MLS Awards, Hans Backe and Schellas Hyndman favourites
As the regular MLS season enters its final month, the MLS Coach-of-the-Year award that was wide open in the start has eventually become a two horse race between Hans Backe of New York Red Bulls and FC Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman.
But if the recent developments are to be given some consideration, the award should be going to the man from Dallas. The award has always been about which coach improved his team from the previous season.
Such criterion actually shows why Real Salt Lake’s Jason Kreis isn’t in the running this time around despite turning the reigning champions into a more consistent outfit. Efforts of San Jose’s Frank Yallop should also be given some consideration after he
transformed the Earthquakes from a shaky and incurable side to a play-off likely participant.
But if a look is given on the distance covered then it has to be either Backe or Hyndman. At a first glance one would vouch for Hans Backe. The Swede took over a woeful New York team that finished dead last in the league in 2009 and changed the fortunes
of the team.
Dallas, meanwhile, missed out on a play-off spot on the last day of the league in 2009 but finished the campaign strongly enough. Backe, with great help of assistant Richie Williams, reshaped the New York roster and grabbed rookies Tim Ream and Tony Tchani
in the January Super Draft.
He also benefited from the marquee signings of Rafael Marquez and Thierry Henry from Barcelona F.C. Although, having such players in a roster presents challenges of its own, the coach can’t always count on such big players in MLS.
Hyndman, however, had no such luxury. He had to tweak his roster the old fashioned way by acquiring important players through the drafts and occasionally signing a free agent. But the depth he (Hyndman) managed to accumulate has been impressive nonetheless.
This was evident this past Saturday when Dallas took on Kansas City missing 6 players, who were in various stages of injury recoveries and were a critical component of the Dallas team. They were without their 1st choice goalkeeper, Kevin Hartman,
and holding midfielder, Daniel Hernandez.
Yet rookies Zach Loyd and Eric Alexander continued to show rapid improvement. New signing Jeremiah Jackson proved to be a versatile midfielder filling in a variety of roles. All these 3 players helped Dallas to a 3-1 victory taking their unbeaten streak
to an eye-popping 17 games.
On the other hand, New York stuttered in their last game against Philadelphia Union. The only player missing for that match was Thierry Henry (marquee signing) but it wouldn’t have mattered that much as the Frenchman has already missed a lot of games in
his 1st MLS season.
Backe seemed to be indecisive about his formation and his use of Mehdi Ballouchy, who was played as a withdrawn striker instead of his natural position where he excels more.
At the end of the 1st period, New York Red Bulls were 2-0 down. In the 2nd half, however, the change in strategy helped the team pull one goal back but it was still a 2-1 loss that narrowed down their league in the Eastern Conference
by 1 point and they almost missed a chance of an all-home field play off.
Overall it was a pretty shabby performance by the Red Bulls. The tactical indecisiveness shown by Hans Backe should be noted as well because when it’s going down the wire, you should set your formation right rather than experimenting.
The fool-proof method towards success reflects Hyndman’s ability to build a strong roster and also his ability to improvise and adapt. With low resources (marquee signings), Hyndman has managed to achieve a lot this season. This is precisely the reason why
Hyndman should be getting the award for MLS Coach-of-the-Year as he deserves it more than anyone else in MLS.
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