Tag: Ben Olsen

Messi U.S. Open Cup status ‘not really our issue,’ says Houston Dynamo coach Olsen

The Dynamo think Miami will be tough regardless of whether Messi can play

In a development that will shock precisely no one, the focus on Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup final has centered on Lionel Messi’s status and what Inter Miami has planned.

If you ask anyone at Miami’s opponent, the Houston Dynamo, they’ll tell you that’s just fine.

“That’s okay,” Dynamo head coach Ben Olsen told reporters on Tuesday, not long after his side stepped off a flight to Florida. “We’re used to that. We kind of live in that space, with the Houston Dynamo, at least for the short time that I’ve been here. We don’t make a lot of headlines.”

Olsen’s opinion was bolstered by the nature of the press conference itself, which opened immediately with a question about Messi.

“Well, there seems to be a lot of talk going on about that,” deadpanned Olsen. “Of course, we know the impact he has on the field. But we also understand this is a very good team with and without him, so we certainly prepared up until this point with him in.

“If the reports are true, we have a little bit of time to also prepare for them without him. So, not really our issue, it’s theirs. We’ll continue just prepping the way we have been.”

Messi’s status is seemingly a complete toss-up. What Miami head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino referred to as an issue with old scar tissue was enough to push Messi out of last Wednesday’s rout of Toronto FC, and keep him on the sidelines for Saturday’s draw against Orlando City.

Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Martino said that Messi had trained in part, and that a decision wouldn’t be made until “the last minute.”

Olsen — who lifted the Open Cup with a D.C. United side in 2013 that was possibly the biggest underdog the tournament has seen in this century — was quick to point out that he still sees the Messi-free lineup the Herons sent out against Orlando as a massive threat.

“This team without the big three is still a very good MLS team,” said Olsen, referring to Messi, Jordi Alba (who is a major doubt), and Sergio Busquets. “We go through the exercise and [say] ‘Okay, he’s out,’ it’s like, ‘well, he’s in.’ ‘He’s out?’ ‘Wow, this guy’s in.'”

Olsen went on to name-check several Miami players, including attacking midfielder Facundo Farías, winger Robert Taylor, and strikers Leo Campana and Josef Martínez.

“So, their ability to create this team in a short amount of time, with this amount of depth? It’s pretty remarkable,” concluded Olsen. “Whoever is going to be out there, it’s going to be a very tough test for us.”

Olsen: ‘We’re the underdog’

Houston, despite having just one loss in the club’s last eight competitive matches, has decided to embrace the fact that the spotlight is almost entirely on the more glamorous home side.

“I’m not sure, this year, if we’re really sitting around and being honest with each other, [that] we thought we’d be in a final,” conceded Olsen. “But you know, things have clicked a little quicker in some areas than we thought.”

“There’s been some good stories and a little hype on us lately, but we haven’t done anything,” added Olsen. “We’ve gotten some points, but we’re not in the playoffs yet, and we haven’t won anything.”

“We’re the underdog. I don’t think a lot of people are picking us. And that’s I think, again, a space where we’ve lived, and rallied behind in some ways this year. Hopefully we can lean on that tomorrow, play free, play brave, and compete for a championship.”

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Ben Olsen takes on another tough job as new Houston Dynamo head coach

It’s a tough gig, even for a man used to a challenge

After taking two months to consider their next head coach, the Houston Dynamo went with someone who knows a thing or two about tough jobs.

The Dynamo announced Tuesday that they had hired former D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen to take the reins at BBVA Stadium. Olsen last coached in 2020, after a decade in charge with United came to an end amid a dire season.

In 2021, Olsen was hired by the Washington Spirit as the club’s new president, but departed less than a year later after the struggle for ownership of the NWSL side ended with Michele Kang taking a majority stake.

“The club is proud to welcome Ben Olsen to Houston as the head coach of the Dynamo,” said Dynamo majority owner Ted Segal in a team press release. “Ben is one of the most accomplished coaches in MLS and brings championship experience, including winning eight different MLS titles as a player, to this position. His commitment to developing high-potential players and leading playoff contenders make him a great fit for the direction of our organization.”

“I am excited to join Houston Dynamo FC and contribute to the rich history of one of the great MLS clubs,” said Olsen. “I was drawn to ownership’s vision for the club, and I am confident in this new era for the Dynamo. We have a lot of work to do on the roster, game model, mentality and culture of the club, but I am energized and excited to get to work.”

Olsen steps into a seat that may be warm on day one. The Dynamo gave their last coach, Paulo Nagamura, just 244 days and 29 league games on the job before firing him. Houston struggled to a 8W-5D-16L record under Nagamura, and were not good enough in any phase of the game to contend for a playoff spot. Interim replacement Kenny Bundy posted a 2W-1D-2L record over the team’s final five games.

Tuesday’s announcement means that Olsen is the fourth person over the last 370 days to hold the title of head coach at the club, as Houston fired Tab Ramos on November 4, 2021.

Can Houston overachieve?

Olsen’s tenure with D.C. was a roller coaster, and the downhill portions of the ride ended up being particularly rough. While United had a reputation as generally struggling throughout Olsen’s tenure, the fact is that the club made the playoffs in six of his ten seasons in charge, while only having three truly bad seasons (2013, 2017, and 2020) peppered in.

That perception likely stems from just how abysmal those three years were. United’s 2013, in which they picked up just 16 points in 34 games, is by most metrics the single worst season any team has had in the Designated Player era. Strangely enough, though, that same side won the Open Cup that year in what is an almost too perfect summation of Olsen’s complicated time in charge with the Black-and-Red. 2017 and 2020 weren’t much better for United, with goals and entertainment both in desperately short supply.

However, that shouldn’t completely overshadow the fact that his characteristically scrappy teams were often able to punch above their weight. His 2012 team went to the Eastern Conference final, and he was named MLS Coach of the Year in 2014 after United finished atop the East.

Neither of those sides were anything special in terms of game-changing talent, instead succeeding through defensive organization, commitment, and a positive locker room culture. They were your prototypical “hard to play against” teams, a label that has eluded the Dynamo for some time now.

Houston can talk a big game about “making significant changes to field a more proactive, younger and competitive team,” as the club’s GM Pat Onstad said in the club’s official announcement of the hire, but right now? Their poor 2022 season reflected the quality of their roster relative to the rest of the league. It’s a long road ahead.

The Dynamo already have three DPs, so their ability to pay their way into success is severely curtailed in the short term. This is a team that will have to really squeeze every last drop of ability out of the players already under contract to climb the standings in 2023. That’s a Ben Olsen specialty.

The other side of this coin is that over the last few MLS seasons, the teams that overachieve have tended to have an impressively refined tactical blueprint. Olsen’s teams skewed towards mid-block or low-block tactics that, in attacking phases, eschewed structure in favor of being a platform for the team’s best players to improvise.

That’s an approach that can work if the attacking players are good enough (go ahead and look back on Bruce Arena’s 2021 New England Revolution for proof), but the Dynamo flat out do not have those players right now. Houston didn’t have a single player in the top 25 in the league this season in terms of combined expected goals and assists. Of their top three in that category, only Sebastián Ferreira is guaranteed to come back for 2023; the club won’t announce what they’re doing with Darwin Quintero and Fafà Picault until next week.

The bottom line is that for Olsen to succeed in that environment, he’ll have to harness the strong points of his time coaching United while also showing that he has evolved as a tactician on the attacking side of the game. Given Houston’s apparent lack of patience with coaches and the work that needs to be done to catch them up with the rest of MLS, it’s going to be a tall order.

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