needless to say i dont feel bad for frings, he can die in a fire. may the soccer gods frown upon him for the rest of his life for what he did to the US in 02.
this & this. watching live, Sabo had some great runs & arguably should have had a goal count that was called back. On one run he lost his marker inside the box, the cross from Espy didn't make it to him. there should be an own goal earned stat much like the penalty kick earned stat. the own goal came from a dangerous sabo run & a great espy cross. the stat could be shared like a sack. as for his defensive skills. . . I know Kries wants his height for corner kick defense but maybe he should not be marking anyone, let alone KC's corner kick target man. on corner kicks he should guard the post or zone defense to clear the ball, or be the offense threat to keep some defenders guarding him and out of the box. the back heel pass. I remember once doing that & it lead to an opposition goal. my coach pulled me aside and said don't ever do that back heel pass again, and i never have. hopefully Sabo will learn from it and never do it again. Johnny Steal, his defense is not great, has some stupid turnovers, but he is clutch in injury time with the stat the matters the most, GOALS. thank you JOHNNY STEAL!
and yours would be? Wingert had a hell of a game, but outside him, Sabo has just as much (if not better) of an argument than any other player I laugh at the amount of Jonny Steele lovers. Not really on here, but at the game he is the golden child coming off the bench. Outside of 2 great finishes (which can't go too unappreciated) he has sucked major balls while on the pitch.
I want to see more and more of Schuler. He does some things better than Borchers and Olave. He wins a lot of balls in the air, but on top of that he keeps the ball in play and more often than not wins possession for RSL off of his defensive headers. Another thing he has is vision. His forward passes to our midfielders are a breath of fresh air. I love Borchers and Olave but their distribution seems to be limited to square and back passes.
Wingert easily. For whatever else he did, Sabo also absolutely blew the play that led to the PK, and was beaten on the headed goal for Henry. No MOTM is directly responsible for those types of plays in my book.
Wingert did a stand up job but I'd have to give it to Beckerman. He had a goal and a crucial assist. I don't recall him making to many bad passes or mistakes in the midfield. OT: The refs seem to be getting worse as the season goes along.
I was at the game and just watched the highlights, and I really don't think there's any way to blame Sabo for TFC's 2nd goal. Sabo was marking him pretty well, but then Henry got a tiny bit of space and had to jump over another TFC player and another RSL defender to get to the ball. Sabo would have had to jump over 2 people to get to that ball first. You can't blame Sabo for bad marking, you can only credit Henry for a great leap. And like other people have said, Sabo had 2 goals that got called back for no reason. If the refs in this league didn't have an allergic reaction to RSL goals, we'd all be praising Sabo to the rafters right now and RSL wins comfortably. Also, keep in mind that RSL has played 10 games already. Chicago, Houston and Seattle have only played 6. Philly, Columbus, New England, Toronto and LA have only played 7. Twice we've played 3 games in 8 days, and we just had 3 games on the road. Plus, we've played AWAY to LA, AWAY to SKC, AWAY to SJ, AWAY to Dallas, AWAY to Portland....we haven't exactly had the easiest schedule. We have one of the worst schedules, and the refs aren't making any of these games easy on us. I'd say we need to cut our guys some slack and be proud of what they've accomplished with the hand they've been dealt.
Wingert had a hell of a match, I won't argue that. however, the backline as a whole really struggled with the size and speed of TFC. Johnson got the ball so damn easy from his midfielders and defenders and Avila was running circles around us at times. I can't blame Wingert for those 2 players having great nights, but him pushing up as much as he did lead to some bad numbers on counters that a better team (see Seattle or Chicago) would absolutely kill us on. I thought Kreis' subs were pathetic tonight. Not the guys he put in, but how damn long it took to get them out there. Starting around 65 you could tell Grabs needed to get out. I also felt that we needed some sort of move in the back but wasn't sure how to go about that. Regardless, Kreis sitting on his subs until 80 damn near bit him in the ass.
You score two goals like those, in those circumstances, you're gonna get the love. Hell, do it a few more times when trophies are on the line, you become a legend. Just as you can play a great game and be remembered for a miss, you can put in a generally mediocre shift and be remembered for doing something amazing when it counts. Johnny Steele has scored two badass goals when it has really mattered.
kreis not using his subs until the 80th minute is unacceptable. we are on the end of a 3 games in 8 days stretch, the boys are exhausted and chasing the game, fully stretched to the max. get fresh legs on the field.
