Sam Junqua.  Some played a handful of games before being shipped out after a year (Cochran, Holland, Steeves). Most never made an appearance.  While the Superdraft is ALWAYS a crapshoot, what hurts is looking back players that were on the board that are currently All-Star Caliber players when the Dynamo made their selection.  That's not even to mention the players that have become role players, bench guys, or guys that simply fill in from time to time.  With only one Home Grown (Memo), and nothing from the draft for a decade, the Dynamo front office (more importantly their scouting department) has failed miserably in two vital building blocks to creating a quality roster on a budget.  

While I don't agree with everyone that Matt Jordan is THE reason the Dynamo have been soo bad over the last decade, I will say this: he should probably be fired for his draft performance alone.  The Dynamo haven't drafted well since Kinnear was roaming the sidelines here, and a decade of pulling absolutely nothing out of the draft has completely killed them.  With no draft hits, and nothing coming out of the academy, the Dynamo have had to result to veterans willing to come here on free transfers.  While I love Maynor Figueroa, convincing a 36-year-old to come play for the league minimum (which is less than a teacher in HISD makes) probably isn't going to make you a viable long-term winner.  If you look at teams like Portland, Seattle, and even newcomers like Atlanta, Minnesota, and Nashville have had some hits in the draft.  Austin looks like they have a pretty solid player in Daniel Periera, in their first-ever pick.  And if we are comparing teams in Texas, the team in Frisco has a really long list of SuperDraft hits to go along with their productive academy.  

Player Taken						Players Missed On:
Drafts	MLS MInutes Played		Round	Pick			Round	Pick:	By:
2014	1887	A.J. Cochran	1	16		Tommy McNamara	2	20	Chivas
	462	Mark Sherrod	2	32		Chris Duvall	2	22	NY Red Bulls
	0	Michael Lisch	3	54		Daniel Lovitz	2	24	Toronto FC
						Jared Watts	2	33	Colorado Rapids
						Aaron Long	2	36	Portland Timbers
total	2349
2015	31	Zach Steinberger	1	8		Tim Parker	1	13	Vancouver Whitecaps
	0	Oumar Ballo	2	30		Axel Sjöberg	1	14	Colorado Rapids
	364	Rob Lovejoy	2	36		Christian Roldan	1	16	Seattle Sounders
	90	Taylor Hunter	3	49		Amadou Dia	1	20	Sporting KC
						Tyler Miller	2	33	Seattle Sounders
	485
2016		Traded to Philedelphia-> drafted Fabian Hebers	1	6		Richie Layea	1	7	Orlando City
	0	Ivan Magalhães	2	26		Andrew Tarbell	1	8	San Jose Earthquakes
	0	T.J. Casner	3	47		Tsubasa Endoh	1	9	Toronto FC
						Tony Alfaro	2	27	Seattle Sounders
						Matt Turner	undrafted
	0
2017		Traded to Timbers for $100k in allocation money,->draft Jeremy Ebobise	1	4		Jackson Yuell	1	6	San Jose Earthquakes
	25	Joe Holland	1	10		Julian Gressel	1	8	Atlanta United
	0	Jake McGuire	2	30		Chris Odoi-Atsem	1	12	D. C. United
	0	Danilo Radjen	2	36		Jacori Hayes	1	18	FC Dallas
	0	Robby Sagel	4	70		Nick DePuy	1	19	Montreal Impact
						Stefan Cleveland	2	26	Chicago Fire
						Shamit Shome	2	41	Montreal Impact
						Brandt Bronico	3	47	Chicago Fire
						Jack Elliot	4	67	Philadelphia Union
	25
2018	0	Michael Nelson	1	20		Alex Roldan	1	22	Seattle Sounders
	28	Mac Steeves	2	43		Daniel Musovski	2	30	San Jose Earthquakes
	0	Pablo Aguilar	3	59		Tom Barlow	2	39	NY Red Bulls
	0	Sheldon Sullivan	3	66		Luis Argudo	3	67	Columbus Crew
	0	Manny Padilla	4	89
	28
2019	1043	Sam Junqua	1	8		Tajon Buchanan	1	9	New England Revolution
	0	Andrew Samuels	2	33		DeJuan Jones	1	11	New England Revolution
	0	Brad Dunwell	3	56		Chase Gaspar	1	15	Minnesota United
						Kamal Miller	2	27	Orlando City
						Hassani Dotson	2	31	Minnesota United
						Amar Sejdič	2	34	Montreal Impact
	1043
2020	0	Garrett Mclaughlin	1	8		Alistair Johnston	1	11	Nashville SC
	0	Luka Prpa	2	34		Tanner Beason	1	12	San Jose Earthquakes
	0	Kyle Edwards	4	84		Joey Dezart	2	31	Orlando City
						Jon Bell	2	38	San Jose Earthquakes
	0					Zach McGraw	3	68	Portland Timbers
	3930

