HOUSTON – The Houston Dynamo front office didn’t waste any time addressing the elephant in their locker room.
Just five days after their final game of the 2016 season, the Dynamo unveiled former Chivas USA head coach Wilmer Cabrera as their new manager on Friday. Cabrera beat out longtime assistant Wade Barrett, who led the team on an interim basis after Owen Coyle left Houston in May, for the head job.
Cabrera, flanked by Dynamo president Chris Canetti and general manager Matt Jordan, becomes the fourth coach in Dynamo history. For the front office duo, it’s their third head coach since Coyle was hired after the 2014 season.
Canetti called the decision to hire the next head coach a critical one.
“It was a decision and a process that was thoroughly vetted between the management team and the ownership team,” said Canetti. “We’re very confident that we found the right person to fill this job right now based on all the criteria, the qualities that we’re looking for in our next head coach.”
Cabrera, who last coached the Dynamo’s USL affiliate, Rio Grande Valley FC, to a second-place finish in the Western Conference in its inaugural season in 2016, brings a good deal of experience successfully developing young players to Houston.
He’s worked at several levels of the American game, serving as head coach of the US Under-17 national team from 2007-2012. During that time, he helped develop current MLS players Kellyn Acosta, Juan Agudelo, Sebastian Lletget and Dillon Serna, to name a few.
Based on Cabrera’s coaching history, Jordan called him a “teacher of the game” and praised him for having a “very defined view of the game and a clear methodology” in his coaching.
Jordan added that Cabrera’s hiring is in line with the current trend in MLS.
“When you look at clubs like NYCFC, clubs like FC Dallas, you look at clubs like Toronto FC, even New York Red Bulls — you see managers that also have a background in the game as a teacher, as a developer,” said Jordan. “This is still a teaching league.”
Developing young players will be key for the Dynamo, who don’t have a track record of making splashy Designated Player signings and will be looking to end a three-year skid of missing the playoffs in 2017.
Hiring Cabrera is step one in the process to returning Houston to relevancy in MLS. The next step will be free agency and reshuffling the roster.
“We want to continue to evolve and keep true to our core values, but also look to continue to evolve our identity,” said Jordan. “One thing that I can assure you is that a Wilmer Cabrera coached team, you know exactly what to expect when you watch his team.”
