On Tuesday, FC Dallas fired head coach Steve Morrow. What does this say about expectations in Major League Soccer?
By J Hutcherson
WASHINGTON, DC (May 20, 2008) USSoccerPlayers -- Anybody claiming to have Steve Morrow in their 'first to be fired' pool is going to need proof. Though only the FC faithful might have had them down as Cup contenders in '08, Dallas should have been considered the Conference equivalent of firmly mid-table. Good enough to get into the playoffs and taking it from there.
That's pretty much where they are, with one loss the difference between fourth place and leading the Western Conference on goal differential. Yes, it was the fourth game in a row Morrow's squad lost and it happened days after the club parted ways with one of his assistants.
Still, halting a spiral as of Week Nine is a bit of a stretch.
"We're heading in the wrong direction, not the right direction," Dallas general manager Michael Hitchcock said during Tuesday's teleconference. "It's not too late to fix that and come back stronger, bigger, better and contend for a championship."
No question that Major League Soccer's playoff safety net is deep enough to catch a team spending weeks in last place, much less second. The West has three playoff slots even if they give up their wildcard to the East. There's simply not the pressure to turn the season that quickly. Well, apparently except in Frisco.
FC leadership has opened up the broader question of realistic expectations. After all, this is a club drawing poorly at the northern extreme of a major urban area the year after spending on the first designated player not to work out.
Dallas bought into the myth of soccer-specificity, building the multipurpose venue with staging area in a suburb a solid half an hour at best from the center of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Though it's a point that continues to be stressed in regards to other MLS venues, it's a fairly significant burden on the fan base to expect them to make the trip at the best of times. A team that management has basically admitted is underperforming, high gas prices, and stalled economics all impact a stadium location years after the decision was made.
Pizza Hut Park hasn't had many home games to judge the actual impact, with MLS doing a brilliant job in scheduling and making sure Dallas was home for the entire month of July. They were at standing room capacity or Los Angeles, roughly 10k more than showed for New England or New York.
The Denilson experiment looked like a classic over-reach. The kind of thing a club does after other clubs have set a standard they shouldn't expect to meet.
"Obviously, losing to Los Angeles at home in front of our biggest crowd ever was a factor," Hitchcock said.
Management includes managing disappointment, and at least from the outside it looks like Dallas is failing there. The American soccer approved interim title is an easy way to avoid admitting they came to asnap decision based on an embarrassing result and now they have to find a quick solution or risk losing the season.
Repeating that the team has "set very high standards" along with respect for the fans is all well and good, but there's an appearance/reality distinction that needs to be addressed. Dallas won the Conference title in 2006 and exited the playoffs in the quarterfinals. They haven't advanced to the semifinals since 1999, so talk of pushing for an MLS Cup seems a bit off.
"Putting the best possible team out there that can contend for championships" should be taken for granted, along with 'selling tickets, getting ratings, and building the brand.' Only a few teams actually pull that off season to season. It ends up sounding like marketing copy to sell tickets rather than an object statement.
Thirteen years in, and Dallas has yet to make the big statement. They’ve always been a responsive team, trend chasing when it came to smaller stadiums and agreeing to that wasted year at Dragon Stadium, but allowing players to form a long-term core when that was what the truly elite clubs build around, and letting good players go within MLS.
So here we are, an MLS team acting as if there's a mandate for change nine weeks in amid talk of contending. That's the definition of the bold move, right up there with Red Bull New York firing Bruce Arena while setting a championship as the only expectation.
Good luck with that. In a league like Major League Soccer, it will always be more than the coach.
