agreed, i thought the team responded well to that early chicago chance, got a little attack oriented themselves, but when your maestro comes off with an injury it kind of throws a wrench in the strategy. i thought they stayed organized defensively well enough, even with chicago obviuosly going after steeles side of the field (who played horrible). i thought a point was deserved, chicago didnt have any really really dangerous chances outside the orduro header. on to seattle who throttled dallas tonight.
Paulo looked more active than Sabo, just sayin. Sabo played good other than taking to many touches on the ball sometimes and his typical bad passing.
That card on Beckerman was a joke. He tosses the ball to the ref and gets a yellow, yet Beckham can throw the ball 20 yards at the ref to protest the foul and get away with it. He probably shouldn't have done it but the ref takes far more abuse verbally than whatever Kyle did on that toss.
disagree, his touch was really bad tonight and put RSL in bad positions multiple times defensively as well as cost them at least one really good chance offensively. also, it was abundantly clear that chicago's strategy was to go at steele's side of the field when on the attack, they abused the left side of the field early in the first half (and steele got smoked on their first opportunity off the cross bar), then when steele switched sides chicago attacked the right side for a while. he didnt do a good job relieving pressure, multiple times i saw him just walking or trotting when chicago was moving forward where he hsould have been pressing from behind or filling passing lanes. he also has a tendency to run up to plays and plant his feet which is a HUGE no-no, he cant burned a couple times really badly because of this. stay on your damn toes and directionally force the play if you cant get a boot on the ball. he did far too much chasing tonight which limited his effectiveness in the midfield. you know you are having a bad night when the coach switches your sides because the opposing team is abusing you so badly. and then they change their strategy and go up the other side. johnson is actually disruptive in his role and johnson has a very high rate of passing completions which relieves pressure. steele doesnt have that capability from what i've seen in his starts. his touch lets him down more often than not and it forces him to take more than one or two touches to get the ball moving. this creates unnecessary pressure for himself and puts the team in a bad position. anyways, like i said, as a late game sub it's ok since he has fresher legs to go at tired players and he is very calm on the ball in those late goal scoring opportunities. he's not a 90 minute midfield player though, not composed enough, doesnt play fast enough, doesnt have a good enough touch.
I thought Kyle got the yellow for telling the ref off, I don't recall him throwing the ball during that play.
beckerman said something naughty to marrufo, and everyone knows it doesnt take much to set marrufo off with his cards.
It looked like Kyle just tossed the ball to the ref (from game highlights). If he said something and got a card, Kyle needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, but if the ref is giving cards for players saying something as they run by then neither team would end up with any players on the pitch.
looked more active, meh, a useless thing in a match IMO. a guy can run around like a chicken with its head chopped off and look very active. sabo is actually EFFECTIVE. how many times do you see him getting a flick on the ball off clearances from rimando/reynish? all the time. how many times does he get at least a touch on a ball coming into his area of the attacking third? all the time. how many times does he get a head on the ball trying to redirect towards goal? all the time. these things are at least effective in their purpose, they may not create dangerous chances on goal, but they force the defense and opposing players to change their reactions. forcing the defense/opponent to change and react differently is highly effective, instead of them just receiving an easy ball or making a simple clearance. it creates a moment where things are unsettled for them and allows our players to make choices to put RSL in a better position (instead of just putting us back on our heels immediately). this is far more effective and important than just running around and looking active.
In the post game show Kreis complemented Steele and Grabavoy for their tracking back to help double-team the speedy and effective wingers of Chicago. I think maybe we are not seeing the same things as Kreis... wait... some of us may not even be noticing what Kreis is treating as the most important contribution of the player, that's it!
Missed the first half, hope Morales did not suffer a bad injury. Agree with most that Steele is not the answer, unless we need a late goal, he seems to do well in those situations. If Kries is going to sit on his subs match after match instead of using them to tactically adjust his teams play, why does he bother to come out at half time? Tonight RSL looked to be playing for a point at about the 70th minute, if that is the case? Kreis needs to start subbing players who are better suited to accomplish that task. All in all a point on the road is a result. Good night!
I think you just inadvertently discribed Wil Johnson to the tee. Paulo did not look bad tonight, I think some time on the pitch will give him some confidence and RSL will need another inform striker as this season progresses.
He did a ton tonight. By the end he was tired and still doing his job which was to be a credible threat up top to keep Chicago from bringing their back line all the way forward.
That's all nice and dandy but when Paulo got the ball he did something with it or passed it back out to another RSL player. I really can't say the same for Sabo. I'd have to re-watch the game but It seems like Sabo killed more plays than Paulo did. One thing I'm a little disappointed about is Paulo use to attack the defense when he was on the outside, now he holds up the ball. I'm sure he's just doing what Jason wants but I think this is what RSL is lacking. Epsy and the old Paulo were the only ones who ever dared.
I totally agree.last sat he hardly subbed again when we were up also. Like I said earlier these 12/13 players can't play all mins of every game throughout the season. Against weaker teams tanaka, Vasquez Alvarez need to play some.
