Friday, August 07, 2009

Final Farewell to Onalfo

Today, former Wizards coach, Curt Onalfo gave a farewell to Wizards' fans via The Back Post. Onalfo says that he loves and appreciates the support of the fans and tells them to continue to support the team in the future.

While Onalfo's time with KC wasn't the most successful, he did at least bring the Wizards out of the worse situation they were in when he was hired before the 2007 season. Under Onalfo, the Wizards went 27-29-22, making the conference finals in the 2007 season and the conference semifinals in 2008. In the playoffs, Onalfo went 1-2-2, the lone win, a 1-0 win over Chivas USA in the 2007 MLS playoffs. Onalfo led KC to two straight US Open Cup Quarterfinal appearances, going 2-1-2, both times going out to the Seattle Sounders (USL and MLS version). Finally, in his only appearance in an international competition (the Wizards first since 2005) Onalfo went 0-1-2 in this year's SuperLiga.

Onalfo's attacking style didn't bring the goals that many Wizards' fans were hoping for when Onalfo was named coach back in November of 2006. In his 2 and a half seasons, the Wizards scored 102 league goals under Onalfo, which placed KC in 9th place of the 13 teams that have played all the games of the past two and a half seasons (meaning no San Jose or Seattle). Not exactly the offense you'd expect unfortunately. On top of that, the Wizards never really had much luck in blowing teams out, as only 1 under Onalfo did the Wizards win by 3 or more goals, and that was the team's home opener back in 2007 against, then expansion side, Toronto.

Still, knowing his history and what he's been through, and the "goodbye" message Thad posted, you still have to respect the man. Good luck Coach Onalfo in your next position (unless it's against the Wizards), with what you've already over come, this shouldn't be any harder to get by.

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