Domènec Torrent Appointed NYCFC Head Coach (June '18) / Mutually Agree to Part Ways (November '19)

[mgarbowski]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1063164502911401984

I don't think he's done enough to deserve to stay, but there was really no realistic way they were firing him this offseason. He probably better not get off to a slow start next season, though.

We're all so f^cking resigned.
Almost 90 minutes later and there's not one comment on this, positive or negative. No outrage. No cheers. No buzz. No optimism. No hatred. Just nothing. Just void and emptiness. There's even 2 intervening posts about some unsubbed rumor re the Revs and Avalanche, but no further comments about Dome coming back. It's astonishing how much the club has done to diminish the excitement of many of its most ardent fans.

 

[adam]

We're all so f^cking resigned.
Almost 90 minutes later and there's not one comment on this, positive or negative. No outrage. No cheers. No buzz. No optimism. No hatred. Just nothing. Just void and emptiness. There's even 2 intervening posts about some unsubbed rumor re the Revs and Avalanche, but no further comments about Dome coming back. It's astonishing how much the club has done to diminish the excitement of many of its most ardent fans.

 

[dummyrun]

We're all so f^cking resigned.
Almost 90 minutes later and there's not one comment on this, positive or negative. No outrage. No cheers. No buzz. No optimism. No hatred. Just nothing. Just void and emptiness. There's even 2 intervening posts about some unsubbed rumor re the Revs and Avalanche, but no further comments about Dome coming back. It's astonishing how much the club has done to diminish the excitement of many of its most ardent fans.

Not quite all of us

 

[mgarbowski]

Not quite all of us

You never really responded when I pointed it out, and I'm curious why you appear to be unconcerned that the team's xGD in Dome's first 9 games was a full goal higher than his last 10 games? Results aside, by your most basic metric, the longer he was here, the more he did what he wanted, and after his best player came back from injury, the worse the team played. Are 9 and 10 games sets too short to matter? Do you have some other reason to expect the team will perform more like the first half of Torrent's time than the second half, or even a blend? Myself, I do not expect the second half trend to continue, necessarily. But I also see no reason to expect something more like the first half, or even a mix. It's an unwritten book. At best, I have as many solid expectation for Torrent as I would for someone who didn't coach the team at all, which is to say I'm keeping things open. I see no statistical grounding for optimism.

 

[Christopher Jee]

You never really responded when I pointed it out, and I'm curious why you appear to be unconcerned that the team's xGD in Dome's first 9 games was a full goal higher than his last 10 games? Results aside, by your most basic metric, the longer he was here, the more he did what he wanted, and after his best player came back from injury, the worse the team played. Are 9 and 10 games sets too short to matter? Do you have some other reason to expect the team will perform more like the first half of Torrent's time than the second half, or even a blend? Myself, I do not expect the second half trend to continue, necessarily. But I also see no reason to expect something more like the first half, or even a mix. It's an unwritten book. At best, I have as many solid expectation for Torrent as I would for someone who didn't coach the team at all, which is to say I'm keeping things open. I see no statistical grounding for optimism.

Talked about it a bit in thread:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1063474015933685760

I think there are still Dome optimists, cautious-optimists and engaged observers on the forums, but it gets drowned out. I think it's just that the media landscape is very fragmented. Between Reddit, the forums, FB groups, group chats and Twitter, people tend to find their bubbles for certain kinds of thoughts. On Twitter it seems easier to pick out those fragments because of the underlying way the data is structured.

 

[D_RoyJenkins]

You never really responded when I pointed it out, and I'm curious why you appear to be unconcerned that the team's xGD in Dome's first 9 games was a full goal higher than his last 10 games? Results aside, by your most basic metric, the longer he was here, the more he did what he wanted, and after his best player came back from injury, the worse the team played. Are 9 and 10 games sets too short to matter? Do you have some other reason to expect the team will perform more like the first half of Torrent's time than the second half, or even a blend? Myself, I do not expect the second half trend to continue, necessarily. But I also see no reason to expect something more like the first half, or even a mix. It's an unwritten book. At best, I have as many solid expectation for Torrent as I would for someone who didn't coach the team at all, which is to say I'm keeping things open. I see no statistical grounding for optimism.

Maybe it took time for him to get adjusted to the league like it did for Vieira. Maybe he'll make a few tweaks here and there and the team will gradually master his style of play, again like they did under Vieira. Crazy concept right?

 

[Christopher Jee]

Maybe it took time for him to get adjusted to the league like it did for Vieira. Maybe he'll make a few tweaks here and there and the team will gradually master his style of play, again like they did under Vieira. Crazy concept right?

For sure there will be a period of adjustment for both.

