A defense of Dave
By: Tom | June 18th, 2007I’m not going to offer one, but there’s a man who knows more about MLS than me offering reasons (not excuses) for the Fire’s poor performance. His name is Peter Wilt, he hired Dave himself and when he ran the Fire we were pretty good. Check out his post on bigsoccer on the Fire’s lineup woes, with his almost-all-unavailable team listed.
Defending Dave is something he’s done consistently since 2004 and I’m glad there is someone out there who cares about the Fire offering a contrasting opinion people will listen to, if only for the sake of reasoned debate.
It’s fair to accept that there are compelling reasons the Fire have slipped from mediocrity to misery over the past two months that have been out of Dave’s control. Fair enough. And the salary cap does mean the Fire can’t expect to contend every season, though obviously, this hideous run of form only a year into the new stadium and ahead of their biggest ever signing arriving couldn’t be timed much worse.
So I’ve decided to solve the riddle of how to stand by my call to fire Dave whilst not being foolish enough to believe I know more about Major League Soccer than a former GM with lots of rings on his fingers by responding to this comment he made:
“Results are often a strong indicator of the success or failure of a coach maximizing a team’s potential, but they’re not the only one. A better gauge is how well the team responds to the coach. Is he motivating them and is he getting the most out of them.”
Whilst this is pure conjecture, the blogger’s ever-reliable friend, it has seemed to me all season that even the players the Fire have had available - with one or two exceptions - have not played up to their potential. It’s either that, or the roster is just jampacked with really crappy players. Which would lay the blame elsewhere ultimately. Either way, my personal view is that change has to be made, as a Fire fan cannot be happy that if we’d just not had some bad breaks, we might still be a mediocre team. If that makes me greedy then so be it.
Any other thoughts on PW’s reasoning? Does it make anyone pause for a moment before calling for a man to lose his job?
Category: Off the field
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Comments
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Fine, keep Sarachan.
Can’t wait for 2008, when it’ll be the 10-year anniversary of our ONLY MLS Cup, and there are only 5,000 fans @ Toyota Park, along with about 15 people from what remains of Section 8.
But at least we’ll have given Dave Sarachan ample time to decide whether or not he’s Fire head coach material.
Posted from
United States
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I don’t think anyone wrote ‘keep Sarachan’ anywhere. My point was only to offer some food for thought.
Sarachan should go at this point. But I don’t think the Fire will be much better all of a sudden as a consequence.
Posted from
United States -
peter is such a class act. i respect him with every football loving ounce in my body.
dave has got to go and the squad needs to clean house. been coming for a mighty long time. get this rubbish out of here.
Posted from
United States -
Can the Chan
Now that the kids are out of school, can’t we send Guppy to find some fast punks from the suburbs to play up front and score some friggin GGGOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLSSS!
An attacking mid would be nice too…..I would pay to see that!Posted from
United States -
The U Team thread only verifies what has been obvious about Big Soccer for a long time. The vast majority of posters are either incapable of forming a cogent opinion, or are simply dishonest in order to make their point. What a load of rubbish.
I have to commend Peter Wilt, however, for having the patience to deal with these cretins.
Posted from
United States
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