New coach sees city’s ‘amazing potential’
New Dynamo coach Tab Ramos was drawn to the team by its players. He was drawn to Houston by the city’s potential to help sprout the next generation of prospects for the Dynamo’s youth academy and American soccer more broadly.
“There’s no question. Houston has amazing potential,” Ramos said during his introductory news conference Wednesday. “One of the things that we have to do better as an organization is getting out there to the Latino community and bringing in those players and making them feel comfortable. Same for the African American community.
“If you look at the makeup of our youth national team and who the best players are … you really see what America is about. And sometimes I feel like in the development academy, that’s not always represented.”
Ramos, the former U.S. men’s national under-20 team coach, hopes to expand that representation when he gets acclimated to his new job.
For now, there are a lot of meetings, although he has gotten a chance to meet some of his players who are working out in the offseason at the team facility.
“I think it’s too early at this point to speak about any names in terms of who’s staying (and) who’s going,” Ramos said of his roster.
General manager Matt Jordan was asked about some of those players. In the cases of forwards Alberth Elis and Mauro Manotas — two players who have garned attention from clubs in Europe — he said the decision to sell goes beyond the right price.
“We’re in regular communication with both the players directly and also their representatives, and it’s an open dialogue about their future,” Jordan said. “We’re going to continue to see how it evolves over the next short period of time. They’re obviously both players that we’re very happy to have here, but we understand that, with their level of talent, there’s a market for them outside the league as well.”
Ramos will factor into the team’s player personnel decisions as it looks to acquire more talent through offseason trades and signings. As he acclimates to the structural differences between leading a club versus a country, there’s a possibility he could work with former interim Dynamo coach Davy Arnaud, who was offered a role “on the soccer side” of the club, according to Jordan.
“I think that the challenge for us to start with is just to implement the new way we want to play,” said Ramos, who is charged with reinvigorating a Dynamo team that went 12-18-4 in 2019 and finished 10th in
MLS Western Conference.
“I think we have the type of players that will be happy playing the way we’d like to play. … At this moment, I’m not concerned about anything other than just once we get the group together, getting them going in a right direction.”