HOUSTON – Houston Dynamo players knew the 2019 Major League Soccer season wasn’t going as planned, but even they were surprised when the club decided to part ways with Wilmer Cabrera with nine games still left in the season.
The club made the decision on Tuesday to go in a different direction, one which Dynamo general manager Matt Jordan said was to give the Orange a fresh perspective.
In Cabrera’s place, assistant coach Davy Arnaud has been made the interim head coach. Arnaud now has nine games to salvage the 2019 season. But the decision by the club no doubt took players by surprise.
“I think we were all hit with a little bit of a shock, but at the same time, we haven’t been performing well. We know as players, or we should, that this is on us,” A.J. DeLaGarza said.
“There is no way that we should or could go from the best start in franchise history to a collapse in the summertime. Something had to be done and that was the direction they went in.”
Boniek Garcia echoed DeLaGarza’s words adding that sports are judged by results and unfortunately for the Dynamo, and for former head coach Cabrera, the results weren’t going in their favor.
For Mauro Manotas, the news hit a little closer to home.
The Colombian striker was working out on his off day with his wife when a call came in from the club informing Manotas that Cabrera had been removed as head coach.
“We were all surprised. Especially my wife and me because we were very thankful with him [Cabrera],” Manotas said. “We were surprised, we thought that maybe at the end of the season it could happen but unfortunately, it happened before.”
The 24-year-old forward saw Cabrera as a father figure during his tenure with the Dynamo and insisted he would still be in contact with him.
On the pitch, Cabrera challenged Manotas and the forward responded with a career year in 2018.
In 2019, Cabrera helped Manotas off the field more than on it, including his new contract with the Dynamo and when Manotas had to spend 20 days in Colombia working through VISA issues for his wife.
Manotas, Garcia, and DeLaGarza do admit that the players shoulder some of the responsibility regarding Cabrera’s ouster. Manotas said that when a team is not performing well, the head coach is the first to go.
“Our responsibility has now increased – it falls on us, the players who are on the field who play and set the rhythm,” Garcia said. “We have to make an impact on the field and change the course – we can’t think about the past and just focus on the tasks at hand.”
The task at hand starts Saturday against the Colorado Rapids.
The match will mark Davy Arnaud’s first game as interim head coach and Manotas is confident the team will come out firing on all cylinders, calling Saturday’s match a new start for the Houston Dynamo.
Jesus Acevedo Jr. is the Editor-in-Chief of The Bayoucitian. He’s an award-winning bilingual journalist from Houston, TX. A graduate of the University of Houston, he has written for the Houston Chronicle, La Voz de Houston, MLSsoccer.com, and ProSoccerUSA.
Before becoming a journalist, Jesus spent his early 20s drumming his way across Houston with two bands — Shortcomings and InsertNameHere. The memories that Jesus made as a musician were the seeds that started the idea for the comedy, Houmans: The Series.