It’s time for the Houston Dynamo to admit that the Cubo Torres experiment has failed.

Houston Dynamo fans are not used to splashy, big name signings. Perhaps that will change in the future with the new ownership group led by Gabriel Brenner, but in the past, the previous ownership group, AEG, was notoriously tight with the purse strings.

Which is why, in the December of 2014, Houston Dynamo fans were ecstatic when the news was announced that the club had inked star Mexican striker Erick “Cubo” Torres Padilla to a 5-year Designated Player contract.

Cubo Torres began his senior team career with Guadalajara at the age of 17, but really rose to prominence and became a budding superstar when he was loaned out to Chivas USA in 2013.

Over the course of two years with that club, he scored 22 goals in 44 matches, and at only 21 years old, became the all-time leading goalscorer for a Mexican-born player in Major League Soccer. When the club was dissolved due to lack of fan support in 2014, Major League Soccer, in an attempt to keep one of their young superstars, reached an agreement where Torres would become a permanent MLS player, under the condition that he would be loaned back to Guadalajara for the first six months of 2015.

In that loan stint, he was decently productive, scoring 2 goals in only 5 appearances in league play, though he scored another 3 goals in the Copa MX.

Torres would have been able to join the Houston Dynamo in June of 2015, but his debut was delayed another month due to a sexual assault allegation that was investigated and dismissed by both Mexican authorities and Major League Soccer. Finally joining his new side in July, Torres was thought to not be match-fit, so his debut was pushed back even further, until finally, he strode onto the pitch, for the first time in orange, as a second half substitute in late July.

Since that time, Torres has played in 12 league matches, started only 3, and racked up a pitiful 343 minutes of play. In his entire Houston Dynamo career, Cubo has taken 1 shot on goal. One.

By any standards, this is a disappointment for a club who thought that they were adding a bona-fide superstar to their fold. Much of 2015 can be chalked up to the difficulties arising from the loan, not being match fit, nagging injuries, lack of a full training camp and practices with the team, etc.

But 2016, on the other hand, should have been a fresh start. Cubo is ready, he’s waiting, he’s chomping at the bit. Yet, here we are, 4 games into the Houston Dynamo’s 2016 campaign, and Torres has racked up 5 whole minutes on the pitch.

Why?

The most likely explanation is that Cubo Torres simply doesn’t fit the combination of players and tactics that Houston Dynamo head coach Owen Coyle wants to use.

After using a 4-4-2 formation for most of last season, including a couple of matches where Torres was paired up top with Dynamo forward Will Bruin with lackluster results, Coyle has made no secret out of the fact that he wants this Dynamo team to play wide and fast.

By any standards, this is a disappointment for a club who thought that they were adding a bona-fide superstar

Switching to a 4-2-3-1 formation in 2016, Coyle has played Will Bruin as a single high forward, with (when healthy) Andrew Wenger and Giles Barnes playing wide and Christian Maidana as the No. 10 in the midfield. When all those players were on the pitch, it’s hard to dispute the results: 8 goals in two matches.

However, since the Houston Dynamo scored 5 goals in the Texas Derby three weeks ago, neither Christian Maidana (head injury) nor Giles Barnes (hamstring) have seen the pitch again, yet Coyle has made no change in tactics or formation that would allow Cubo to crack the lineup, and his only playing time was 5 minutes of substitution for Will Bruin in the 4-3 loss to New York Red Bulls.

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It would appear then, that Coyle simply has no intentions to change the system to fit the players, so barring an injury to Will Bruin or a drop in form, Erick Torres will most likely continue to ride the bench. (Will Bruin was just nominated for a Player of the Month award, so a drop in form in the near future seems unlikely).

Per MLS policy, the terms of Torres’ transfer deal were not made public, but sources close to the team have speculated that it was between $5 and $7 million dollars, and Torres’ guaranteed money for 2015 was $425,000.

To put that into perspective, with the most recent available MLS player salary data, that salary, for 11 appearances, 3 starts, and one shot on goal, was the third highest for the Houston Dynamo in 2015, behind only DaMarcus Beasley ($813,333) and Brad Davis ($445,500).

This past off-season, longtime Dynamo captain Brad Davis was traded to Sporting Kansas City, where he grew up, under the guise that the club wanted to get younger and his salary was too much of a burden on the team’s rebuilding plans.

It is becoming impossible then, for the Houston Dynamo front office to tell their supporters with a straight face, or any semblance of truthfulness, that they simply had to trade away a club legend because he was making too much money, but they can keep a young player making almost the exact same amount of money who will never even see the pitch.

For contrast, Brad Davis started 29 games last season, scoring 4 goals and notching 10 assists.

This author, and most of the staff here at Orange in the Oven, firmly believe that Cubo Torres is such a talented and dynamic player, that a coach must make an exception and find a way to use that talent, even if he doesn’t perfectly fit the desired scheme.

However, if Owen Coyle has made up his mind that he simply will not change the system or formation in order to utilize Torres, then the Houston Dynamo front office is left with no other choice than to try and acquire whatever pieces they can in exchange for the player, to improve their club for this season.

To that end, Orange in the Oven dived into the film room, and took a look at a number of players and assets that we believe the Houston Dynamo could reasonably get in return.