Pre/In/Post-Match: DCU vs. the Crapids 6/20

[scruggs45]

Just got back from the match.

it didn't hurt the team in the standings as the Crew crapped their pants and lost it late. Chicago, KC and NE are all off for the next two weeks so United will keep their division lead until the July 4th match at Columbus.

pretty much everybody but ny has games in hand that could result in them over taking united in the east...im sure that some of those games in hand involve games between said teams...but this lead united hasnt isnt really that big a deal

[bigredfutbol]

You're right. Forgot to switch the numbers around instead of just copying and pasting. Sorry for the confusion. I was thinking it correctly, just not writing it correctly.

5-8-2 all time isn't that unexpected a record, like I said. (It's a little front-loaded, is all -- ie no wins since 2000.)

And again, other teams have not gone 0-8-2 at Colorado over the last 10 years. So the question remains: why do they do better than us? If it was really all about altitude, all teams would do just as badly in Colorado. So altitude simply cannot be the real reason for our long terms problems there.

NOBODY said it was "all" about altitude--YOU said it was "all" about attitude.

[Jasonma]

And again, other teams have not gone 0-8-2 at Colorado over the last 10 years.

From:

http://usasoccer.blogspot.com/2008/09/which-mls-teams-cant-win-where.html

Since 2004 the following teams have not won in Colorado in the regular season (Year of the last win):
LA (2002)
Chicago (1999)
DC (2000)
New England (2002)
KC (2004)

Considering that in 2004 there were only 10 teams in the league, and Colorado obviously can't lose to itself, that's over half the teams from that era that have problems in Colorado. The other teams:

Houston (2008)
Toronto (2008)
Columbus (2008)
Chivas (2008)
San Jose (2008)
Dallas (2007)
NY (2007)
FSL (2007)
Seattle (Never)

[griffin1108]

Well, that was turd in the punchbowl.

A perfect storm really. Colorado coming back from the bye week, DCU playing the second game of the week, at altitude, after a late arrival on Friday. Add in the fact DCU had been on the road all week and you get a flat performance.

Bad as this was, think about two game changers that were "oh so close." Cummings' first goal, as Janicki closed and went for the tackle I mentally though "he'll sweep it away, I've seen him do it before." Just a bit late and Cummings made a nice move over him. Rongen noted that Janicki hadn't played in over a month and just wasn't ready for "game speed." The second event was Pontius great far post run on Gomez's free kick. Pickens played it perfectly and parried it away. A clean tackle by Janicki or Pontius getting the goal makes for a different game. Remember, leading up to Pontius' attempt, DCU had Colorado pinned back for about a 5 minute stretch. Course right after that John made that lovely weighted through ball to Cummings that effectively sealed the deal.

[DangerMouse37]

I'm surprised how bad the defense looks, but I gotta say, the coaching/tactics for this game make no sense to me.

Olsen, coming off an injury and no play time hence no fitness as a starter? Way to hang him out to dry Tommy. He was gassed at the 20 minute mark.

Pairing him with Gomez, at altitude? Not likely to be successful.

Going to a 442 after not playing one most of the season? Hmm...

Earlier in the season I remember seeing Barkledge and Jacobsen and other guys who were buzzing all around the field. Young and inexperienced, yes, but fit and ready to run. Not sure why we didn't go that route, stay in our normal 352 and try to score instead of hoping to defend (and being spectacularly unsuccessful).

There were a lot of poor performances, but the one that concerns me most is with the coaches. The game plan didn't make sense from start. Got to do better.

[Bootsy Collins]

I'm surprised how bad the defense looks, but I gotta say, the coaching/tactics for this game make no sense to me.

Olsen, coming off an injury and no play time hence no fitness as a starter? Way to hang him out to dry Tommy. He was gassed at the 20 minute mark.

Pairing him with Gomez, at altitude? Not likely to be successful.

Going to a 442 after not playing one most of the season? Hmm...

Earlier in the season I remember seeing Barkledge and Jacobsen and other guys who were buzzing all around the field. Young and inexperienced, yes, but fit and ready to run. Not sure why we didn't go that route, stay in our normal 352 and try to score instead of hoping to defend (and being spectacularly unsuccessful).