Rather than post a swear filled rant, I shall sum up it to this: "I was hoping we'd lose. So there would be no positives"
I'll take an away point. I thought we played pretty well and the more time any player gets in the game will only help us in the long run.
oh was he the ONLY one who went 180 mins in 4 days? NO Ned , Kyle, Chris, Tony, also did and they were running up to final mins. At the very end when we were going defensively he was walking around. Yes our other two forwards did nothing also but Saborio didn't score either..I should lay off Saborio because you say so???? You certainly were constantly on Steele . I for one ,against a team like this, didn't think he did that bad of job. In your wisdom who should of played instead of him to replace Johnson? Also I would like your input on our bench and this long season ....
Some of us are critical of Sabo, others of Steele, I for one am critical of Both When your star striker is siting on 4 goals after 12 matches its ok to bitch, when Kreis makes a guy like Steele a 90 minute player over a player like Gil, it's also o.k. To bitch. Really am interested in exploring why Jason is so hesitant in making substitutions in the last few matches, Seems he is a little spooked.
I wasn't able to watch this one. Anyone care to give me their assessment on the following? 1. Gil--how did he look at AM this game? Once again, according to the Chalkboard, he didn't have many touches (only 45 in 61 minutes of play--while Javi had 32 in 29 minutes). Was he involved? Effective? 2. Olave--based on the highlights it looked like he had two pretty major errors. First, he left Oduro wide open in the 4th minute when Oduro headed it off the post. Second, in the 54th minute (or at 4:45 in the highlights) Olave slides for a ball that he totally misses, leaving Schuler alone to deal with Oduro. How was Olave overall? Seems like he's just not himself right now... 3. Paulo Jr.--really poor finishing on two occasions. I thought we all liked Paulo because he seemed to get nearly everything on frame. How was his night overall?
Going through the thread from last night and saw this. It's funny how different people's aesthetic opinions can be. In my mind, the Fire's brand is one of the best in MLS. Changing it would be an absolute travesty. It's one of the only original brands that did things exactly right, IMHO.
My feelings on the match: The draw was a just result. Yeah, Odurro missed his header (sure to be on not goals of the week) from inside the 6, but that really was their only chance. Sabo and PJ had half chances, as well. The midfield battle in this game was really enjoyable. I thought Beckerman was the guy who stood out above them all, but Grazinni and Pappa proved their quality on a few occasions. If that Chicago team can find a decent partner for Oduro (not Nyarko, he should be on the wing) then they are set to make a lot of noise. Steele is not a 90 minute player, but the situation of suspensions and injuries dictated that he became one. It reminds me of Andy last year. The guy isn't supposed to start, but Kreis is forced into that position. Steele had some really really bad moments, but overall wasn't terrible. Paulo Junior sucks balls. Kreis makes it sound like (in post game interviews) Paulo is capable of finishing a lot at practice. For whatever reason, the guy couldn't finish a happy meal in a real game. Sabo haters are up in the night. He was our only form of attack for roughly 75 minutes. He should have been subbed off in the last bit as he was sucking wind, but Kreis had his hands tied with only having 1 sub left. Bitching at our target forward for not making a sprint back defensively is way too harsh. That's not his responsibility. He is supposed to track the oppositions CB's first and foremost. If you want to get mad at someone for not covering defensively at the end of the game, look at Bonfigli. Reynish looked rusty and nervous as I'll get out. A better team punishes him for those gaffes. Lucky for us, the Rimando injury came at this time instead of on the weekend @ Seattle. Overall, this wasn't as bad of a game as some of you on here are making it out to be. The defensive line adjusted after 15 minutes of somewhat sucking to really shut down any true Chicago attack. The midfield, especially through Beckerman, dictated the match. The strikers missed 2 things. Javi (after being subbed off) and Espy. We never had a lethal pass after Javi went off, and we never really had a player like Espy opening up space for others (especially Sabo) to exploit. I'll take the road point and, more importantly, the clean sheet.
My thoughts: Does anyone know Gil's pass completion percentage? Sometimes I wonder if he is confused which team he is playing for. Sabo and PJ both need to take less touches. There were far too many instances last night where they both lost the ball when they had plenty of passing options. I thought Olave looked much better last night than he has lately. He still had a couple of mistakes, but overall was solid. Schuler is a beast and is making a very good case for himself to see a lot more time on the pitch. Steele runs his tail off. Even in stoppage time he was sprinting all over the place to help out. But that's about the only positive for him last night. Everyone keeps talking about how he can play such deadly crosses, but all I've ever seen from him is crosses that go to no one or over the end line. Where did this information come from that he is such a great crosser? Beckerman wasn't on a yellow card warning so who cares if he got a silly yellow? Doesn't really matter in my opinion. He was fantastic in the midfield. I don't know about anyone else, but I am growing tired of counterattacking opportunities turning into possession along our back line. There was one point in the second half yesterday where PJ and Sabo had a 2v2 situation and the ball ended up going all the way back to Reynish. I remember seeing something like that happen during a Manchester United match a few years back and their home fans booed them for not attacking. Overall, happy with the point. This was one of those weeks that I was worried we were going to come away with 0 points, so 1 is fine in my book.