Was the disaster against Atlanta United entirely on Ben Olsen's shoulders? Of course not -- or, at least, from our outside perspective, it seems not. To be sure, we don't know who is making the business and recruitment decisions that have left us with a jumbled mess -- a jigsaw puzzle that seems to be missing a lot of pieces and maybe even a few pieces that belong in an entirely different puzzle.
Still, anyone watching this franchise over the last decade can't really believe that Olsen is up to snuff in MLS. It seems pretty clear that DC United are headed for the bottom slot in the M.L.S. table. This will be the third time a Ben Olsen-coached side would up in the cellar. which certainly seems like a lot for a coach in his 11th season. It's true that first season result was unavoidable after the horrific start under Curt Onalfo, and the 2013 season somehow seems not so bad because of the U.S. Open Cup win. That makes 2020 the nadir of Olsen's tenure here, and nothing points to a more promising future with him at the helm.
The team is put together with spackle and chewing gum, really built on the cheap. If you want any evidence of that, just look at Saturday's matches. D.C. United were utterly impotent, whereas Inter Miami looks pretty potent with Gonzalo Higuain. One beautiful assist, and another one waved off for offside. D.C. had Higuain's rights and sold them to Miami, because they didn't want to pay Higuain's wage bill. Maybe that's especially justifiable this year, with no fans in the stands. but it speaks to a team that lacks ambition, or the resources required to win in MLS, or both.
None of that is Olsen's fault. The reason that Olsen and Kasper continue to hold their jobs after more than a decade of failure is the franchise's lack of ambition. Olsen is a symbol of the franchise, and that's made him hard to fire. On the other hand, he's become the symbol of the team's lack of ambition. They don't go out and get especially good players, except for the now truly hard to comprehend signing of Wayne Rooney. So, Ben Olsen's mediocrity and tactical naivete has suited the franchise. They can't recruit better players to come play under Olsen, but then again, the team doesn't have the scouting resources that other teams have, and doesn't have the money either to sign better players. If the team wants to signal to fans, and signal to players around the world that they're serious about playing winning, exciting soccer, they can't do that with Ben Olsen running the squad. The way to signal that is to release Olsen and find a coach who can match up with MLS's better coaches.
Is Dave Kasper up to a more ambitious rebuilding project? Nothing we've seen suggests he is. The bizarre drama that had him flying to Paris when PSG may not even have really wanted Acosta, then trying to negotiate a deal, but leaving without one was a sign that he might have been woefully unprepared for doing business at higher levels than he's been accustomed to doing. The fact that ownership gave Kasper a new deal recently suggests he's not going anywhere immediately, but that may well depend on the demands of the best coaches they may look at hiring.
The next regime will have some real constraints. The team hasn't invested enough in recruiting abroad. As a result, they've also been too quick to trade away their international roster slots. That will weigh on the options available next year, but the team should commit to a different, more forward-thinking path in the future.
What about the roster? It might be presumptuous to take a deep dive, without having a clue who the next coach will be or what style of play he might prefer. Still...it's fair to say most of the roster should be blown up anyway. So, who is worth keeping? Let's start with attackers:
Right now, it's hard to imaging D.C. United without Paul Arriola, even if his finishing has really let him down many times. Let's assume that Flores is likely to come back and that another coach might figure out how to get ANY production out of him. Personally, I'd try to sell him back to a Liga MX side. I think that would make him happier, and D.C. should probably just chalk that up as a thing that didn't work out. Similarly, the return of Yamil Asad really hasn't worked out. He has another year on his deal, so he's likely to return, but I would pencil him in as a sub. Ola Kamara has at least a year left on what was advertised as a 3-year deal, but if there's interest elsewhere, D.C. should look to move him. Julian Gressel has been underwhelming, but maybe a new coach can figure out how to get something out of him.
Kevin Paredes and Erik Sorga should be back, They've been the brightest spots in the attack, really. Griffin Yow is showing some improvement, and we should expect that to continue. Gelmin Rivas hasn't wowed anyone, but I could see him fitting in a future roster, providing key depth. I think I'd rather have him than Ulises Segura as an option up top. Yordy Reyna looked like United's best player against Atlanta, but that may say more about how woeful the team played. Does he stay or go? It would be expensive to keep him, and it might be wiser to put that money to more productive uses. Still, he's got some talent, and if the money and space can be found, he's better than anyone else we have now.
The midfield has been miserable this year. The only midfielders who have impressed at all are newcomers Mohammed Abu and Frederico Higuain. Will Higuain return? I would be surprised, unless he's hired as a player-head coach. I see that as unlikely. Abu is a question mark because of the knee injury, but give him the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn't be disappointed if the team blew up the rest of the midfield. Gressel and Arriola will be back, and Moses Nyeman isn't going anywhere yet. Flores could be back in the midfield. The rest are underwhelming. Junior Moreno and Russell Canouse are experienced and still young enough to play effectively. That said, they haven't played effectively. Felipe Martins was an Olsen favorite. He was probably better than Canouse or Moreno, but he's not cheap and he's problematic. Also, he's coming off an ACL injury. The next coach will have some decisions to make there. Or not, if the team isn't able to recruit better players to anchor the midfield. Depending on formation, one or the other might be a little superfluous anyway. Olsen's been happy to play with 2 D-mids, but a more attack-minded coach might not want that.
