They had one sub left. Who are you going to take out? Salihi, Najar? Bosko played 105 mins., he's probably toast.
I'm not saying subbing him out was the wrong thing to do. I'm saying that with Saragosa and Kitchen as our central midfield, our chances of getting the goals we need are not good (at least, not from the run of play, anyway).
And . . .Brandon McDonald gets sent off. So much for the Open Cup. EDIT: Valdes also sent off for Philthy.
Man I wish I was there. Now it's getting silly with the reds. Come on, United, just one more chance, put it away and get to PK's!
Maybe, but hard to say without seeing the match. Seems to me we had plenty of chances based on @dcumatchday.
Thing to do is have the twitter feed sent txt to your phone and you wont get all the other twits, I mean tweets.
First, twitter sucks balls for following a game. Awful. I hated the 100th post about not having a stream -- but if there'd been a faking stream, no issue. Second, this is the kind of game the team really should win with all our supposed depth and especially with the time off. The result sucks. Philly is not a good team. Most importantly to Bootsy's point, if we're really that dependent on DeRo, then we are in trouble. If Branko can't step into that role, we need to have another option. Simply can't expect DeRo to be magical all season long. Philly is a team we should beat without him...
It'll be interesting to see the comments of the fans at the game, to see what the hell happened. I agree that there is no legitimate scenario where United should lose this game, but that's what happened.
Soccer Insider reporting epic Olsen post game rant, mostly about his team but something about the officiating circus.
Ben Olsen: "We’ve been asking for this loss. Too many guys were on their own page. We were cute all over the field"
I think this is the price we pay for having a relatively short roster. It shows when we've had so many games already this season, and a lot of the guys have battled injuries and fatigue I mean we are deep for sure, but we don't really have depth for the depth ... It's these types of games you want to look at the end of the bench and put in that young rookie or recent academy grad to come in with energy and eagerness to impress. I mean our late subs are veterans like Saragosa and Santos who have logged a lot of minutes and have battled injuries. We really don't have that Hoppenot option. I mean our roster is only 24 deep if you don't count the loanees. On any given day with injuries and call ups it can be a challenge just to get a game day 18 out there. Especially at a time like this with the long season and the summer starting to wear the team down a little you could get a lot of value if you have some energy in the 25 - 30 roster spots.
It was a frustrating game. Very physical - I think the ref could have given out twice as many yellows as he did. Michael Farfan is a punk. We looked pretty composed for a long time; Boscovic was finding the open man and our possession was decent, but then we seemed to get too cute, as apparently Ben put it. The only really cracker of a shot that I remember came from Salihi, but was fingertipped away by McMath. Najar had some very good moments, but I do wish he would play a simpler game. When he tries to juke by three guys, the third one usually stops him.
Thanks for that. Any word on DeLeon's play? Also, there seemed to be some intimation that Dudar had trouble with the Adu through ball that led to the winner. Any word on that?
No, there were not many chances created at all. Only 2 shots total in the first half and one of them was the goal and United went nearly the entire second half before putting a shot on goal. It was a very weak performance and get ready for some juicy quotes tomorrow from Ben Olsen. He had a lot to say about the refs (without blaming them per se for the loss, just general incompetence both ways) and more importantly, without naming names, he was frustrated with some players who were playing away from the team construct and doing a little too much "me" time (reading between the lines, it was clearly Andy Najar and McDonald in Olsen's cross hairs) BTW, the ejection for McDonald was for throwing a punch that sent Valdes to the ground. It was stupid, it was selfish and one would have to think a VERY costly mistake by McDonald. I would fully expect to see the Dudar/Jakovic central pairing from here on out unless there are injuries to deal with. McDonald just blew it tonight.
I was there. The game showed how valuable DeRo is to this team. Philly just overran the midfield with physical play and Bosko and Kitchen couldn't handle it. Dudar looked rusty, made Adu's hopeful pass FO r the game winner much better than it really was. Wolff got the goal but otherwise had a very bad game, he tries hard, but his passes and touch were off all night long. I really prefer Korb over Russell at this point - Woolard is a stud. Early in the game Olsen tried long ball down the left side, but DeLeon didn't do much. He just hasn't been as effective since coming back from his injury. Najar has a very bad habit of dribbling too much -- once in awhile as a change of pace, but not all the time. Philly looks like Nicol's old Revs teams -- physical and not much style. The Sons of Ben booed Nowak during the introductions. The two reds at the end were overdue, the ref did a very poor job of managing the physical play.
Just got back Officiating circus is correct How 21 for the union did not get sent off after that cheap shot leg sweep on Woolard was mind boggling Bosko made a few good passes but he is just not a DP. He cant carry DeRos water. Kitchen and DeLeon were beasts all night. Wolff was poor. Andy is becoming a one trick pony by going to his right. He refused to cut inside to his left and become less predictable. Ms Donald and Russell don't seem to get along and before he got sent off BMac was yelling at Russell about positioning. Our first touch was poor all night although part of that was constant chopping from behind by the Scumion. Hamid had one poor deflection but made some amazing saves. Our midfield possession sucked in the last 15 mins of normal time and all of the extra time.
I'm a Boskovic fan so I disagree with you there (I think he needs DeRo's Yin to his Yang, but that's just me), but just about everything else here jives with what I saw. I've said this before, but Najar played WAY too many minutes in 2010 & 2011. He never had the time to rest and absorb what he should have been learning on the field. He's still got plenty of game, but he is still very tactically naive, and his game, as you note, is becoming predictable.
The red card scenario happened off the ball and at the other end of the field so I really couldn't see what happened. I didn't really think the CR was all that bad but for one shockingly bad call when he gave DC a corner on a ball that Salihi booted over the end line. The AR on the building side of the field sucked, though. He ignored several blatant fouls committed right in front of him, including one where the CR came running into view to give a yellow card to the Philly player. Despite the officiating crew's shortcomings, they didn't decide the outcome. Philly pressed DC much like KC did and DC handled it poorly. Once the game went to extra time I thought Philly might tire, but it was DC who looked physically worn out. Once DeLeon and Wolff left the match (and they didn't really have very good games) what attack there was fell apart and DC spent the extra time period vainly attempting to get a goal via Route 1 football.
