What the Nagamura sacking means for the Dynamo

For some Paulo Nagamura getting the boot as Head Coach of the Houston Dynamo was a welcome call – looking at you #NagaOut crowd - and for others it was totally unexpected. Personally I find myself in the latter camp as losing Nagamura doesn’t really nudge the Houston Dynamo in one direction or the other. Simply put, the team hasn’t been that good and that isn’t on the coaching staff. One could argue it is, but the roster needs improvement more than a coaching facelift which would come in the offseason.

There’s loads of speculation out there about why this move was made and this is also speculative because it was a relatively sudden move by the front office to make changes, I just think it’s worth going through some of the more level headed reasons why this move was made at all because I disagree with the notion it was simply results based.

To start, the easiest explanation is a response to fans. The #NagaOut camp has been out in full force because the team hasn’t performed well following a change in ownership, front office, and coaching. That’s understandable to a degree and could likely be what caused the move to shake things up all of a sudden. Personally, that’s a knee jerk reaction and not the cause, but could be part of the motivation to make the move.

Another theory – and my personal favorite – is that this gives the front office more opportunity to look for a more experienced coach sooner and they don’t string Paulo Nagamura along for the rest of the season so he has time to begin his coaching prospective search earlier. With a lot of contracts coming up at the end of the year, we’ll be looking at a different team next year so Nagamura gaining experience and chemistry with this group isn’t really too important in the long term of things.

And lastly this actually could be a results driven call with the Dynamo really struggling to put not just wins together, but draws. They had a few quality results on the road following years of failure in that regard, but their place in the standings isn’t the level Ted Segal has wanted and the sacking could be a warning to future managers to indicate Ted’s sincerity about building the club back to its height.

What this means for the Dynamo moving forward is they’ll need to have a busy offseason which includes rebuilding the roster to be more competitive at an alarming rate while finding a coach that has experience and knows the league. Losing Nagamura won’t solve problems because there’s larger issues at play, but if they can build a core with the right coach they can field a more competitive squad within the next year or so depending on how committed Ted Segal is to financing a top class team.

What do you think? Was this a show of faith to fans or is there some method to the firing? Let us know below.