So it’s been a busy afternoon here in Dallas. Its not everyday a coach in town gets canned.
I must say I was a bit mixed about this firing. I thought there was plenty of heat on Steve Morrow but I didn’t think it was the right time to start placing the blame for the club’s recent play solely on him. It was more of a collective blame around the whole club for the recent play, not just Morrow though his coaching and tactics didn’t help.
Plus there are a couple reasons why I was a little surprised with firing.
- The owners (HSG) has made it pretty apparent in recent years that they didn’t like to do any kind of coaching or GM changes in mid season. HSG tends to let contracts expire before they do anything about them. Also, it was noted that GM Michael Hitchcock and Morrow were in a contract year this season.
- I also don’t completely buy into all the reports on the locker room issues and that there were issues over the Alvial firing a week ago. Sure those things didn’t help but I doubt it heavily weighed in on this decision.
Apparently something happened between the final seconds of the LA game on Sunday and this morning. A meeting between Morrow and the owners and Morrow and Hitchcock. Something didn’t go over well and the sides came to this result.
After sitting in on the conference call earlier today that was conducted by Hitchcock, I got a real sense that this was totally his deal and not the owners. Its kind of like he went to them and said, “look we can sellout this place but not with the coach doing the things he did on Sunday.” Again, Hitchcock is on a contract year and he knows he has to save his butt as well here with the owners and maybe cutting ties with Morrow was the case.
Let’s be real honest here too. Morrow and Hitchcock haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on things. Hitchcock brought in Denilson last year and he never really fit into what Morrow was doing. Neither would actually take the blame for the bust of a signing like Denlison but you could bet that one would probably blame the other if they got the chance.
I think in the end it was a bit early to fire Morrow but at the same time if he was indeed losing respect of his veteran players at this point in the season then it may be a smart thing here for his firing. Losing veteran respect in any locker room will do more harm than anything else. What’s exactly what you were seeing in Dallas over the last few weeks. Loss of respect lead to bad results on the field and uninspiring play. Continue Reading…

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In a way this is a coaching hot seat kind of post here but in a way its just an opinion or overview of what I think is going on in two Major League Soccer locker rooms at the moment.