All points that I made multiple times in the day or two leading up to the match. I want to emphasize the last one, though. Yes, of course, Barklage and Jacobson are not in our best 11 set of players; but so what? Sometimes you have to take the longer view, and the longer view is that if you're going to use this "depth" we claim we have later in the season, you need to develop your capabilities now. We went into this one with injuries, players just returned from injury, and tired players. Why oh why is that not an obvious occasion to give that "depth" some time? I'm not saying they would have won us the match, not at all; just that if you're going to use those players, this was an obvious time to do it. By way of comparison, despite his horrific error, playing Janicki (dunno about starting him, but playing him) was a correct decision.

[scruggs45]

All points that I made multiple times in the day or two leading up to the match. I want to emphasize the last one, though. Yes, of course, Barklage and Jacobson are not in our best 11 set of players; but so what? Sometimes you have to take the longer view, and the longer view is that if you're going to use this "depth" we claim we have later in the season, you need to develop your capabilities now. We went into this one with injuries, players just returned from injury, and tired players. Why oh why is that not an obvious occasion to give that "depth" some time? I'm not saying they would have won us the match, not at all; just that if you're going to use those players, this was an obvious time to do it. By way of comparison, despite his horrific error, playing Janicki (dunno about starting him, but playing him) was a correct decision.

just give it an hour or so and you can be frustrated as hell all over again watching that one team play down in south africa :)

[DangerMouse37]

All points that I made multiple times in the day or two leading up to the match. I want to emphasize the last one, though. Yes, of course, Barklage and Jacobson are not in our best 11 set of players; but so what? Sometimes you have to take the longer view, and the longer view is that if you're going to use this "depth" we claim we have later in the season, you need to develop your capabilities now. We went into this one with injuries, players just returned from injury, and tired players. Why oh why is that not an obvious occasion to give that "depth" some time? I'm not saying they would have won us the match, not at all; just that if you're going to use those players, this was an obvious time to do it. By way of comparison, despite his horrific error, playing Janicki (dunno about starting him, but playing him) was a correct decision.

Obviously I agree. Playing Gomez and Bennie and even Clyde plus John starts us slow at sea level, to say nothing about altitude.

Against that against that team (fast) at altitude after a tough wednesday game and knowing that we won't be able to play our typical style, the young'uns might have actually given us a BETTER chance.

I can't believe that in 10 games we've never come up with a plan that has us win in Colorado. Sheesh.

[Bootsy Collins]

just give it an hour or so and you can be frustrated as hell all over again watching that one team play down in south africa :)
Yeah, I know.

[Jasonma]

I am confused.

You have quoted me (I posted your quote above). Yet the words in the quote were never posted by me.

Can you explain.

I'll explain any of my posts if needed.

Sorry, somehow the Quote function got pointed to the wrong post. I've fixed it.

[ian woodville]

A team with multiple personalities. There's the young, hard working, running a lot team and there's the old(er), cautious, passing a lot team. Poor Soehn really wants to play the older types -- better technique, better sense of the game and all that. But when he does, he often gets lots of pointless possession punctuated by key mistakes. And no ability to claw one back.

The first 10-12 minutes were classical slow ball -- Namoff and Olsen passing the ball around in DC's half of the field to no particular purpose. Colorado content to let them do it and focused on defending their half of the field. Would have been fine but Janicki found himself on an island with Cummings and DC was down one. The pace picked up a little after that, but DCU never was able to put Colorado under any real pressure.

We all love Benny but he does not belong out there with the starting 11. Santino is much more dangerous at outside mid and Wallace/Jacobson/McTavish more energetic at central mid. All Benny's knowhow doesn't do much good if he's playing in 2nd gear all the time. Perhaps the Burch haters enjoyed watching Avery, but he seemed the same slow, foul prone defender that played two years ago for NE.

I realize that the beautiful game police will be after me, but DCU is much more dangerous when Soehn lets the young kids whack the ball upfield and run around like crazy people.

[Barracudas]

Sorry, somehow the Quote function got pointed to the wrong post. I've fixed it.

No problem. Thanks.

