Holy Crap, We Suck
I was inclined to think that firing Onalfo and promoting Olsen was a savvy move by United's front office. They "did something" about DCU's horrible record and perhaps sought to silence some of the criticism by promoting Ben Olsen. Olsen is in his first year of coaching, he's too green as a coach and everyone knows it, plus the love for Benny is such that if he didn't win a game the rest of the season, there were going to be no calls to put him up on a cross. Plus, there is the hope that Olsen will put a fire into the team that the players seemed to lack this year. However, upon reflection, the FO may have signed their own pink slips.
Players v. Front Office
Curt Onalfo may have been fired too soon. Not just in the sense that I don't really think he had a chance to craft his team, but also politically. The season was a wash already, certainly. However, there are still plenty of games left to lose to enrage the fans that still meander into RFK and Molly Malone's to watch the games. Without the coach to serve as a lightning rod, the fans will direct their anger at either the players or the front office and, at least on BigSoccer.com, the decision has been made to focus on the front office (truth be told, it's not a new decision; there were "Fire Payne and Kasper" threads right along with the "Fire Onalfo" threads). I question whether that is fair.
Slumps: the Case against the Players
Santino Quaranta and Chris Pontius are slumping terribly. Neither has looked particularly dangerous and both are giving away position far too often. Similarly, before his injury, Rodney Wallace was similarly playing poorly. Granted, he was in a different position, but he claimed that he prefers to play left back. Not slumping, but unexpected was injury-forced retirement of veteran defender and leader, Bryan Namoff. That's four of eleven starters from last year and they were some of the brightest spots of last year - the only other I can think of was Dejan Jakovic, who has been steady (injuries not withstanding). I accept as a given that MLS rosters lack the depth that four starters playing poorly is a pretty serious impediment, one cannot fault the front office for re-signing those players nor their lack of quality this year. There are other players I could point out as well, Simms hasn't had a terrible season, but he has not looked as good as he once did.
The trade for Perkins is more debatable. I was not one of those who said DC gave up too much to get Perkins back. They gave up a lot, certainly, and at the time I didn't understand why the team was so desperate to replace Wicks. I was unaware of Wicks' off-the-field problems and thought his moments of madness would fade as he matured as a player. Nevertheless, Perkins had been MLS goalkeeper of the year, he played well in Norway, and, at the time, was believed to be competing for the third spot goalkeeper spot on the U.S. national team. He seemed the solution to DCU's goalkeeping problems that had plagued the team since Perkins left for Europe. Perkins has been disappointing, however, and has been forced to battle with young academy star, Bill Hamid. I argue, however, that this must be seen as a slump. Giving up so much to Philadelphia was certainly a gamble, but looking at it, it was a relatively safe gamble that has gone freakishly bad; the FO could not have seen it coming.
So Many Shutouts, So Many Seasons: the Case against the Front Office
DC United's offense was in trouble last season and the fans all knew it. Statistically, this seemed untrue: the front office pointed to the relatively highly high ranking that DC held in the league in terms of goals scored. But Emilio was a microcosm of the problem - huge scoring droughts punctuated by multiple goal games kept him high on the scorers' sheet, but was unreflective of how many times he killed the attack. DC seemed unable to score when the games were close - consider all of DC's ties last year. Moreover, with Emilio on his way out and Moreno another year older, DC had no MLS-calibre strikers to look to for goals. The FO's answers were Danny Allsopp and MLS journeyman Adam Christman. Like so many of the acquisitions from the front office, both have been unsuccessful. This is symptom of the larger problem.
The front office hasn't found good offensive players since Emilio and Fred in 2007 and both those players had their best years in 2007. Bringing Gomez back to DC was unimaginative at best - he never regained his top form, but was never the worst player of the field. Franco Niell was a huge bust. Emilio was resigned as a designated player after his first few games of the 2008 season in which he was overweight and played with lackluster effort. Gallardo was a fantastic player, but just wrong for the team - a second year may have been better, but that was not to be. The flying Gonzalo brothers didn't turn out well. Then there was the famous Dyachenko fiasco, exposing him on the expansion draft and then trading a first round draft pick to get him back. An inefficient move for a good player, but Dyachenko never produced. Will Boskovic get better? Don't know, he's been called up for the Montenegrin national team which is probably a good sign, but thus far he hasn't really earned the designated player money that he is making.
But there have been good acquisitions as well. Jakovic stands out. Hernandez looks good, although whether he ever produces remains to be seen. Stephen King looks like a solid investment in the future. I don't know about Zayner; the Crew fans seemed upset that we had snagged him.
Conclusions
That DC is the worst team in the league this year is not necessarily the front office's fault. The player slumps have driven this team into the cellar. However, there is hardly evidence that this team would be top class even with the slumping players performing better. This has gone on for too many years to look at the players. The front office has been unable to acquire the quality of new players to make this team competitive. There have been some fairly huge gaffes and a stunning display of arrogance when questioned about those decisions. On top of all those things, DC United may not exist for much longer, without a stadium. That cannot be placed completely on the front office, but ultimately, it is their responsibility. A tough job to be certain, but it is their job and they have failed to do it.
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