The Houston Dynamo are at a crossroads. The club missed the playoffs this season for just the second time in their nine-year history, and the question being asked is: How they will get back?
Their response has the organization ready for a shake-up.
The Dynamo will change their organizational structure by hiring a vice president of the technical staff, team president Chris Canetti said. The position will function as a technical director, a position new to Houston, but readily used in MLS.
“At this stage in MLS, with its growth and development, having a technical director is a must in order to properly handle the job,” Canetti told MLSsoccer.com. “We looked at a lot of clubs and how they’re set up and tried to take knowledge from everybody. I don’t think the model we’re implementing is different from what other clubs are doing. I think we’ve tweaked it a little bit for our organization. I think it’s a fairly standard structure.”
Under the new plan, Canetti will oversee the larger operation, which includes the Dynamo, the NWSL's Houston Dash, the Houston Sports Park (where the club trains) and, as the Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday, BBVA Compass Stadium. The VP of the technical staff will operate as one of five executive positions, each reporting to Canetti.
The new position will oversee scouting, contracts, player development (including both the club's academy and the planned USL PRO side that MLSssoccer.com reported earlier this year will begin play in 2016) as well as introducing soccer science and analytics into the Dynamo's operation.
The club has already developed a list of candidates for the VP position and will move forward immediately to fill it.
“I have a vision, and I need people to come in and share that vision, but those people are going to have more expertise than I have,” Canetti said. “I’m not sitting here saying I need to have control, and I don’t want a technical director that’s going to come in and say, ‘I need control’ or a coach that says, ‘I need control.’ To me, that’s where you create sticky environments.
"This is about a team. I need somebody next to me that has credible expertise on the soccer side of the business that can handle the overall operation on that side. This is about having a technical director, president and a coach, and everybody being on the same page about how we’re going to reach our goal of winning MLS Cup again.”
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.
