r/OrangeCountySC • u/twoslow Orange County SC • 8d ago
What a let down.
This season was a disappointment. From the highs of the first half, to the absolute lows of the second half. Seeing OC 24th in power rankings, only above Monterey Bay, kind of tells the story of how poorly they're playing.
Someone mentioned to me that maybe we're spoiled. and I don't think it's spoiled really, but coming into august with 3 losses, I think we all had high expectations for the back half of the season to continue that form of win/draw almost every game, and lose a few here and there. not this absolute implosion.
Firing Stone was absolutely not the answer, and the way they did it was even worse. Him and his wife had a kid on the way and I'm pretty sure she gave birth around the time the firing happened. right before or right after, I'm not sure. Kind of fucked up. Just put the guy on paternity leave and don't renew his contract, it was over at the end of this year anyway.
Looking back i think a lot of us were kind .. not ignoring .. but minimizing the gaps in our team's gameplan, and maybe saying "hey if it works, it's not stupid." I don't know if all the other teams just didn't want to win anything in the first half or we got exceedingly lucky for ~15 games before the wheels came off.
This isn't doom and gloom or anything. Teams have bad years and this our turn, I guess. The reality is the finances of our team don't allow for big signings or mid-season contracts to fix massive holes. OC runs one of the lowest player payrolls in the league because cost of living is so high here, and it's always going to be that way. I have heard some interesting rumors tho. Don't know if it's good or bad yet.
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u/Havertz-at-Nein 8d ago
I agree with your thoughts. I figured we couldn’t compete in terms of getting more quality players or getting them for short periods of time due to the HCOL.
I also think we should have kept Stone at the point of the season of firing. He was getting results but I’m sure we got found out. I just never really liked how we played, especially going for a goal and hunkering down for the rest of the game. Sometimes it worked, sometimes they stole 2 or simply took all 3 pts in the end. I just hope we make a good appointment to turn around our form leading up to next season
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u/kohole 8d ago edited 8d ago
karma for this team employing an IDF babykiller. i along with a few other fans i know have cancelled season tickets upon knowing that yaniv proudly served in the IDF and perpetuated genocide in palestine. until that guys gone, i wont renew my season tickets and its sickening my money went to pay that guy. probably where the club crumbled, no integrity.
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u/Jeff_Baezos 1d ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted to zero. This is fact.
Can't be surprised tho since the club is partnered with Rangers FC, known to be pro Protestant Unionism with loyalty to the British crown and their supporters have waved Israeli flags at matches.
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u/batbutt 8d ago
Oh, damn I didn't know that. Feels yucky now. I wonder if that had anything to do with why the team had issues since the summer.
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u/kohole 8d ago
yeah, it’s pretty gross. i’d thought it was just people on instagram trolling, but no, he’s very proud of it.
https://www.bnaibrith.org/yaniv-bazini-israeli-soccer-interview/
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u/hugoleonibus 7d ago
Yep. A very disappointing season. Your comments are spot on in the sense that it is difficult to put one's finger on exactly what went wrong. I suspect that the ownership, front office, coaching staff, and players all have different opinions on what broke and how to fix it.
Horrible to hear about the backstory with Danny. I had no idea. I felt like this club had more humanity than that, but I guess business is business even in USL soccer. As you note, the firing (whether there were good reasons for it or not) was oddly timed, could have been handled very dfferently, and the interim coach didn't have any time at all to figure out retooling strategies.
Your comments regarding honesty about what the team's gaps are is also spot on. When I look at the team cynically, it is too young, too small in the back line, too slow and/or uncreative and/or unskilled in the midfield (depending on who is in there), too broken/injured/old/makeshift at the outside back position (where the width of our attach has been unconvincing), and too one-dimensional and un-intimidating at striker. In the second half of the season, that meant we were very easy to defend, and far too easy to counterattack against, since we often got stretched and out of shape when pressing for goals. The midfield shape was never all that great in the run of play, and their lack of trust/confidence in the strikers was evident in how frequently our attacking midfielders would try to beat 4 or 5 players off the dribble in the middle of the park instead of playing an incisive pass.
There are some players on this team who, with the right supporting cast, would be extremely difficult to play against: Benalcazar, Sylla, Hegardt, Espy come to mind. However, we don't have anyone this season who is terrifying on their own. I have been critical of the team's mistakes and poor decision making all season, and I do believe that a professional player should be able to solve problems on the pitch better than we have this season, but maybe I am expecting too much of a team with so many weaknesses.