The defense is another area where the team could almost start from scratch. Steven Birnbaum has been a real disappointment this year. Maybe a move to the West Coast would suit him better. Frederic Brillant is another year older...already. Probably not a great idea to bring him back for one more round. Pines hasn't shown that he's ready for this level, but maybe a better coach gets better things out of him. More hasn't been very effective. I would be fine if the team could find another left back. The right backs are fast, but neither showed well this year. Oniel Fisher and Chris Odoi-Atsem are on the proverbial bubble. Sjoberg hasn't been able to get much time, so I have no judgment except to say that it's not a great sign that Olsen prefers the other 3 center backs.
I assume Bill Hamid will be back, but he doesn't seem to want to be here, and it really showed against Atlanta. He could have done better. Maybe a new coach can rekindle the TCHUB spark or maybe it's better for Hamid to look elsewhere. There will be a lot of storylines in the offseason. This will be one.
If Hamid isn't back, I presume Chris Seitz is back to start, and last year's draft pick, Simon Lefebvre will continue to develop at Loudoun. Maybe Edwards backs up Seitz, or even Hamid. There's also the chance that Seitz retires and Hamid goes elsewhere, in which case United needs to find a top-flight goalie.
Over the next two seasons, the front office really needs to overhaul almost everything. A new coach. A new GM. A serious scouting department. Better youth recruitment, too. It's not a good look to see the Timbers getting production out of Jeremy Ebobisse and Eryk Williamson, tow players who should be in the D.C. United fold. Maybe changes at the top will encourage younger talent to join the Academy and to sign with D.C. United later. There's a bunch of other talented players from this area who have gone abroad or jumped ship from DCU. I doubt a Bryang Kayo would have stayed here if Olsen wasn't the coach. Same with Joseph Gyau, Junior Flores and Gedion Zelalem. Yet, I do wonder, and am left wondering if their careers might have gone better here, perhaps avoiding the injuries that have reduced them to bit players on MLS teams or out of the game, like Flores (and Carranza). These were Pulisic level signings, but their career trajectories certainly didn't match his. Imagine if we could have offered them a first-rate club to play for here.
There's so much local talent that this club should be competing with the LA sides, with Dallas and the New York teams in terms of Academy success. The reality is that United's Academy teams have been as bad as the senior side. It's a long-term project to build up the Academy, but it's essential.
So is the foreign recruitment. The front office needs to make the investments, and needs to signal its future ambitions. One comes with the other, as the best coaching prospects will insist on having the support they need for success. Olsen didn't do that. He couldn't do that. He knew the limits of his role, and the limits of the franchise's ambitions. It's time to demand and expect better.
D.C. United used to be the flagship franchise for MLS. We're not likely to see those heights again, but the team should be able to match the ambition of a Portland or Toronto, or Dallas, or even Columbus. To do that, the team needs to find a coach with greater strategic and tactical understanding than Olsen. It requires a front office that is able to identify and recruit at the level of the top South American and Mexican league players who are signing with other MLS teams, and maybe to find another player at the level of Rooney. None of that happens without the investment and the ambition behind it. Or, the ambition, and the investment behind that.
The team has an amazing history. The run of greatness largely ended after the 2007 upset loss to Chicago Fire in the MLS playoffs. Still there have been some exciting moments and successes since then. The 2012 team had a spectacular run with the invention of Bennyball, finishing 2nd in the EasternConference and were one terrible officiating error from the MLS Cup final. The 2014 team topped the Eastern Conference in the regular season. Of course, there was also the Open Cup title in 2013. Back then, there was reason to hope that Olsen could bring back some of the glory. Now, there's no belief that this is even possible.
DC United is not alone among the MLS franchises now struggling (Chicago, New England, Colorado, even the Galaxy), but United's struggles are the most pronounced. The ownership seems to have lost any sense of the team's history and does little to to connect with and value the fanbase. Some things which may seem trivial, also seem very revealing. If you go to the club's own team history page on the dcunited.com website, it actually hasn't been updated since 2013 (and what's left is the most bare-bones summaries of the seasons through 2013). The club's history apparently ended with one of the team's all-time worst seasons, 7 years ago, less than a year after Jason Levien joined the ownership group. If you go to the DC United history page on Wikipedia, it seems the history ended even earlier. Of course, anyone can take on Wikipedia page editing -- I've been writing the narratives on the individual season pages for years, though I gave up early this season.
My point is that it indicates the history and legacy of the club doesn't even enter into the consciousness of the current front office. It's lost to them and will soon be lost to history, except for those of us who remember it. The marketing of the franchise seems non-existent. The team's social media has been fairly tedious. Since moving to Audi Field the team has practically eliminated the perks which made season-ticket ownership an appealing investment. "Members" were appreciated. I don't get the sense that they are any more. The outreach mostly seems going through the motions.
Worst of all is the team's outreach to the larger community, witnessed by the disappearance of game broadcasts from terrestrial radio, and the well-documented struggles to get decent local TV broadcast of the team's games. Is it any wonder the team has struggled to sell-out even in their small, but gorgeous new stadium? In short, this is no way to run a franchise.
Other MLS franchises are blowing past DC United, and the front office will have to drastically change its approach just to crawl out of the cellar. If the desire is there to start winning titles again, the changes will have to be dramatic.