yep, it seemed very conceivable to me when I saw the opening schedule that we could have easily been at 0 points right now with a heck of a GD hole to climb out of (I meant goal differential but many other abbreviations may apply ).
Under the "fwiw" category this early in the season: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/mls12.htm Here are Jeff Sagarin's adjusted standings (for strength of schedule, goal difference, and home/away) before the Seattle game (as of when I looked it up at 12:20 on Monday). Not much should change here, as home field is worth .42 so far this year, but Seattle was rated .40 above us, so we did almost exactly as expected. It puts us within tiny fractions of fifth place. http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/MLS.html And this is our playoff odds (again before the Seattle game, as of this writing), which have fallen from the 52.6% 'blank slate' expectation at the beginning, but not by much, only to 46.8. (Sports club stats considers home and away [but has an option not to, the 50/50 link at left], but not strength of schedule, and randomizes all the results after what has already been played.) In other words, if the goal is making the playoffs, we haven't lost a lot of ground at this point, because we've lost to teams we're supposed to lose to and/or the other teams haven't vaulted ahead. The season making-or-breaking games are yet to come.
Lol, yeah. But some teams have gleaned a lot more info about what has happened so far than others. The Galaxy already knows for sure that this season won't go like last one did (they led wire-to-wire). In fact, having already spotted the leaders 12 points, it's already pretty unlikely they'll take the Shield. So it depends on where you sit vs where your expectations were. DC's point total is, so far, not very far from expected, I'd think (and not very far away from mid-table).
We just won a game I (and probably everyone in the organization) and all other fans expected us to tie at best and more likely lose as we have all of the past 3-5 years.
Before Pontius made me a very happy man, I had that, "This has that 90+ game losing goal game written all over it" feeling.
An optimist would be excited because I was thinking the exact same thing around the 85th against Seattle. 4 points from 2 games where we were tied at the 70th minute is fine with me and a major improvement from previous years. Beat the teams you are supposed to and hang with the teams you are supposed to. Now all we need to add is some wins against teams that are better than us. We'll have a chance against a very hot Red Bulls team next week.
That Pontius goal should be a big boost for Olsen. The first month of this season some of his decisions were being scrutinized by the fans, the media and the pundits on the podcasts. You have to wonder if some of that questioning would of trickled down into the locker room if the results would of kept being bad. The way this goal played out ... 2 minutes after a substitution ... makes it seem like a coach's goal. Let's be honest, Pontius wasn't the obvious sub. Boskovic and Najar were also on that bench. There could be some level of vindication in that locker room. It comes off like the coaching staff do have a plan, and if the players buy into it the team can win.
I thought Pontius was more obvious as a first sub. Personally I was calling for Najar instead, Cruz had worn out everyone on that side. I do not understand the Wolff sub at all. The Korb sub was a necessity and probably delayed the last sub. Can't say I expected it to be Pontius, but it sure as hell turned out nicely I did enjoy reading that Pontius has been playing forward in practice - and now he's got himself a little game time there to go with it
I think the Wolff sub was to help steady the game and possession, given that when he went in, we were in the midst of a ping pong match. I don't know that it worked terribly well (through no real fault of his own, mind you) but that's the idea I took from it.
Olsen said after the match that the front line had gotten stagnant and there wasn't much movement and he needed to inject a bit of pace. Say what you will about Josh Wolff, but he will go balls out and he did manage to get behind the back line (only to fluff his shot). Santos and Salihi aren't exactly guys who can get behind defenses like Wolff can. Obviously the injury-related sub threw the whole dynamic off. Give this one to Olsen, obviously he made the right choice on all 3 subs.
So, I've been out of town since a week ago Sunday, with just a brief stop in town Wednesday night/Thursday morning before leaving again. I didn't see the match, and I've only seen highlights on YouTube. Did we look good enough that I, too, should be an optimist? From the highlights, we seemed a little lucky re: some of their attempts at goal.
You can never go wrong with cynicism. Anytime something good happens it's a pleasant surprise. Having said that, it was a deserved victory.
Something keeping me optimistic about the rest of the season is that there is beer stand with Boddington's about 30 seconds from my seats at RFk
I thought they looked the better team, especially in the first half, with an energetic and sophisticated attack. Some very good last-ditch defending helped us out (despite a lapse on their goal). The DeRo/Santos goal was spectacular and undefendable, but I think they could have done better defending against Pontius's goal. Benny was right, they were tired by that time and Pontius was fresh and energetic. All in all, a well-deserved comeback win, but I wish we had shown more ball movement like NE's.
As a couple, gittnbizzee and I are quite happy with our short walk for Boddingtons and vodka/lemonade Convincing her to spend an extra dollar for the Boddingtons over the Miller Lite from years past has made me feel like I'm getting a better beer bargain. However, they no longer allow the folks to free-pour the vodka, it's now in airplane bottles - so I've lost out there
If Sene knew how to head the ball, we'd have lost. OTOH, we had a lot of positives. My take is that there was a lot of luck on both sides. If we're finally getting at least 50% of it, that's already a reason for optimism.
I'll have to time my next trip from my seat to the Boddington's, but I should be able to match, and perhaps beat, your record of 30 seconds. My only complaint (besides the price) is that it comes only in cans, and I much prefer draft. However, having suffered the stomach distress that comes from unwashed beer nozzles at RFK, this is probably a good thing.
12 goals with zero from the spot, zero from DeRo. Edit: Zero from Salihi and Boskovic! I'm optimistic the best is yet to come from the offense. With Dudar on the field, the defense is at least competent, at most strong. Huge improvement. United's next hurdle is finding the consistency of performance the top teams have.
And zero from Najar and Wolff. I was thinking about the same thing... The Metros looked woeful last night, but hey, in the rain anything could happen. That was the most complete butt whippin' I've seen from the team in some time. And that it came against the Scum, well, that's just extra fun!
update...we need 1 more goal and 4 more points to equal our 2010 totals. 23 games left (19 if you want to impose those limits on the same number of games). I think we're in a good position.
