I thought Bruce Arena 101 was to attack on the counter and play 1-0 bunkerball (boring!). Oh, and whine and cry about your team's schedule and the refs.
How often have we given up a goal in the last 5-10 mins though? Sure by scoring first we can always 'lose the lead', but what worries me more is dropping points at the end of the game. If a team ties or goes ahead earlier in the game, there's far more time to adjust personnel and tactics to get the lead back. When you're coughing up goals at the end of the game, there's far less you can do to adjust. Just look at the last game. Why is nearly everyone wide open? Why is there nobody covering the far post? It's little things that can cost points, and something as simple as having a guy on each post shouldn't be a thing we're worrying about. If we give up that tying goal in the 60-70 minute area, we have plenty of time to adjust and try and get the lead back. When it's the end of the game, there's not a whole lot you can do. Another frustration that comes from giving up a late goal, is now the other team has the energy and momentum. If they get another goal, we've lost, and there's not much we can do about it. If that same momentum swing happens earlier in the game, there's still time. Sure you can argue that the end result wound up being the same, but it's a far different game when you give up a late goal vs an early goal.
I see what you're saying, and I guess it's possible that RSL drops points in the last 5-10 minutes more often than other teams. Just remember that it has to be conditional on holding a lead in the first place. I haven't gathered the data on it, but based on the data I have seen I think that it's highly unlikely to be the case. Obviously, from the player's perspective this is something they should be working on and thinking about. They can always get better. Maybe it's fitness, maybe just a lapse in concentration, etc. Those are important things to work on, of course. But suppose this team is about as fit as they can be (both mentally and physically). Then are you arguing that they should let off a bit in the 60-70 minute mark in order to save some in the tank for the last few minutes? Doesn't that just open up the team to giving up a tying goal (or not scoring the winning goal) earlier on? Is that really better? It's a trade-off to some extent, and it's not obvious that RSL should err more on the side of saving more in the tank. BTW, there is also a trade-off with putting a guy on each post. If he's on the post, he's not covering a man, and thus you either have to put another person in the box or leave someone open. Again, it's not obvious that RSL is making a mistake by leaving the back post uncovered. They definitely made a mistake in not covering Edu (and all of the other Philly players that were open).
I'd appreciate it if you didn't use the term "we" when referring to Arena. I've never liked him as a coach.
I take a look at some Portland stats ahead of tomorrows match. Let me know what you think. http://ccb1212.blogspot.com/2014/04/statting-opposition-portland.html
This whole discussion reminds me of a boss who berates employees after realizing that 40% of all sick days are taken on either Monday or Friday (in his mind extending their weekend).
Hoping Plata is well enough to at least come off the bench, he always did really good against the timbers last year. If not then Garcia better be working on his finishing cause he had way too many chances last game to not have at least one goal.
To be fair, I've known plenty of people that do that for just that reason. Or calling in before or after a vacation. Certainly not all people fall under that, but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot did. What really cracks me up, is when I was still on day shift, I was typically in a fri-mon, thur-sun type working days. So I always caught flak whenever I called in, because it always fell under 'extending my days off', or 'taking off days on the weekend'. Re: goals. I'm not saying we need to back off and let a team back in it, but we need to find a way to last 90 minutes. Giving up these late goals won't help going forward if it becomes a trend. It'd certainly be nice if we could completely bury a game early on, but even after scoring 3 on SJ, we still allowed the late tie. I'm not in panic mode yet since it's still early on, but it is a worry and something we need to improve on. Those 4 missed points would have us top of the league.
Any tips for watching overseas? My fiance and his brothers well watch with me, so I hope RSL makes me proud today.
Welcome back Nick Rimando - except I did not switch out Attinella for Rimando on my fantasy team. Also: Plata is on the bench tonight with Sandoval, Seba, and Gil - we'll have some attacking options on the bench to be sure.
The MLS feed mentioned the RSL tifo, "Soccer for Dummies". Someone post a photo for all us non-attendees.
They showed normal matches during the summer because there wasn't any other soccer on the TV. One of the good things about playing in the summer, you don't have to compete with the rest of the world.
We can't find it on TV and not much luck online. First row sports is confusing. So many pop ups and stuff. Do they actually show games, too?