It’s easy enough to understand why the Houston Dynamo fired Wilmer Cabrera on Tuesday. After beginning the season with a 7-2-2 start — the best in team history — Houston have been dreadful over the last two-and-a-half months, posting a 2-11-1 record in their last 14 MLS matches to fall to ninth in the West, seven points behind Portland for the conference’s seventh and final playoff spot.



Considering the Dynamo rank near the bottom of MLS in total spending, that position isn’t so surprising. Instead, it’s the extended nosedive that made things untenable for Cabrera. After missing out on the postseason during an injury-plagued 2018, the Dynamo — who, it should be noted, did manage to win the U.S. Open Cup last year — expected to return to the playoffs this season. But their trajectory since the end of May gave club executives little reason to believe that Cabrera was the man to get them there. So out he goes and in comes interim...