I see it on Twitter every year, the Eurosnobs mocking the MLS SuperDraft. You can absolutely build a winner through the draft if you know what you're doing.  Take New England for example.  Andrew Farrell, #1 in 2013.  Brandon Bye was taken #8 in the 2018 Draft.  In 2019, they got both Tajon Buchanon and DuJuan Jones, and they selected Henry Kessler #6 in 2020.  Add to that the fact that Matt Turner was signed as an undrafted free agent out of college.  Matt Polster for $363,000 from Rangers, Charles Gil for $1.65mil and you have a pretty solid lineup for not much money.  Of course, it also helps if you have $11mil to throw at Buska and Bou in one offseason. The draft has built the backbone of their roster, and transfers built the glitz.  And before you scream "It's one season!" or "It's Bruce Arena!" realize the amount of starters and key players they got straight from the draft.  DeJuan Jones, drafted #11 in 2019, has played almost the same number of MLS minutes (3,804) as all the Dynamo players drafted from 2014-2021....combined (3,930).  New England had gotten a lot of flack for the way things had been run in recent years, but one place that has set them up for being first in the Eastern Conference is the draft.

Seattle got both Roldans (Christian - 2015, Alex - 2018) through the SuperDraft.  In 2015, they traded a conditional first-round pick to Toronto for Stefan Frei.  The pick ended up being involved in a myriad of trades, resulting in Colorado getting Axel Sjöberg.  Seattle, in effect, came away with Christian Roldan and Stefan Frei in the first round of 2015.  That's a draft that makes any MLS teams for the better.  In 2016, Seattle signed the winner of the MAC Hermann Trophy and Pac-12 player of the year Jordan Morris to the biggest Home Grown Player contract at the time. They got Stefan Cleveland for a conditional first-round pick in 2020.  Does Seattle splash money on high talent attackers?   Yes. Raul Ruidiaz and Nicolas Lodeiro came with a nice price tag, but Seattle has also pulled some really nice players out of the draft. You add the draft, homegrowns, and the ability to go spend $3-$7 mil on a player every year, and you've got a consistent winner.  The main reason is if you are drafting and producing Homegrowns, you can spend that money on one player instead of 5.  Seattle has provided a roadmap to do this and has done it better than anyone.

In 2017, Atlanta United hit on both Miles Robinson (2nd pick) and Julian Gressel (8th pick). The next year, the found John Gallagher who made 16 appearances scoring 4 goals before they got $225,000 in Allocation money from Austin for him.  He's made 7 starts for Austin this year.

Minnesota United has landed two starters (Hassani Dotson, Chase Gaspar), and also picked up Mason Toye (7th overall) in 2018. Toye was flipped for $600,000 in General Allocation Money.  Minnesota may have given up on Toye a little too early, as he's scored 7 goals in 799 minutes so far this year, and he's only 22 years old.

Philadelphia traded midfielder Cristian Maidana and forward Andrew Wenger to us for an undisclosed amount of general allocation money, targeted allocation money, and the #6 pick in 2016. Philadelphia used that pick to snag Fabian Herbers.  While Herbers hasn't had a spectacular career, he's a solid MLS vet who's logged over 5,600 minutes between Philadelphia and Chicago.  Maidana played one season for us before leaving on a free.  He pitched in 3 goals and 4 assists in 1700 minutes. While Maidana was the player we were after, Wenger made a longer impact. Wenger made 56 starts (75 appearances) and plugged in 4800 minutes tallying 10 goals and 5 assists.   Wenger was out of pro soccer by 2018, but Herbers is still plugging along at Chicago.

In 2017 Portland gave us #10 selection in the 2017 SuperDraft, an international roster slot for the 2017 season, and $100,000 in general allocation money in exchange for #4 pick, and got Jeremy Ebobisse.  While the speedster has been inconsistent at times, he logged 26 goals and 6 assists and made 54 starts for Portland.  His 89 appearances and 5,144 minutes in MLS are more than every Dynamo draft pick going all the way back to 2011.  He could have looked really nice with Quioto, Elis, Erick Torres, and Mauro Monatas in Wilmer Cabrera's system.  Instead, we picked up Joe Holland who accumulated a whopping 25 MLS minutes and was out of professional soccer after 4 years.  Holland last played for Birmingham F.C. in USL during the 2019 season, amassing 474 minutes over 15 appearances.

What will Ethan Bartlow be?  Who knows, but with signing Parker and Hadebe through the next three years he won't be anything important here.....unless he can play full back.  Bartlow looks like he has upside, but to date hasn't made an appearance for anyone, or played a single professional minute.  One thing is for sure, the Dynamo need to find direction.  Honestly, they need a scouting department overhaul. I don't know how you go a decade without drafting a single viable player, but the Dynamo have managed to do it.  In today's MLS, can you build a championship team through the draft alone?  No, absolutely not.   However, there is a lot of talent picked up in the draft every year, especially in recent years.  I wrote earlier about how the front office lacks creativity, this is part of it.  The Dynamo need to be able to mine talent from every available resource, and ever since Kinnear left Houston, this has been the worst talent acquisition resource.  The draft has actually been worse than our academy if you can believe it.  If we are ever to be anything here, we need to fix both.

Thanks again for reading, 

#HoldItDown and stay #ForeverOrange.