Actually, the RSL announcers need to stand corrected I love how they got all self righteous about Montreal fouling and quote numbers that aren't correct, but never comment on how much Beckerman fouls (he has committed the most fouls of anyone in the league so far). And last year, RSL committed the third most fouls in the league, and committed 32 more fouls than they suffered. People think that other teams resort to hacking RSL to stop their offense, but RSL's forwards foul a lot, and their midfielders and defenders also foul quite a bit.
3....at this rate, he's going to be sitting out a lot of games and paying lots of fines. Hopefully Yallop is talking to him about calming down a bit - it's one thing to get yellows for fouling when he's just being physical and working hard against the defense. It's another to get one for stupidly kicking the ball away from the keeper, which he did against Seattle.
The Dallas result last night pushes the filth even lower in the west...LMFAO! I hope Sporting KC stomps them a new mudhole this Saturday!
Yeah, but for the good of the Quakes it would have been much better for Dallas to lose or draw. Dallas did have tough luck with injuries in the match, though, with Villar leaving with what looked to be a bad leg/ankle injury, and John leaving with a possible concussioin. Villar was the backup to Ferreira, and now Dallas is down to their 3rd option for their attacking central midfielder.
Donovan just tried to permanently remove Kei Kimara's knee from service. 1-0 in stoppage time. edit: it's a win! Great half time bit on Kimara.
After stumbling out of the gate New York is heating up in a hurry. Henry is on fire, seven goals already. Toronto is tanking, along with the filth from smog city.
NY will be a tough, tough test. Compared to this game, I won't be nearly as upset if we lost. I know we can win, we should even be able to score, but preventing their front line from scoring will be damn difficult.
Ya know, I think that kid has grown up a lot since he was with the Quakes (I mean Kamara, not Landycakes). Back then he was having a lot of problems with the situations in his family and country.
Indeed. Henry is making it look way too easy. He's not even celebrating when he scores, like it would be shameful for celebrating for a goal that was too easy or increases his team's lead by 3, etc. The Energy Drinks have all of their offensive pieces clicking together now. Looks like next week will be our back line's toughest test yet!
He and Cooper play well together. But what's interesting to me is how integral Henry is. Many of their offensive plays start with him - he'll take the ball at midfield and set up the play himself. If you shut down Henry, you will shut down Red Bull. They have no other weapons. Dane Richards? Lindpere? Mehdi Ballouchy? Nah.
Dane Richards and Lindpere are both offensive weapons, it isn't exclusively Henry. Red Bulls no doubt have a powerful offense. But their goals against isn't that great. I think if we can win the possession game winning this is possible. If we bunker, we lose. No doubt it will be a challenging game. I hope we have Lenhart and Chavez both back to apply pressure all over the field.
You're right, that's some hyperbole on my part. My point is that you have to make those other players beat you by marking Henry out of the game. While they are all fine players, Lindpere, Richards, and company do not strike fear into their opponents' hearts.
Pretty good week for the Quakes with other West teams - Seattle draws, Portland loses, LA loses. Too bad Dallas lucked out with the last minute goal and got the win. Would have preferred a RSL-Colo tie, but at least Colorado losing helps keep them behind the Quakes. So far I think that Vancouver, RSL and Colorado are all playing pretty well. Dallas and Portland have had spells of good play, but in every game they've also had poor spells. Dallas is suffering most with injuries, and Portland's defense just doesn't look very good. I expect both of those teams to continue to struggle for a while at least, particularly defensively.
Man, Dallas really lucked out tonight and got a come from behind win over Montreal. Two weeks in a row they take 3 points when it looked like at best they would draw. And too bad Chivas got the win in Toronto - I still don't think Chivas is that good of a team, but they're learning how to win on the road, and that makes them dangerous. Don't look now, but they're in 4th place in the West. Seattle beating Colorado is probably good for the Quakes, although a tie would have been better. And for the final match of the night, it's fun watching LA and Portland play in the match between the bottom of the table teams in the West Rooting for a tie, but if someone has to win I hope it's Portland.
Yeah - who would have ever predicted that going into the game next week with RSL the Quakes would be playing for first place in the West????
Bummer....LA came back and beat Portland 3-1. Portland in a downward spiral and LA climb out of the basement of the West. LA didn't really play that well, Portland had chances to score a second goal and get the draw...and then Beckham scored on a laser from 25-30 yards out in stoppage time to put it out of reach.
What in the hell was Portland thinking they could get away with bunkering most of the game. If they want to win they need to start pressuring for the ball before it is 30 years away from goal. Portland has enough pace to press for the ball way higher up the field than they were tonight. And if they are giving up goals in the last 15 minutes of the match it make you begin to wonder if that team isn't fit.
Really too bad that LA came back for the win last night, it would have been great to see them in last place in the West still. Although it's almost as nice to see Portland down there, after pretty much everyone (including Mark) were drooling over Portland in preseason and saying how good they were going to be! And it's looking like Chivas is going to be a tough team to play, they play good defense and can manage to sneak in a goal here and there. Unlike the East, it really looks like there are no easy wins in the West. It's impressive that Kansas City is 6-0, but I have to say that the games of theirs that I've watched, they haven't really been that impressive. They play very aggressively and challenge for every ball, but they leave openings because their fullbacks go so far upfield. And it's not like KC have scored a ton of goals - other than the 3 goals they scored when they were up a man against New England, they've scored 6 goals in 5 games. All of their wins are by one goal, they just seem to know how to get ahead and close out a game (or score late to win it). It's too bad that the Quakes have to travel to KC to play them, I'd really like to see that match in person.
Yeah, very good for the Quakes. Vancouver didn't look very good until the final 15 minutes, and then they generated a lot of scoring chances. Hopefully KC can do the same to Portland this weekend. Outside of KC, not many East teams are having success against the West so far (KC has 5 wins, the rest of the East has 6 - 2 each for NE and Houston, and 1 each for New York and DC).