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Dynamo part ways with head coach Owen Coyle

Photo by Thomas B. Shea/USA Today Sports
Photo by Thomas B. Shea/USA Today Sports

The 2016 MLS season is not even three months old yet, and already we have our first coaching change.

The Houston Dynamo announced late on Wednesday night that they have parted ways with head coach Owen Coyle. The reason given for the decision was Coyle’s desire to be closer to his family in England, but the Dynamo are off to an abysmal 3-7-2 start this year in the cutthroat Western Conference.

“I asked (Dynamo president of business operations Chris Canetti) if I could speak with him today and I explained to him the challenge of being away from my family and how we all want the best for Houston Dynamo,” Coyle said in a statement issued by the club. “I want to wish all members of the staff, from owner Gabriel Brener to president Chris Canetti to general manager Matt Jordan, everyone has been such a source of support, along with the players and the technical staff.

“I’d like to thank the Dynamo supporters, who have been outstanding. We have a brilliant club, and I have no doubt success is just around the corner.”

Coyle succeeded Dom Kinnear by signing on as the second head coach in the Dynamo’s history back in December 2014. The Scotsman’s first season in MLS ended with an 11-14-9 record, which was not good enough to reach the postseason.

This year, Coyle and the Dynamo have struggled for results. The club currently sits in last place in the west and has conceded 20 goals while scoring eight. The Dynamo are also winless on the road at 0-6-0.

“It is unfortunate that we were unable to achieve the goals we set forth together and that we find ourselves mutually parting ways as a result of many professional and personal circumstances,” Canetti said in the same statement. “Without a doubt, Owen brought many great qualities to the club since his arrival 18 months ago and made a positive impression on the people around him. He is an excellent coach and an even better person, and I wish him and his terrific family nothing but the best going forward.”

Assistant coach Sandy Stewart has also left the club, which has gone 14-21-11 under Coyle.

Coyle’s departure means that assistant coaches Wade Barrett, Paul Caffrey, and Paul Rogers will lead the Dynamo in the interim, starting with Saturday’s road game vs. the Vancouver Whitecaps.

“I’d like to thank Owen for all of his contributions during his time with the Houston Dynamo,” Dynamo vice president/general manager Matt Jordan said. “He is a true professional, a passionate coach and a good man. We wish him all the best moving forward.”

Comments

  1. People are mentioning Cabrera, the minor league coach, and while he did extract 15 goals from Torres two years ago, Chivas otherwise stunk. Part of our problem is youth development and you don’t help that process by promoting RGVFC’s coach away after a part season. That calls for continuity. If Cabrera feels slighted and wants to quit over not being promoted, then you didn’t hire the right minor league coach for the long term.

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  2. Outside of Kreis, Petke, and Bradley who is out there? Can one of the supporters group make a wade barret tifo with the word chop liver on the bottom?

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    • I see a pro Barrett faction on social media, and he would have MLS experience and understanding. But I am sick of the team settling across the board or being a risk laboratory. We have no clue how Barrett would be as a HC. Sign a proven MLS HC winner like Kreis or Bradley. Let other teams be a proving ground.

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    • I also think that the team’s issues are primarily personnel, not even coaching just yet. We struggle because the defensive personnel, top to bottom, are old or crappy. Since a lot of what we need is new and better talent, I’d say get a coach in that is a player magnet. Barrett might be able to get the team to play slightly better and squeeze out a few more results, but what we need is a serious coach with a serious system who makes players want to come here.

      I also think the pro Barrett people are oddly inconsistent about risk. They don’t want us risking it on someone new and external, but they sure as heck will risk the rest of the season on someone with no first division head coach experience. I’d go ahead and get a new coach now so we can evaluate personnel under a new coach, system, etc., as well as make strides on recruiting in the summer window. This team has already been out of the playoffs two years and I am not interested in watching them fart around with an inexperienced interim coach for another five months while we add a third season to the wilderness years.

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  3. If he has an agreement to compensate him for the rest of his contract — as some suggest — then he was pushed, he didn’t jump. A coach who wants to walk his deal gets released, everyone walks away; a coach who wants to stay but gets fired is compensated since they could demand to enforce the contract. The exception is “for cause,” eg, the coach violates some contract clause and the team cites that and claims breach. Such as the whole Nowak issue.

    If the Dynamo paid him to go, then whatever the press release says, I believe we drove the decision. If we just let him go, it was his choice.

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  4. His name popped up with the Celtix opening but it was quickly downplayed by Houston and Celtic. Celtic ended up hiring Brandan Rodgers anyway. He’s very good choice if you ask me.

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  5. Wasn’t Coyle rumored to be interviewing with an English team a few weeks ago? I’ll bet he shows up with another team very soon. The whole miss my family thing is just a cover. I’ll also bet he takes the assistant with him. Why would that guy just quit a good job?

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    • Kinnear before him was Scottish born. Frankly I feel like they hit the Xerox button a second time and it came out a little faded this time.

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    • Ideally a good coach is a good man who inspires our players and has their lifelong loyalty. But having played on a mediocre team with nice people, it was little solace beyond the friendships.

      I will play Devil’s advocate and note that he talked talked talked about a winning attitude and figuring out how to win road games. He didn’t actually do it. This team makes sloppy mistakes. It needs someone more in the manner of Kinnear, who as opposed to being a player’s coach who rah rahs the team, had a system that works, and would demand professionalism from the players. More taskmaster.

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  6. Weird that they did this in the middle of the USMNT/Ecuador game. I mean, wouldn’t the Houston coaching staff probably have been watching the game together? Like, at the stadium in the clubhouse? Did they just start cheering too loud when Nagbe scored, the upper management yelled downstairs “hey can you guys keep it quiet?!?” Coyle told them to “sod off!” One thing led to another, and then one of those “You can’t fire me, I quit!” type scenarios happened?

    Nah. I know, I know, Houston’s trash this year and Coyle got the chop. Upper management sucks and couldn’t even figure out the right time to let him go. But still, I like my story better.

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    • Coyle stinks as a MLS coach. We signed a DP he wouldn’t play, he blew several games with tactics and subs, he couldn’t win on the road, and I just saw little sign he could manage a team out of a hole. The team just kind of played to its level. We couldn’t close games. We couldn’t come back. But we could blow 2 or 3 goal leads trying to sit on a result.

      I don’t believe he quit in the normal sense of the word. Tuesday we blew a 3-0 lead and had to win our charity friendly in PKs. The latest on a pile of blown leads all season. I think that probably made evident it is a coach problem and not an MLS adjustment issue. In MLS I have seen him blow a bunch of leads, and he has won like 2 road games in a year and a half. 2. I think blowing 3-0 was the last straw and he was given the old Nazi choice of either quitting or being fired.

      I am sure he misses home. He even brought his assistant as his running buddy away from his family. I am sure he can find a job back there and that the timing for securing that is fortuitous. But “quitting” the week you lose to Chicago and then blow a 3-0 lead? I don’t buy it. They mutually agreed for him to take a cardboard box in lieu of the shame of being canned this quickly this season, which might make it harder to hire the next dude. Maybe he heard a rumor and struck first.

      The article is way off on goals scored, we had 11 3 games in. Half the problem here is whatever numbers forward or devil may care looseness went out of the offense after the first few games and we became a punchless counterattack team like last year, without the defense to hold long enough to support counterpunching. We were better off just playing Eredivisie ball until we could sign some defenders.

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      • I also think his 451 put our sole striker on a service-free island, choking off offense. I hope the next coach brings back a 442 or even tries something more attacking, since our talent is currently on the offensive side of the ball.

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