The "handball" in question showed quite clearly on the replay to have hit Jakovic in the left hip/abdomen. His hand motion was an artifact of his overall body motion. It took the third replay to see that, but the ball came into contact with his hip and rebounded after his hand was behind his body, but only just. Hainault was clearly committing a foul; the only question is whether it qualified as DOGSO or was merely a yellow. Yes, I think a week off after the first round would have helped immensely. Our gameplan would have been better served having Najar and a healthy Pontius not having to be subbed out 15 minutes in. We knew Russell would be open for exploitation.
Ack, don't say that, I've been wrong way too many times. I don't know. I think if we're going to play a single forward offense in which the dangerous opportunities come from wings running off that forward, Santos might be better. That's true.
This, particularly the quoted part. I do concede that Pajoy works hard, puts pressure on the other team, and does have a decent degree of technical skill. But his tactical awareness is shit.
This, 1,000 times, this. And he was ignoring Korb on his overlaps, too. After a while, Korb stopped making overlapping runs, and a ball was sent in the direction he would have been in, but watched the ball go out-of-bounds, because he wasn't expecting to actually receive it.
Houston fan here: props to those that traveled. you were seen and heard and repped your team well. it was obvious your team was lacking skill tonight (due to lack of players available), but with Olsen's 4-5-1 executed as well as could be expected, the game was competitive. on another day, you win this game. look forward to meeting you again in the playoffs. i don't see your team doing anything but improving year after year. ps Fck NY!
Let me go on the record saying that I don't think MLS is anywhere near competent enough to pull off a "fix". That said, bad reffing hurt us a lot today. Not burying the point-blank goal when we were up 1-0 hurt more IMHO. We do that and we're likely hosting the cup. All hail Deleon and Neal and the other mid-level players that put together an incredible 9 game unbeaten streak. That said, when Pontius, Saragossa and BMac are out, what should we expect? Russell played well in NJ, but to hope he'd play well enough on 2 days rest, well, you're talking Fox News Romney's gonna win stuff there. And Augusto? The only thing we could have done was bring in Dudar earlier and bunker even more, but I don't think the team would know what to do with more bodies in the back. Still need a plan. Pajoy is no mystery. His lack of finishing is epic. His hold up play is also pretty epic -- sometimes. What he doesn't have is field awareness. He's forward defense, but he should have come out at the 60 minute mark, but for injuries. I'm not sure how you put together what's left of this team to come back from a hole like this. Missing Najar, and possibly so many more, it would take a miracle... Cue Mel Brooks here...
They just overtly allow teams to blatantly break the rules and the USSF to ignore referreeing guidelines with no impunity. More like a "whatever works best" attitude sometimes. Thx, Jay!
That really annoyed me during the game. I hate when the commentator decides to take a stand on something that's not clear cut and Martino does that quite a bit. I initially wasn't sure, but the replays showed it probably wasn't handling, but even while the replay was playing he insisted it was.
Fair play, he insisted it the Hainault foul was a red card even after Peter Walton said it wasn't. Thx, Jay!
About what I expected. It was hard to watch DC play their reserve team in the Eastern Conference Final. Augusto had 0 minutes for this team before today. It's absolutely astonishing that he came in to the ECF and played out of position. But it tells you about the desperate state of the team today. I still believe. But if they fail to advance, beating RB in the manner that they did will still make this season a massive success.
Sure they are. Go look at LA's lineup over the past few years. Except it's not a "fix." It's called changing the rules as we go along and add DP's as yet another "star" wants to play in LA rather than be allocated elsewhere. Beckham Keane Donovan ...don't know what kind of salary Wihelmsson is on. What's that LA? Need another superstar? Sure, we can make that happen for you.
I don't actually think any fix is in, although it feels like it with all we've had to deal with. Also, I enjoy the Mel Brooks reference! Too bad Salazar chose to reference Silent Movie at the end of the first half.
I think the soccer gods owe us one here. We've been screwed out of home field, screwed out games with fan advantage, screwed out a straight up red card today,etc. We've been screwed left and right in this run. Soccer gods need to come to RFK and set things right. At least get us back to level and let our team have a chance let finish the job. If we don't so be it but I think the gods atleast owe us one level playing field.
My humble thoughts: first of all, I'm not going to jump on the j' accuse bandwagon, I am not going to jump to the throat of any of our players, not Pajoy, not Najar, not Hamid, nobody. These guys have been my heroes for the whole season, because - although technically we are not the best team - they gave heart and soul for the cause, and they reached an amazing result (second in EC, third overall) against all odds, adding - cherry on the cake - the elimination of the hated NYRB in a very unfavorable and controversial situation. Today we were good in the first half, then I think all the fatigue of the previous days, the injuries and missing so many starters eventually kicked in; in the second half we melted down, Houston was running twice as fast, especially they were running, period. We were kind of like walking on the field. Now we have a full week to recover and let's see what we can do. It's going to be extremely difficult, bordering the impossible, to recover these two goals and score a third on top, and if you have seen Houston play KC you can tell their team can defend extremely well. Plus, they have beaten us 3 times out of 4 this season, and even in our win at RFK, we had to sweat a lot. But we are in the situation of who has nothing to lose anymore, so we may as well try... We can sure win the game, I don't know if we can win with a 3 goals margin.
One more thing: while the level of the league has dramatically improved these last years, unfortunately we can't say the same for the referees. They are at least 5~7 years behind the speed and quality of the game. Their approach to the game is sometimes borderline amateurial. I don't know what can be done for this, but it's a big problem for this league. In fact I can't even think of a US referee medium~big name on the international scene...
It's not over. It will be difficult but doable. KC almost pulled it off and they were smoked a lot worse by Houston at Houston. They were very wasteful with their chances in their home leg. Houston went in there hoping not to get shelled and they got lucky that they didn't lose 3-0 with all the prime chances KC missed. United actually matches up with Houston very well. Our team has a clogged midfield and as much bite as they do. United has defenders who clear set pieces well (except when they snooze on a quick set piece). United is also a more skilled team that is geared towards a field that is 110 by 75 yards rather than 120 by 70. Houston doesn't deal with a properly wide field all that well. United will create chances at home. If they can finish one in the first half, it's game on. If they're healthy, they'll take it one goal at a time.