Other Team Discussion Thread Vol. 12: Spoilers Within

I'll be nice but it consistently surprises me that an announcer who supposedly likes the game so consistently gets wrong the names of some of the biggest players in the world...

I hope not. Usually when a lousy team makes a coaching change, they get a short-term bounce; and we're their next match.

I understand. He probably doesn't follow the sport as much as he used to, simply because of age; but even so, you'd expect someone to learn the names just out of professionalism. I remember the work my dad put in with ADs for various schools getting player name pronunciations down in the week before a broadcast.

I have found that the internet has made me a less informative general sports fan. In the old days when I would pick up the paper, I would comb through the sports section and know what was going on with various sports. Now, my focus is on soccer. So while the internet opens you to the entire world, it depends what you click on.

Seems too soon for that. Maybe not.

Definitely. He's got some leeway.

I've never been a Dempsey fan, but obviously you have to respect his ability at this point. However, I didn't see him "do" much that would make 2 players suddenly fall over and a keeper barely dive.

That's a good point, and one that has been made many times in the general news realm with regard to national issues. We tend to only seek out what we want, and that includes facts.

I never thought about this applying to sports and other information as well.

Not only that, but he/they beat us in the last one**, so you'd think they'd at least let him ride one more match.

**Not counting the fact that they lost to Harrisburg in a friendly last night.

To take this further, in the olden days I used to know about lots of sports because I was combing through the sports pages looking for a one sentence snippet to find out if the USA qualified for the World Cup or not. Not anymore. In the olden days, I used to know lots about lots of different soccer leagues because to glean anything useful you had to read World Soccer or Soccer America or even NASoccer. Not anymore. I gather the Euros are happening right now, but I don't care. But I can tell you anything about the MLS Reserve League.

PS. American soccer fans don't know how good they have it compared to the bad old days.

So if the Phillies Union fires Nowak, will he still be the All-Star coach? Will his fall-guy replacement be the coach instead?

That is so, so true. It's a wonder anyone became a soccer fan before 1990.

well, let's see; there's the 1st touch, a slight drag back with the bottom of his right foot that changed the trajectory of the pass without putting it out of reach or stalling the ball underfoot, that took the first defender out, a defender who was preparing for a give and go with Johnson and not expecting Dempsey to go right because there was a covering defender on that side. In trying to arrest his movement to his right, the defender lost balance and fell down. The expression I like to use is that Dempsey broke his ankles.

Then the 2nd touch was a little inside-of-the-left-foot push that put the ball out of reach of the closing 2nd defender, but before the 2nd touch he had adjusted his feet and turned his hips so that after that 2nd touch he was able to turn and step to the ball immediately, the touch got the ball out of the way but at a speed that allowed him to catch up to the ball, then the calmness and ability to approach the ball and get around it without snatching at it so he could hit it hard and low back across the movement of both himself and the keeper. Oh and the 2nd touch was so effective because his first touch allowed him to adjust his feet and hips without the ball running away from him.

On the shot the keeper was coming off his line and moving to his left. By the time of the shot he was at the top of the 6 yard box. The GK did dive, but the shot was taken from within 10 yards of his position and to the keeper's right.

So 2 immaculate touches, each of which took out a defender and set up the next touch without the ball getting away, then a composed and clinical finish. I mean, I guess the trick in that is to let the ball do a lot of the work and to use your opponents' momentum against them. But that is extremely hard to do in practice.

Amen, brother. Testify!

We live in an era of niche culture. You can have your own personalized world with no need for any contrasting opinions or news. The Internet gives us less communication than more in many ways.

Nowak out. I hate the timing for us. In addition to the fact that it makes little sense to let him go after they advance in Open Cup just before they play the same team again. Dare we hope the PU management is just as crazy as the NJ management?

Nick S. did come to PU from NJ.

I don't understand these teams (Toronto and now Philly) that fire these managers after they've done the most massive player movement.

Novawk alienated their best 2 players, and got rid of them.

Not surprised.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that. Clint did everything exactly right (except maybe not finishing lower to the left post) and he well executed and earned the goal, but I just don't think there was any reason for guys to be falling all over the ground for it.

You don't know what you're talking about. **Plonk**

Anybody else think Nowak would make a credible replacement for Kasper?

I'm surprised because I think everything Nowak did he did with the PU approval or directive.

Now if Nowak applied for the Scottish team's managerial position without PU approval then I understand and that would be great because it's chaos but simply because of results is odd (assuming he did exactly what PU management wanted).

They had committed and he used it against them. Or he got lucky. He does it enough that I suspect skill more than luck.

the other thing is that a) he is really quick and b) he is technically very clean, so he can still react after defenders have committed themselves and make them look silly. 2nd touch is a perfect example...the little left-footed flick was simple, what was impressive was that he was able to take his first touch and in the time between 1st and 2nd he;
-had the ball in a position (close to his feet)
-had organized his feet
-had turned his hips, and
-had kept his head up to see the defender commit

...so that in the 1/2 second between the touch/defender committing and the defender arriving at where the ball was going Clint was able to recognize and take his quality touch that left the defender grasping at air.

And well that's the best I can do at explaining why I am impressed. It's all about time and space and he did the most he could with not a lot of either.

Bad timing, since it seems to suggest that the last straw was losing a friendly to the Harrisburg City Islanders! OTOH, maybe it makes perfect sense to jettison the guy who can't beat a second tier team.

Why do we face teams getting their post-coaching-change bounce so often?

To be fair, we've gotten a number of them axed as well.

I was impressed. but I also expect that of a player of his ability=pure execution.

But I've over committed in plays PLENTY in my life, and very rarely did I end up collapsing to the grass and taking myself out of the play completely, especially not without a lot of help from the surface.

Clint did his job very well, and those two guys clearly did not. That's luck to me.

In a game that doesn't matter? They let him gut the team with a purpose in mind. Now they just have a gutted team and a guy who may have known what the purpose was and may or may not share the vision, oh, and who hasn't really shown he can run an MLS team successfully.

I didn't even look for a match report, but I don't think we'd be surprised to find out the Union didn't play their first team all game long in the match, so yeah.

Seems weird to me.