I don't even know what to think... other than I can't stand Pajoy as a player. Okay, other than two brief naps it was a solid performance from a banged up group. Wait, for the love of all things sacred what is Pontius thinking taking that kick knowing that his groin is about to fall apart?
The injuries we faced were completely abnormal for us. No team in the league has faced the same issues we face right now at any point in the season. Putting in a trialist who blows a third goal? Forcing Jakovich out wide? If Houston were any good they'd have run up the score.
I'd like to thank...in no particular order... The League; for a playoff schedule designed to injure the maximum number of players. Ref Salazar; for your epic, game deciding cockup.
I don't see us coming back down two goals. However, give the boys all the credit in the world for battling. But there are just too many injuries too many people out, and too little rest between games. And we just could not get that call that would have changed the game completely. Frankly, the DC United side of the playoff was a farce. The combination of inexperience and the schedule killed United. What team in the League is bringing in players to a Conference final that are making their debut in MLS - give me a break.
Between the league bullshit, the injuries and Salazar BLOWING what should have been a red card (sorry - that other defender back would have not had any chance of getting involved in the play), DC just seems to be cursed this post-season. (While I was writing the above, Pajoy was whistled two more times for offside.) R.
Salazar is shit. There was a free kick in the first half where a United player stood in front of the ball to stop any quick kick. Salazar blows his whistle, ostensibly to stop the kick to mark the 10 yards because he had already blown the whistle once for the foul. Well, the United player fell back away from the ball to await the restart whistle, which never came because Houston didn't wait for the whistle, took the quick kick anyway and Salazar let it go! Once that happened I had a feeling something bad was going to happen with a quick restart. United should have been more alert. I don't blame Salazar for the Hainault takedown because he was blocked, but I would have hoped the side judge would have caught it. Aw man, I don't want to see this run end, just when they're starting to really ball. 2 goals is probably too much, but at least United is still playing.
Gutted. Congratulations @HoustonDynamo on an amazing inaugural season at BBVA Compass Stadium! #MLS— Larry Tiscornia (@LarryTiscornia) November 11, 2012
DCU just ran out of bodies. They all sucked it up, but you can't lose 3 starters to injury during a game. Yeah Salazar ********ed up the call at half-time -- just another jackass referee to dislike. You can't count on those douches doing anything right, sometimes you get lucky because they get it right, sometimes you're not. There are two entities that I'm pissed at. MLS for putting such a cocked up playoff schedule together -- at the end of the season, space the games a week apart. Does the NFL force a playoff team that played on Sunday to play again on Wednesday? Just bush league. The second one I'm pissed at is Andy Najar. Thanks to your petulant brain fart, Olsen had to go with the very bad matchup of Russell on Kandji. Your pace would have negated much of Kandji's game, but no, you just had to show up the ref.
Yeah, Najar's absence hurt a lot. Here's my (possibly -- OK, likely -- overly optimistic) prediction for Sunday: 2-0 DCU in regulation (incl. a PK). DeRo scores in extra time to put us in the final. Vamos!
I can't blame Lionard Pajoy for this result. This sort of outcome was sealed by: Our missing our starting left back, and having to play Robbie Russell out there. Russell's a great guy and a fighter; but I can run faster than him now. Every time he was beat for speed, he turned and slowly jogged back toward the center, and Jakovic had to come out and play right back, leaving a gaping Jakovic-shaped hole in the middle of the defense; Three injury-related substitutions coming way early. Those two things alone were enough to explain this result. That said, we were done no favors by Pajoy. He was awful. In his worst match ever, David Stokes never played as bad as Pajoy did tonight. OK, Dave, maybe not that bad; but close. MY GOD HE WAS AWFUL. At one point in the second half, after we'd spent all our three subs, I was actually hoping he'd go out with an injury: playing 10-on-11 might have been better for us, because we wouldn't be passing the ball to him so he could turn it over or be called for just hanging out and having a smoke in an offside position. I mean, good lord, he was just incredibly unbelievably bad. Stunningly bad. If you'd told me that that Dalai Lama was arrested for breaking into houses at night and fornicating with narcoleptic little girls, I wouldn't have been as shocked as I was by how bad Pajoy was.
What for it. Chris is about to get on and tell us how Olsen's utterly brilliant approach to the game ensured we would have Pajoy out there so that he could work hard.
My wife was rooting for him to get a yellow for dissent, so that he couldn't play the next match. Usually the voice of reason in our house, I was having a hard time arguing against it.
I'm having a really tough time remembering a worse performance by a DCU player in the post-Nowak era. Since that includes 2010, that's really saying something. I'm torn. On one hand, I don't want to harp on it, because I think we were well and truly fscked even without his abortion of a performance. He didn't lose us the match. But one thing's for sure: he gave us no help at all.
Of course, it wasn't like we could sub him out, either. If our run ends in this series I'll be gutted, but our guys did us proud this year, no question. How many of us predicted reaching the ECF, much less finishing second in the East? Especially given the bizarro lineups which mysteriously worked for so long. That said, burn the Dynamo next week. BURN THEM. Then fly back down to Houston and salt the grounds from whence they came.
The post set it up. But he did come close. He also made one nice run to the endline which was called for a goal kick that, from what I saw, should have been a corner. That and three goals in the second leg might make up for how bad he was tonight. It might.