v Location/Time Buck Shaw Stadium 10:30 PM Est Video Fox Sports Ohio Audio 610 WTVN Weather 71 degrees 0% chance of rain Outlook After finally scoring a couple pretty goals after a 250+ minute drought, the Crew need momentum as they face an uphill battle this week. San Jose is the first of two matches against formidable west coast opponents (Sounders follow on Wednesday). Among many injured, Finlay and Marshall are out so there still isn't much depth in the roster. Fortunately Duka, Mendes, Birchall and Vargas may make the trip to add a little flexibility. Its going to be tough to play on the road against teams that don't suck. p.s. NUFC Fan indicated he would be without internet access for a while, so I'm setting this up.
Crew get one from the forward flavor of the match (aka not Renteria) - Lenhart gets a brace, we lose 2-1.
I've been wrong just about every time this year, so I'm choosing lose by two. We're going to the west coast, against a very good (second overall, 4-1-1 at home) SJ team, with a makeshift lineup at best. Coach Bob will do something goofy, like start Horton, and then play him the entire game or some other nonsense.
Should have Duka, Vargas, and Mendes back with the team, so the injury bug seems to be going away, piece by piece. If they are traveling, I'm assuming they are good enough to start if need be. What the line up should look like --------Vargas-------Renteria/Meram---------Duka-----DOR------Mirosevic--------Gaven--Vukovic------Williams-----Gerhig-----Miranda-HammerBench-Lampson,Tchani,Anor,Mendes,Renteria/Meram,Francis Prediction: 2-2 Mirosevic with a brace, including a penalty. Wondo in the first half, and Lenhart with a header late in the 2nd to steal a point at home. Feeling optimistic about this one. Might be all of the Xanax I just took, but whatever.
We are on the right track after an exciting come-from-behind win against a very frisky FC Dallas side. I feel like now that Meram and Miranda have scored, Mirosevic will have no problem scoring, since we are going in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, after Mirosevic, we will need to wait on Danny O'Rourke's goal - a wait which could last all season. Still, things are looking up. The Front Office was right to point out that we have been rising in the MLS Power Rankings (from 17th to 16th in one week alone!) and only one-third of our players are injured, down from 7/16ths of our players. San Jose is a difficult place to play because the locker room is in a different building and the only restrooms are port-o-johns. Lenhart has been on a goal scoring tear, but that has to stop soon, because we all know Steven Lenhart isn't very good otherwise we would not have gotten rid of him. I am not worried. I say we pull out a very respectable 3-0 loss on our way to our ritual machocistic spanking at the hands of Seattle.
I am looking forward to seeing this one, well except for the staying up late part. I see us getting some more goals, hopefully from the forward line, but I thing the defense will make a mistake at some point and we will end in a 1-1 draw. I am hoping that we do not get off to a sluggish start. I would love it if we could score first and even in the first half, that would be fantastic.
per jardy twitter carlos "the jackel" mendes, olman "castrol gtx" vargas and dilly "the duka" duka are all on the plane.
I benched all of my Crew players and started my San Jose players for my fantasy team. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Promotion playoff final in the morning, CL final in the afternoon and Crew game at night..... I'm already telling my liver I'm sorry for what is about to happen.
I am going with a 1-2 draw. Gaven scores. Lenhart works really hard but then remembers he is useless and scores nothing. Wondo gets one and a random fullback gets one when Andy comes way to far out to get a ball. It is time for one of those. At least one of the newly healthy gets injury.