Oh my Grabavoy. Good thing that went in, I was starting to get seriously concerned I had traveled back in time to 2012.
* Javi has committed 2-3 dumb fouls deep in our own half. Gotta cut that out. * Aside from the assist, Seba has turned the ball over in bad positions several times, leading to counters. * Kyle has been at the tip-top of his game throughout. Ned too.
Maybe those guys who think we overacheive viv-a-vis our goalscoring need to be credited more. What was their first reason? Nick Rimando. Sure showed it tonight.
Well, that's a relief. I guess it's good that Plata and Velasquez got some minutes without costing us points?
Listening to the after-game show on ESPN700, it apparently just started for something small last year. It seemed to affect his play, so people just keep doing it for fun. This would be a fun thing to do for each team. Pick only 1 player on each team for no specific reason and boo him the entire season.
So is our recent success and failure in the playoffs basically Nick? I mean, think about 2009. We're good enough to let him keep us around but we fail to score goals in key moments? Are we really just an above average team riding a great keeper? Some of the late give-aways from Sebastian and Beckerman about made me nuts. Stuck in NYC - it blew to not have MLS Live for half the game.
Gotta say, Portland had quality chances and could have won this game. Rimando is god. No way we win without him tonight. And, Kah is my least favorite player in the league. What a douche. I really want to like Portland, but I dislike so many of their players.
We win thanks to Rimando. Not sure Attinella makes all those saves. I didn't think Ned had all that great of a game. I can think of a few times where he just lost his dribble for whatever reason. I was upset at the time that we kept him on while taking Mulholland off. Credit to his goal though, it paid off keeping him in. KB had a good game, minus that horrible pass. Not sure if it was a bad touch, or just an unusual bad pass from him. Thankfully nothing came of it. One thing I loved, was two organic Believe chants starting up, we were maybe 20 seconds into the second one when Ned scores.
I was watching(?) on MLS game tracker and from what I got, it looked like RSL had some quality chances also and could have gone up by one or two goals before the half. This sounds like a normal soccer match. Each team gets quality chances, but the winning team is able to capitalize (what a cliched word) either thru luck (and not hitting the woodwork, a RSL forte) or the other team's mistakes. I don't consider RSL lucky to have won, I consider RSL lucky to have Rimando who as on his game tonight and be able to block those shots and Grabavoy who was able to get the shot pass Ricketts.