Official: [2012 Matchday 7] Union v San Jose Earthquakes - April 28, 2012 p/d/p [R]

I used fewer words. I win.

Exactly there the top three teams, we win and chicago, columbus and montreal lose were in 4th place

You lost me at "we win"?

I will be MORE THAN HAPPY to buy a new Panamanian flag every time he scores. In fact, I would love to have to buy twenty of them by the end of the season.

you mean to say no to the union's leading scorer?

I guess you didn't read the post I quoted. The other poster said win and we're in 4th/5th place. Nothing about other results. Even if we win (on the road in Seattle), we'll have played more games than two of the teams currently in front of us and we can't catch the teams in the top three spots this weekend. Montreal is also currently ahead of us so it requires a hell of a lot more than a Union win for us to reach 4th place. We'll also have played 2 more games than Houston so it would be arguable whether ranking us ahead of them makes any sense.

But whatever...we'll see where we are at the end of the weekend. If you're so confident about all these results going our way, you can probably make a hell of a lot of money.

But. If all the teams lose every game from here on out, we will make the playoffs!!!!!

I think most people are thinking of him as an attacking midfielder with limited defensive responsibilities. Though I think his defense has vastly improved over the last few years.

I remember him playing successfully in a 4-3-3 for the u20s in 2007 and with the Olympic team recently, but I can't say I ever remember him in a 3-4-3, and I tend to think he's wasted playing as an out and out winger. Peter played him there at DCU, and I think he played there a bit for Aris and Benfica (though he also played as a forward, neither successfully), but IIRC his USMNT successes and his return to form at Rizespor both came from him playing centrally, high up the pitch.

Within the existing Union setup, it would make sense to me for Freddy to play centrally, right behind Pajoy, but the heat maps show that he's been increasingly tied to the wing. I am a believer in Freddy's ability and have been since I watched him dominate the 2007 u20 teams of Brazil and Uruguay, but I don't see the value in taking him farther away from the goal and making him play defense or trying to make him beat guys down the line for speed. Honestly I think you'd be better off benching him and playing an actual winger, and bringing Adu off the bench in the 60th.

Honestly, I don't see why Adu doesn't just switch spaces with Michael Farfan. I look at Marfan's heatmaps and I don't understand why anyone wouldn't prefer Freddy be in those spots (and maybe a little higher) than hugging the touchline.

This would also be good for Marfan, isolating him in more in 1v1's (at which he excels) and reduce the amount of time he spends in tight spaces (at which he's less successful).

One of the things that's pretty apparent is that the Union have almost entirely abandoned the middle of the field in the attacking third. I might make a separate thread about this, but the short version is that Adu's ability to combine and link play in that area to me far exceeds his value as a crosser of the ball, particularly when we've shown no real ability to get on the end of crosses with Pajoy. We'll see if Herling is a possible solution here, but he spent very little time in that space on Saturday.

I'm good at expounding upon what winners say.

Instead of potentially shipping Carroll to another team and having him kill what few offensive chances we might create, anyone think Carroll has enough in the tank to handle the left back spot?

for what, one game until garfan is back?

Exactly. Even the Farfan to Adu goal was created with Freddy playing centrally and Marfan on the wing. Putting Adu on the outside doesn't make a lot of sense unless we have someone who can finish his service. I can see the rationale for interchanging positions but what we have been doing is clearly not working on the offensive end.

We're last in the league in shots and shots on goal & bottom 5 in corner kicks.

I should note that Freddy played a lot of RW in the 4-3-3 for the U-23s. He didn't play centrally for most of that tournament and he played pretty well. Which might help if we were SKC.

Two man, 2! He was red suspended, with additional 2 games... 2 more games til he's back.

I do not think the number of goals scored this time in 2010 matters much since it was an expansion team with the new car smell. Last year there was still newness, I think fans latched on to a few key players, and as ugly as it was the team was not losing. They only lost seven times all last season.

This year I think we have a bigger problem, not for this year, but for next. Players were moved and new ones brought in because it was expected to improve the team in the attacking third. That has not happened and there is little evidence right now that it will turn around quickly. Last season, the early success allowed the Union to stay in the playoff hunt all year. There's a big hole right now and if the team takes a step back with showing the signs of life that the U showed from the opening of PPL through the end of the 2010 season, selling season tickets and renewals becomes a bit tougher to do if it's not much fun sitting down there.

Yes, definitely, he had a similar role with the u20s at times, too.

I think the issue is less having him play dead in the center and more about pushing him higher up the field. I think having him go endline to endline with chalk on his shoes like a traditional winger (like Justin Mapp, say), is a terrible waste.

Also, we should bear in mind that every single team Brian Carroll has been on thought that they had enough CDM's to go without him, and every single team has regretted that decision. I'd rather deal Okugo for someone like Sarkodie from Houston with the Lopez experiment looking dodgy.

we would be stupid to give up a rising player like Okugo. I wouldn't trade him away for anyone.

THIS. If BC was able to play against SJ, there's a good chance that one of those goals would have had a better chance of being prevented/snuffed out. His game isn't flashy and you rarely notice him out there, but he does a yeoman's job busting up opposing teams attacking play and also providing cover for the back four. He also helps mask the defensive deficiencies of our attacking players (Adu for one).

Okugo played a good match, but he's still relatively inexperienced. I don't think trading him is the answer either, as he has shown way too much upside. Unless they sell him to a European team, I say keep him.

Out of all of the players currently on the roster one would have to think that Lopez's time might come to an end earlier then expected. Unless he shows well in upcoming friendlies and any US Open Cup matches. Next would be either DM10 and/or JM9. Sure they've shown flashes of the players they could become, but they just aren't consistent performers. Not to mention JM9 will count against the cap next season, and DM10 is taking up a big chunk of the cap currently for very little return so far.

Agreed. He's almost as good defensively and he offers more on the attack than Caroll. His ball delivered to Pajoy over the SJ defense was perfect. This would have been ideal service for Le Toux. Mwanga or JackMac could have finished it as well.

I'm not really convinced of this. The goals were functions of SJ getting great service from the wings and Lenhart destroying our defenders in the air. Sloppy defending from McInerney and Adu led to the second goal. If Garfan and Daniel had played, we might have benefited from their ability to close down attackers on the wings.

I think the problem Nowak has is that he's got too many CDM's to go with Carroll. Carroll does a good job at what he does: he breaks up the other team's attack. He's not an attacker himself and generally offers little in going forward into the final third. I have no issue with Carroll playing, I have a problem with Nowak's system which has tended to prefer playing another defense-first-minded holding midfielder alongside Carroll. Doing this, which some refer to as the infamous "empty bucket," creates too much empty space in our midfield for manufacturing the kind of passing and movement in the midfield to build effective attacks. Such a formation is forced to rely, then, on quick counter attacks in which holding mids can win balls and then release speedy attacking players with precision passing, but it requires speedy attacking mids and forwards along with accurate passing!

I think we really need a true two-way central midfielder to play in ahead of Carroll (Gomez possibly could be that), and it would be glorious to have a genuine #10 as well. But I can dream.