On Thursday the trade was finalized between the Montreal Impact and Houston Dynamo to send Brian Ching back to the Bayou City. Ching was left unprotected by Houston in the expansion draft and Montreal selected him. What ensued was a long, strange saga full of drama. Now that Ching has been traded back to Houston (for a draft pick) the question has to be asked, was it all worth it?
The impact (no pun intended) of Ching on the field is one story but let’s first start with what he means to this team and this city. Brian Ching is the Houston Dynamo. When the team moved from San Jose to Houston, Brian Ching was the superstar everyone became familiar with. When the team played its first MLS game in Houston it was Ching who scored four goals and made the city instantly fall in love with the Dynamo. It was Ching who helped raise two MLS Cups and score a vital playoff goal to make another finals run in 2011.
For these reasons alone most Dynamo fans will tell you they needed Ching back. It had to be done in most fans’ eyes. With the opening of BBVA Compass set for this season it would have felt empty without Ching. Some have called it the “House that Ching Built” and for him not to be there for its opening would have most feeling hollow. If you search #ChingIsBack on Twitter you will hear nothing but excitement from Dynamo fans.
It’s not only the fans that are excited to have Ching back, it’s also his teammates. When talking to Colin Clark last week he told us, “He’s a true professional, whenever he was on the field he was giving it his all to help the team earn a result. He sets a great example on the field of how to train and play.” These are things that you can’t put a price on. To the guys in that locker room Ching is their backbone. They looked to him last year when they sat with a record of 5-7-9. They listened to his leadership and experience. As Clark said, “He’s played at the top level for so long that he knows what it takes to win and he’s good at relaying to the team what it will take to win.”
On the field, Ching has battled numerous injuries in the past few years and he is not getting any younger. The big Hawaiian will turn 34 this season. He played in 24 games last season, including the playoffs, and scored 6 goals and had 1 assist. He scored 4 of his 5 regular season goals in one 5 game stretch. He has never been the type of forward with pace that took on defenders and created his own shot. He is still an aerial threat on set pieces like he has been for most of his career. Why not start the season with Calen Carr, Will Bruin, and Cam Weaver as options to start at forward? Weaver and Bruin are similar players to Ching but much younger and Carr gives you a change of pace with his speed. Carr’s concussion scares probably worry the Dynamo front office and Weaver and Bruin have shown, like a lot of forwards, that their production can come in spurts. With a healthy Ching and Carr in the lineup last year, the Dynamo were dangerous on the offensive end.
If you want to take shots at the Dynamo front office for how this whole situation was handled, feel free to do that but we really don’t know what happened behind the scenes. (That is a topic for a whole different article) If you want to look at this whole thing from a pure soccer standpoint, maybe the Dynamo were too enamored with what used to be, a player that was great but is in the twilight of his career. Ching even said in his return to Houston that this is likely his final season in MLS. If you look at those things then you’re not seeing it from Houston’s perspective. On May 12th when BBVA Compass Stadium opens and Ching is announced to a sea of orange clad fans, there will be a loud roar that will shake the downtown skyline. The captain is back. The leader is back. The heart and soul of the Dynamo is back.
(image courtesy of Getty Images)