I think the concerns I have with Dome that I didn't have with Vieira are his charisma, composure and his ability to get through to his players. I think he's tactically more sophisticated than Vieira is / was. And he understands the winning blueprint at a higher-level (for example, where Vieira was thinking game to game, Torrent appears to think across seasons or even roster cycles).

The 4-3-3 that PV established is pretty much how most teams play, so it was probably easier to execute. Dome is trying to build something that's more unfamiliar, yet he also has demonstrated less ability to execute, so I'm strapping myself in for a wild ride, and committing myself to being more engaged with the process than the results.

 

[Kjbert]

I thought we looked listless under Dome. It was boring to watch.

That's on the manager to me.

 

[mgarbowski]

Maybe it took time for him to get adjusted to the league like it did for Vieira. Maybe he'll make a few tweaks here and there and the team will gradually master his style of play, again like they did under Vieira. Crazy concept right?

The Vieira comparison doesn't hold up at all. Vieira's second quarter-season was better than his first. Torrent's second quarter-season was much worse than his first. Vieira took over a crappy team, Torrent took over a team that finished second in the East 2 years running and was a SS contender when he arrived. Torrent's 13 points in 13 games is far worse than anything PV ever did. PV did have one advantage that Torrent lacked, by starting in an offseason, but Torrent failed to adjust to the limitations that the midseason appointment placed on him.

Now in the future, I'm partly with you. Maybe with a transfer window, and training camp etc etc Torrent does better. But I see no evidence-based reason for optimism. I'm all in favor of an inherently optimistic outlook regardless of data. But dummyrun is all about the data, and I'm genuinely curious why he is unconcerned that Torrent's trend is negative.
Myself, as stated, I'm remaining neither optimistic nor expecting disaster. But this is the first time I'm ending a season and not affirmatively expecting the next year to be better. I won't be surprised if it is, and I'm not expecting it to be worse, either. But I see no reasons for optimism, except that being optimistic is more pleasant than the alternatives.

Talked about it a bit in thread:
Me and like two other fans are hyped. https://t.co/YCzJDoqDL5— Dummy Run (@thedummyrun) November 16, 2018

Thanks. His later tweet in that thread kind of answers my question:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1063488832648200192

I won't presume to speak for him, but reading the thread together I think that, on the data, he's neither strongly optimistic or pessimistic, but he's confident it will be interesting and probably carries an inherent optimism as I mentioned above.

I think the concerns I have with Dome that I didn't have with Vieira are his charisma, composure and his ability to get through to his players. I think he's tactically more sophisticated than Vieira is / was. And he understands the winning blueprint at a higher-level (for example, where Vieira was thinking game to game, Torrent appears to think across seasons or even roster cycles).

The 4-3-3 that PV established is pretty much how most teams play, so it was probably easier to execute. Dome is trying to build something that's more unfamiliar, yet he also has demonstrated less ability to execute, so I'm strapping myself in for a wild ride, and committing myself to being more engaged with the process than the results.

I'm with you on pretty much all of that -- with all the + and - elements -- until your final clause about focusing more on process than results. Good for you if that approach works for you, but if we finish 4th or 5th, or worse, or endure another stretch of 13 points in 13 games, I can't imagine being satisfied because I got to watch a career assistant coach tinker unsuccessfully, whether because he can't see the trees for the forest, or quite simply cannot execute the brilliance that he understands in theory.

 

[Christopher Jee]

I'm with you on pretty much all of that -- with all the + and - elements -- until your final clause about focusing more on process than results. Good for you if that approach works for you, but if we finish 4th or 5th, or worse, or endure another stretch of 13 points in 13 games, I can't imagine being satisfied because I got to watch a career assistant coach tinker unsuccessfully, whether because he can't see the trees for the forest, or quite simply cannot execute the brilliance that he understands in theory.

It's really in the spirit of choosing what I spend my mental energy on. If I attach myself to the results, then I'm attaching myself to something that is high-variance and I have very little control over. If I attach myself to the process, it's going to be interesting either way, because what I learn from that is more actionable in some way.

 

[Keith Putnam]

On the whole I am trying to be optimistic about a Domé-led side with a full offseason plus roster turnover.

Honestly, I think the best thing we could probably do is hire a better roster-builder than Claudio Reyna. We need a Director of Football (or "Sporting Director" or whatever he's called) who's better at smartly building an MLS roster with CFG's resources. Reyna was a good marquee FO name for launch, but I think we need a better administrator in that position. Let Claudio follow Gio to Dortmund.

 

[Christopher Jee]

On the whole I am trying to be optimistic about a Domé-led side with a full offseason plus roster turnover.

