Soccer

NWSL Week 8 preview and fixtures: Time for a different Houston Dash

After parting ways with Randy Waldrum on Monday, the Houston Dash begin life without the only head coach they’ve ever had.

by Lauren Barker

Jun 2, 2017, 8:37 PM UTC

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Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

When Randy Waldrum was initially announced as the first head coach of the Houston Dash, in January of 2014, the news was met mostly positively. Waldrum had spent 15 years at Notre Dame, compiling a 294-58-17 record and winning two national championships along the way. Waldrum was well-respected as a college coach, so much so that his name had once been thrown around as a rumored replacement for Pia Sundhage after she left the USWNT in 2012.

Beyond all the success he had at Notre Dame, Waldrum’s position there was about as stable as you can get. The college game isn’t going anywhere, and that Waldrum was willing to leave that behind for the professional game, one that, as whole, has a history of being as stable as a bounce house on a windy day, spoke to how highly he valued what the Dash was trying to build in Houston.

Still, Houston’s inaugural season went about as well as you’d expect an expansion team’s first year to go: not well. Houston finished the 2014 season ninth in the then- nine-team league with a 5-16-3 record.

A year later, despite the havoc the World Cup would bring to lineups across the league, the Dash looked like a better team, at least on paper. And Houston did have a better season, finishing with a 6-8-6 record, good enough for fifth, but six points out of the final playoff spot.

At that time, the theory was that if they had players like Carli Lloyd, Morgan Brian, Meghan Klingenberg, and Erin McLeod around for the full season, Houston could have cracked the top four. At least now they knew, and with the Olympics bound to cause the same kind of problems in 2016, they’d be better prepared.

Then came the actual 2016 season, and Houston was not better prepared. Or better anything. Somehow, the Dash was worse. The Olympics, like the World Cup the year before, appeared to come as a complete surprise to Houston and the Dash struggled through, losing eight players for a large chunk of the season. Houston finished 2016 with a 6-10-4 record, good enough only for eighth and saved from completely reverting back to 2013 only by Orlando being an expansion team and Boston still being in the league.

In all those seasons, there were some bright spots among the disappointment. Kealia Ohai, the Dash’s first-ever draft pick, spent the end of last season becoming one of the league’s leading scorers and most dangerous forwards, something that’s continued into this season. Janine Beckie and Rachel Daly both had impressive rookie seasons in 2016. Both have looked good again so far this year, as has new addition Janine Van Wyk, who’s playing her first NWSL season after spending several years playing club soccer in her native South Africa. And Lloyd, for perhaps the first time in club career, truly — at least until an off-field kerfuffle about how long she took to return to Houston following the Olympics — looked happy and comfortable somewhere, and it came through on the field.

This season, as has become tradition in Houston, started with the Dash’s roster taking a big hit. A year ago, it was Lloyd going down injured in week two. This year, it was the announcement that she’d be spending at least the first part of the season playing for Manchester City instead. But at the start of the season, Houston also looked, for the first time, decidedly unaffected by all this. The Dash came out strong in Game 1, grabbing a 2-0 win over Chicago.

That game, beating a Red Stars team that was supposed to be good, should have been a statement win for the Dash. “This year,” it should have read, “is going to be different, and this time we mean it.” And then Dash packed their bags for Seattle, arriving at Memorial Stadium for Week 2’s meeting with the Reign only to find someone had left the darn thing sitting on the printer back in Houston.

Houston’s 5-1 loss to Seattle was where things started to really go wrong this season, and though there would be a temporary reprieve in the form of a 1-0 win over the last-place Spirit the following the week, the Dash never really got going again. Houston hasn’t won since then, coming into this week’s meeting with the Spirit as losers of four straight.

Against Seattle, Waldrum opted to use rookie goalkeeper Jane Campbell instead of the more experienced Lydia Williams. Williams had been good against Chicago in Week 1, with three saves and a clean sheet in the 2-0 win. Campbell’s performance the following week was decidedly the opposite of that, allowing five goals on 18 shots. Waldrum’s decision to use Campbell was a curious one, and though he went back to Williams the following week, the damage was already done.

Usually if the wheels start to come off that soon, you do something — turn the car around and take it back to the dealer, start researching lemon laws, whatever. Houston just turned up the music to drown out that horrible clanking sound and kept driving, losing to Chicago, Sky Blue, Sky Blue again, and Seattle.

The only win, the 1-0 one against Washington, looks ever more like a fluke, and like the Spirit, maybe need to start thinking about having the same kind of conversation the Dash did this week. Almost nothing about that win, except that it counts in the standings as a win all the same, was particularly positive for the Dash.

That Houston’s season has gone as badly as it has overall is the thing that’s most puzzling and probably what ultimately cost Waldrum his job. The Dash’s roster isn’t terrible, and there have been moments where they’ve shown they’re capable of putting something good together.

In the win against the Red Stars, Houston looked like a considerably better team than in previous seasons. The Dash stayed composed defensively and were quick on the counter, and the midfield was recognizing the runs the forwards were making, and all the individual talent — and there’s a lot — was playing together.

Not much has really changed since then, either. No one’s sustained a serious injury that took her out of the lineup, and though Ohai’s cooled off a bit, she hasn’t been playing poorly. The Dash now just look flat — like that first loss to Seattle took all the air out and then someone smashed the pump with a hammer. And that’s where Waldrum should have come in and saved things.

One loss shouldn’t completely derail anyone’s train the way it seems to have in Houston. It’s harder with a team like the Dash — one that’s still relatively young and inexperienced — but Waldrum should have been able to at least start to get them back on track, and couldn’t. And it’s not the first time. Historically, one loss has been all it takes to send the Dash on a downward spiral that takes weeks, or months, to recover from. The Dash’s record under Waldrum: an almost shocking 19-39-13.

Now Omar Morales, who started the season as Waldrum’s assistant, will take over the head coaching position on an interim basis.

There’s a lot that points toward a brighter future for Houston, and perhaps the change will finally spark something for the Dash. They’ve got the personnel and the talent, they’ve got the prospect of Lloyd returning eventually, and they’ve got a game this weekend against a Washington team that’s lost three straight and won just once all season. Then they have a week off for FIFA dates to ease into life without Waldrum.

We are still less than halfway through the season, and with a lot of teams struggling early, it’s not too late for the Dash to turn things around. To do it though, they’ll have to finally learn how to recover after a big loss, this time of the only head coach they’ve ever known.

All times Eastern