When Curt Onalfo was fired mid way through the 2009 season it wasn’t a huge surprise.  The Wizards were poor in 2008, and although they made the playoffs they crashed out to eventual MLS Cup winners Columbus Crew in the first round.   The 2009 season had the team taking a further step backwards and as the goals, wins and even draws started to dry up it became all to obvious that a change was required.

There was little dissent amongst the faithful when Onalfo finally left, but there were question marks as to why Peter Vermes was sticking around.  As the Technical Director for the Kansas City Wizards Vermes was responsible for some key areas, not least bringing in talent to augment and improve the squad.  Appointed in November of 2006 Vermes has presided over three full seasons as the technical director.  Long enough to have a major impact upon the measly MLS squad sizes and may where surprised to see that he didn’t depart with Onalfo.

Vermes took over Onalfo’s coaching job, first as interim where he finished the season with a modest 3-7-2 record.  We finally got confirmation that he was not going to relinquish the role in November 2009.  2010 is the year we get to see what Vermes really has to offer and how good of a job he has done building a squad.

Jimmy Conrad, Davey Arnaud, Jack Jewsbury, Lance Watson and (out of contract) Eric Kronberg are all that remain of the pre-Vermes era, everybody else has been brought into under his watch. In a rare situation in MLS Vermes has hand picked his own players and now he gets to coach them with almost no oversight.  He is still Technical Director.

This off season has seen no shortage of changes. No fewer than twelve players have come or gone include Kai Kamara resigning, Claudio Lopez who I do not expect to return and a mystery English player that we supposedly have signed who is as yet unnamed, and apparently not important enough to have been missed by the rabid British media.

By the time this is all said and done we may find that 15-16 players have either made their way into or out of the squad.  As slow as the early season business seemed to be the pace has gone through the roof and the 2010 Wizards are destined to be a different outfit entirely from 2009.

On 27 March 2010 when we kick off against Onalfo, DC United and potentially Adam Cristman in the season opener we will have our first real idea how this torrent of fresh blood will affect things.  If Peter Vermes manages to get the Wizards into the playoffs, if we manage to score more goals than we concede, finish with a winning record and maybe even play the “attractive attacking football” that we have been promised during his tenure already then one man alone will be able to take the bulk of the credit.

Unfortunately for Vermes succeeding in 2010 is not an option, but a requirement.  With strong ticket sales being a must for a 2011 stadium launch we simply have to compete, and if not, one guy has been pulling all the strings and making all the moves.  He will certainly take the blame if we fail.