Honestly, I think the best thing we could probably do is hire a better roster-builder than Claudio Reyna. We need a Director of Football (or "Sporting Director" or whatever he's called) who's better at smartly building an MLS roster with CFG's resources. Reyna was a good marquee FO name for launch, but I think we need a better administrator in that position. Let Claudio follow Gio to Dortmund.

From what I gather our academy is in a really good state. Can't we just separate that role out from roster construction?

 

[Keith Putnam]

From what I gather our academy is in a really good state. Can't we just separate that role out from roster construction?

Well sure, if Reyna just wants to go run the academy, I have no problem with that.

 

[mgarbowski]

It's really in the spirit of choosing what I spend my mental energy on. If I attach myself to the results, then I'm attaching myself to something that is high-variance and I have very little control over. If I attach myself to the process, it's going to be interesting either way, because I learn from that is more actionable in some way.

Well, notwithstanding that I've never met you, I doubt you can pull it off. Because I think a willing surrender to an emotional investment in winning or losing is what fans do (clearly some more than others but it is always present to some degree), and I think you've already done that. I have seen people lose that emotional connection to results with a team, but it has also always accompanied by a falloff in interest.

OTOH, I'm not so old that people have stopped surprising me.

 

[Christopher Jee]

Well, notwithstanding that I've never met you, I doubt you can pull it off. Because I think a willing surrender to an emotional investment in winning or losing is what fans do (clearly some more than others but it is always present to some degree), and I think you've already done that. I have seen people lose that emotional connection to results with a team, but it has also always accompanied by a falloff in interest.

OTOH, I'm not so old that people have stopped surprising me.

I've always thought football was more about the love of the game than the results. Or standing in the cold and getting drunk with your mates.

 

[mgarbowski]

I've always thought football was more about the love of the game than the results. Or standing in the cold and getting drunk with your mates.

Could you be satisfied if all games were friendlies? No leagues. No rivals. No tables. No tournaments. No tracking of results. Just watch talented people play and sing and chant and drink with your buddies.
On a cold Tuesday night?

 

[Kjbert]

I would agree that our scouting of American players has been rather abysmal. At the core of MLS, you need to have above-average Americans on the roster. They make less than foreign players, don't take up an International Roster Spot and have MLS experience.

I would argue our Americans are some of the worst Americans of the teams that are competitive.

RedBull has the Academy. Atlanta has the scouting. Seattle has the development. We get Tommy McNamara and Rodney Wallace making $200k a year.

 

[Ulrich]

We're all so f^cking resigned.
Almost 90 minutes later and there's not one comment on this, positive or negative. No outrage. No cheers. No buzz. No optimism. No hatred. Just nothing. Just void and emptiness. There's even 2 intervening posts about some unsubbed rumor re the Revs and Avalanche, but no further comments about Dome coming back. It's astonishing how much the club has done to diminish the excitement of many of its most ardent fans.

Dome and his fcked up season sucked the enthusiasm out of me. He made watching the team not fun. He made it easy to turn off games. He made it easy to walk past the team store and not care to check out the swag.

I wrote after our 3/4th game about how I thought our passing was more sophisticated and the players were running better triangles and such, and now looking back it was obvious that Dome was simply tinkering with PV’s tactics and making them better, like what he would do with Pep’s (tactics), but once he tried to place his own stamp of originality out there, it all fell apart. He’s good at the minutia and sucked at the big picture. That big picture is gone for me and the team is now like an afterthought, much like how I view Gio Reyna, and I don’t care how much pomp NYCFC tries to dump on us this offseason, short of having concrete stadium news, or signing Messi/Suarez/Ronaldo, I don’t give a Fck about Dome or his offseason moves until he proves he’s not a fraud. I haven’t govern up on the team, and I may write about the moves, but he’s numbed me completely.

 

[Christopher Jee]

Could you be satisfied if all games were friendlies? No leagues. No rivals. No tables. No tournaments. No tracking of results. Just watch talented people play and sing and chant and drink with your buddies.
On a cold Tuesday night?

I think so. It's an interesting provocation. If there are enough people there to make it fun, if people can try their hardest without the usual outcome-based incentives, then why not?

Maybe I miscommunicated though - I think it's possible to enjoy the ups and be affected by the downs without being attached to them.

 

[mgarbowski]

I think so. It's an interesting provocation. If there are enough people there to make it fun, if people can try their hardest without the usual outcome-based incentives, then why not?

Maybe I miscommunicated though - I think it's possible to enjoy the ups and be affected by the downs without being attached to them.

And I'm somewhere between (1) getting that yet not believing you can walk that line, and (2) arguing reductio ad absurdum to liven up a slow Friday afternoon.