Looking back at Gary Smith

I disagreed highly with the essential sacking of Gary Smith yesterday – technically it wasn't really a sacking since they simply let his contract ran out rather than slicing it short – you might have seen some of the vitriol I was spewing on twitter about it. This was not because Gary Smith was an amazing manager who didn't deserve to be kicked out of his chair; that's up for debate just like most other things are with the Rapids these days.

Gary Smith was what he was – a mediocre coach with a somewhat archaic but usually effective preferred style of play and a pretty darn good scouting ability that shone on the rare occasion that he was able to buy players. We'll get to his hits and misses in that regard later, of course. The point here is that it is certainly not Gary's fault that the Rapids are suddenly in such an existential crisis at the end of this lost season.

Unfortunately, that budget is what did the Rapids in when it all came down to the end. There was such a small amount of funds that Paul Bravo and Gary simply couldn't co-exist in the club. They both had visions of how the team should be run and there wasn't even enough room for one of them to get their vision, let alone both. This is why I've been saying that the problems for Colorado will not be solved by sacking Smith. The club needs a complete overhaul from the top down, from Stan 'Coupon Mom levels of frugal' Kroenke to Jeff Plush. 

A club needs a commitment to win in order to win. Los Angeles has that level of success because they spend the money and hire the personnel to do so.