By Tony Edwards – San Jose, CA (Dec 30, 2014) US Soccer Players – With the Houston Dynamo making last week’s version of the biggest signing of the offseason (striker Erick Torres), it’s worth noting that of an MLS offseason full of transition, the Dynamo seem to be handling theirs professionally and efficiently. That this transitional offseason is being handled this way is a reminder that while other teams get more ink, the Dynamo tend to get things done and often in the right way. Even 20 years in, it’s tough to say the same about many aspects of how MLS and its franchises operate. Whether all this is enough to join the Western Conference playoff elite is another question entirely.

The season ended in a very un-Dynamo fashion, with the team unable to qualify for the playoffs in a mediocre Eastern Conference, only finishing ahead of the Chicago Fire and the Montreal Impact and falling short of 40 points. Only once before (2010), has Houston finished with fewer points than Toronto FC, and that year they were in separate conferences.

Even more atypically, while the regular season played out, rumors emerged from San Jose and Houston that Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear was likely on his way back to the Bay Area. The manner in which the stories emerged and the eventual confirmation brought credit to no one. However, as all involved (Kinnear, former San Jose coach Mark Watson, and in the role of unwilling participant San Jose interim coach Ian Russell) have landed on their feet, the matter was quickly accepted as the new normal. We were all told to debate the latest rumor rather than consider how this process might have happened with perhaps a little more class.

Houston then methodically hired a new General Manager/Vice President (odd title, in that it’s usually Vice President first) in Matt Jordan. Then, after rumors that a member of Kinnear’s staff might get a promotion to head coach in the name of continuity, the generally well thought of English manager Owen Coyle got the job.

Coyle’s hiring is another reason coaching speculation in MLS is often far off base. Interested international candidates remind us that unless you are coaching one of the top 10 or so clubs in the world, the chance to work somewhere and actually coach is sometimes more important than the “opportunity” to manage a struggling, underfinanced club to relegation from the EPL or Championship. Think about that for a second and you’ll see where a weakness of MLS becomes a strength. There’s not the same push for survival, the same need for a chairman to splash the cash, and you can do it in a metropolitan area like Houston that dwarves any of Coyle’s previous stops without the same scrutiny.

The Dynamo in particular offer a relatively new stadium, established talents such as USMNT players Brad Davis and DaMarcus Beasley, some younger, albeit so far unproven players, and now Torres.

Last year’s goal-shy club (only 39 goals scored) adds a striker who convinced last season. Torres’s time with Chivas USA was an exercise in trying to do his job while every defense in the league targeted him. It’s not that Chivas USA was one-dimensional in their final season, even though they often were. It’s that Torres was that good for a club literally playing out the string in a way that displayed the worst MLS has to offer.

Now, Torres moves on. Consider the possibilities with Davis and Beasley consistently supplying Torres with well-weighted passes. He’s going to be an even bigger headache for opposing teams in 2015. Well, at least when Torres is on the field versus with the Mexican National Team. But that’s true for any club who signs an international player. So all that is good: new management, new coach, new designated player.

The bigger questions facing Houston, of course, is that while they’ve managed the off-field side of the transition well, the real challenges await as the short off-season draws to the close.

How does Coyle adjust to a new everything, including MLS rules, travel, and the Houston climate? Before suggesting the new coach looks good in a Dynamo golf shirt, if you’ve never prepared a team to play soccer in a city like Houston in a league that goes through the summer, that’s also a potential obstacle. How do the returning players adjust? What does working around a talent like Torres mean for what Houston did well in 2014? How does Torres deal with his new situation and the increased pressure?

Houston has always been, like Salt Lake, a ‘team is the star’ organization. The underlying work ethic won’t change. This is still a team taking its cues from what won championships. However, the Dynamo as we knew them were a team that could make one of their patented August/September runs and qualify for the playoffs, then grind out results all the way to MLS Cup. Not anymore.

In practice, an early season slump could well be a death knell in the Western Conference in 2015 in terms of a team’s playoff hopes. Houston needs their new voices and new talent to gel quickly, so that they aren’t facing a situation where they need 20 points in their last 10 games to try to finish sixth.

Too often, it was easy enough to take Kinnear’s Dynamo teams for granted. That they weren’t too easy on the eyes didn’t help make their case to neutrals. Kinnear’s Dynamo did things correctly and quickly enough to avoid the kind of panic moves that don’t help. There’s something to be said for that, especially in MLS. Now, this really is a new era. For the Houston Dynamo, that means new answers to what are now familiar questions.

Tony Edwards is a soccer writer from the Bay Area.

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