My few thoughts: You can be the worst player in the existence of soccer, but you score goals like that and I'll take Steele any day of the week. He doesn't look like he could ever start, but a late game sub when the team needs a goal seems like a smart move. At first I thought barely beating a winless Toronto in stoppage time at home was kind of pathetic, but then you realize those two goals called back against us that should have counted and its a comfortable win. What happened to our defense this year? We've seemed so dominant in the past but this year have given up a lot of goals. I know I'm going to catch some heat for this, but I'd much rather try and find an upgrade for Espindola than an upgrade for Sabo. I really think we'd be better off if we had someone with speed. Espy tries to go at people but just isn't fast enough to get around anyone. If we had someone with Findley's speed it would push defenses back. Give Morales and our midfield even just a few more yards of space to operate and we become much more productive. Toronto may not be the best example, but teams are starting to figure out they can play a high line on defense, press our midfield more and we just aren't near as effective as we use to be. The "ref you suck" chant was nice that the stadium as a whole could let him know how he was doing in that game. It does seem like a lot of calls go against us lately. I can understand most of the calls individually, but when all the important 50/50 calls go against us it just gets frustrating. The one call we got for us, was Espy's handball that we didn't even need (lucky for the ref tonight Steele bailed him out for disallowing Sabo's late goal). I don't know if it was like this for anyone else at the game, but even when it got to stoppage time it felt to me like we were going to score. When the ref held up 4 minutes stoppage time, I felt good thinking that was plenty of time for us. No matter how you look at it, good win or ugly, its three points either way in the standings and that feels nice.
The view from here in Pennsylvania has brcome: What will the MLS assign to (small TV market) RSL in this game? Marginal calls are almost always in favor of the larger-market team. On the broadcast from New York yesterday the gushing about Red Bull greatness was so obnoxious I turned the sound off and listened to music. Marquez gets three games and Mullan gets 10 for a less-violent foul. This has gone on for years. Those two PKs charged against Olave in Houston last year were an amazing display by the league, topped only by the red card on Borchers' great defensive play later in the year.
I totally agree. We are up 2-1 and at that point he needed to add subs. Did he forget that they played Wed? No instead he subs in panic to now try and win by taking tony out and adding offense.
{Steele scores game winning goal}. (•_•) I guess we can say that Steele was.... ( •_•)>⌐■-■ the 'steele' of the off-season... (⌐■_■) YYYEEEEAAAAHHH!!!!!
Really enjoyed the game last night. The fans were great and the "Ref you SUCK!" chant was brilliant. He earned all of it. Haven't seen the replays on Sabo's two goals called back but certainly couldn't see any good reason to call back the second one. The trade Sabo sign I didn't see but I will consider the source. I thought, just like last week, Sabo got used and abused on the back and still fought through it to be dangerous. He is two bad calls and a couple of inches away from having a hat trick last night. You don't get that by not working hard and battling to be in the right place at the right the right time. I so look forward to when he breaks out of this "slump". On Toronto's second goal why wasn't there an RSL player on the back post? If there is no goal almost guaranteed. RSL needs to fix their set piece defensive struggles. Quick. Sucks for TFC to lose that way. I felt for them. I remember when RSL struggled and the pain a loss like that would inflict. They definitely have talent but have not put it all together. RSL needs to play better. After the first goal they let off the gas. This team needs to get its killer instinct working again and crush the teams it shouldn't be letting stick around. A little more urgency early eliminates the need for... wait for it... The guy made of metal Steele stuff?
“I was struggling to breathe right there when I came in,” Steele said. “I think it was the travelling and the altitude. Obviously it’s hard. The first couple of touches I got, I gave the ball away so I was under pressure straight away, and I said, ‘I have to do something here or I’m going to get taken off.’ And I banged it in.” I laughed when I read this.
So, I watched the match highlights after coming home from the game... why didn't they show the called back goals? I would have liked to have seen those!
I think he had a tough call last night. The game's 'character' was very much in flux during the 60 to 70 minute time that subs usually come into a match. It was hard to tell what RSL needed to finish the game properly. It was unclear if RSL had the game under control and would benefit from fresh defensive legs or if RSL needed more offensive punch and would benefit from fresh offensive legs or formation change. When the goal came for TFC to tie the game in the 77th minute, that forced his hand. He needed to become more offensive and made subs to make that happen. Offensive for defensive sub and formation change to go for three. It worked.
I'm guessing they didn't show them because it'd show they were legit. They also didn't show the foul that gave the pk. I could be wrong, but from my view in the stands I thought Olave got part of the ball. Edit: I stand corrected, the ball popping up was a good flick by TFC and not Olave making the play.
Couple thoughts: Avila is class, he was their offense. Felt like Jason mentioned exactly what I saw last night, the holding midfield pocket was seemingly empty on most of their attacks, allowing their forward/a midfield to run directly at our CBs. That's a recipie for disaster at any level. Sabo couldn't have marked Henry any better, he would have had to have grabbed him risking another penalty which this ref would have undoubtedly given. I loved the "ref you suck" chant, we should do it more often. Another poor quality ref that couldn't keep up with the play, who is from Ontario incidentally. That's like having a center ref from salt lake go on the road with us to LA. Comical. Grabavoy is essential and is deceptively quick. Javi is returning to form, looked markedly improved. His touch is masterful, that overhead flick out of the corner on the Jonny Steele winner was insanely perfect. Toronto is a very good team except for one issue, their CBs are atrocious, some of the worst I have seen in a while. I respect them because they said to hell with it and opened up for us, they could have very well parked the bus on us at 1-1 or 2-2 but still played relatively open.