[Sockey]

A team with multiple personalities. There's the young, hard working, running a lot team and there's the old(er), cautious, passing a lot team. Poor Soehn really wants to play the older types -- better technique, better sense of the game and all that. But when he does, he often gets lots of pointless possession punctuated by key mistakes. And no ability to claw one back.

....

We all love Benny but he does not belong out there with the starting 11. Santino is much more dangerous at outside mid and Wallace/Jacobson/McTavish more energetic at central mid. All Benny's knowhow doesn't do much good if he's playing in 2nd gear all the time.


I totally agree with the pointless possession, but I think Olsen can help with that. We had no possession down the middle of the field between halfway and their box, because our center mids didn't touch the ball in there. Olsen in a center mid role would make our passing much better through there and keep possession going forward. I agree that he was next to worthless out wide, but he's not worthless to the team yet in other positions.

[Hedbal]

I am a believer in the young, hardworking team approach and even wanted Khumalo and Barklage to start. That said, Khumalo, for all his speed and energy, had the proverbial touch of stone, which negates all the positives he brings, and N'Silu seems to do a lot of jogging when he should be sprinting. Nevertheless, it's not been a good several weeks for our old veterans: Gomez failed to put his stamp on this game and Benny was just OK when he got the ball, which was rare. Moreno is still hurt and looks slow and tentative at best, and Emilio hasn't seemed that threatening. I think we have to look to our young guys, especially including young vets like Santino, to stay up, make the playoffs, and win some bling.

[bigredfutbol]

You have got to be kidding me. Emilio is so out of form right now its ridiculous. Emilio out there would do nothing but hurt the team.

I should have said "Not having Emilio in-form and on his game is killing us" or something like that. It's not whether or not Emilio's playing well right now that was on my mind, it was the fact that we simply could not get decent possession up top.

[Rjbatzler]

Everybody sucked. Tough road trip, 4-4-2 failed, fatigue, let down, whatever the reason or combination of reasons, we were terrible, but we will get over it. Now...

http://gadgetophilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/t10neuralizer.jpg


US Open Cup on the 30th.

[MattMathai]

Nevertheless, it's not been a good several weeks for our old veterans: Gomez failed to put his stamp on this game and

Olsen, first game back - fine. Did some nice things, but wasn't a factor.
Moreno, injured.
Emilio - off scoring form, but doing a lot of work.

I think you're dead wrong about Gomez. He has had a great couple of weeks.

I wrote off the COL game because of fatigue and altitude.

[Bootsy Collins]

I think you're dead wrong about Gomez. He has had a great couple of weeks.

I wrote off the COL game because of fatigue and altitude.
Yeah. He didn't do much in the Colorado match; but I didn't expect him to, with a few days rest and having gone basically the whole match against Chicago and a half against Seattle, both solid performances.

[Barracudas]

Gomez failed to put his stamp on this game and Benny was just OK when he got the ball, which was rare.

Gomez failed to put a stamp on this game because he rarely got the ball.

Olsen on the other hand got the ball a lot, but in his defense it was his first game back so I did not expect him to be a whole lot better than he was. It was odd he was getting the ball so much because quite frankly he was not in the best game shape.

[stangspritzring]

I thought Janicki was at fault for both the first and second goals both...The first he clearly shouldn't have gone to ground. In fact, I was screaming that as soon as I saw him start to leave his feet. Hell, my U13 girls knew better than that. The second one, I just felt he wasn't marking the diagonal run. Y'know, that run that Pontius and Quaranta are always making that almost never gets rewarded with a pass. The last one, Avery John was clearly ballwatching. as the LB, he definitely should have had that guy marked, rather than be hanging out in no-man's-land like he was.

Despite the scoreline, DC did fight through the very end, though, it's just we were hard pressed to get a shot on goal when we had them penned in their defensive third. From the start of the game, Colorado practically kept 9 behind the ball at all times, and after they were up 2-0, it was 10. It just wasn't pretty to watch at all...Of course, the best way to break down that kind of stingy defense is quick, early balls out of the back, serving early balls to diagonal runs, or possession while trying to find a kink or jump on a mistake...Colorado didn't have any of those, we had about 5.

I don't think the game was as bad as the scoreline indicated, but the schedule had to be rough on our guys.