Official DC United vs Colorado POST Match Thread [R]

[MattR]

DC United 1 - 1 Colorado Avalanche

No trolls!

Etc.

[Colonial717]

Thank you Matt R. What a horrible ref! Thats all I got.

[DCU9ted]

Where is Stokes Army? What a disaster..I think if he gets to start for the team than half the people on this board should be able to try out..He was the result of at least 4 very good scoring chances for the Rapids..

[evanpemsocr]

Where is Stokes Army? What a disaster..I think if he gets to start for the team than half the people on this board should be able to try out..He was the result of at least 4 very good scoring chances for the Rapids..

He wasnt great but he didnt play that poorly imo. I did like the sub tho, walker didnt play too well but he still added a spark. I dont think that ref likes Freddy.

[evanpemsocr]

They were so frustrating to watch today. I thougth they played well for long stretches of the match but just couldnt get that last pass to connect or finish their chances. When was the last time we won?

[Hedbal]

We showed energy in the first five minutes, and in the first 20 or so minutes of the second half (after I imagine Novak ripped them new ones), but not too much in between. Moreno's assist saved his reputation, because he was just plodding along out there. I'm glad Walker came in, but playing out wide he didn't see nearly enough of the ball after his first few minutes. Gomez had the goal, but he wasn't doing much on the pitch, while Freddy was trying to do too much (Note to Fred: If you try to dribble through three defenders and you go down, you will NOT get the call because the ref will have every reason to believe you fell down because of "congestion.")

I'm looking forward to a more energetic reserve match tomorrow - Please!!

[Hal]

I told my guest as they went in at halftime that Novak should sub anyone in for Stokes and have Josh Gros fall back into the back 3.
Stokes was totally lost, it looked like he was marking our CB Bosewell and left acres of space for Colorado to switch the field to Niko Hernandez.

Their score came from exploiting one such Stokes AWOL. And when Stokes had the ball at his feet, Colorado would pressure him and he'd just boot it away, losing possesion, most of the time. There were other bad passes, but the Stokes experiement is OVER. It was OVER last year.

The ref had Adu pegged for a diver and made a no call on a possible penalty (not too bad a call) but at least two other no-calls when Adu was clearly fouled by the opponents sticking in a leg and hip as Freddy was going by.

The ref also let his assistant call the yellow on Esky in a late game challenge of a Colorado defender trying to clear the ball from near the corner flag. Esky jumped up with his foot up to try to block the clear and made some delayed contact, not worth a yellow IMHO. The linesman waved his flag and tapped his pocket, so the referee came over and gave Esky a yellow. There were many other, far worse lunges, by both sides that went without yellow cards. Love the MLS reffing inconsistency.

Very nice, unselfish goal orchestrated by Jaime.

[Th4119]

Where is Stokes Army? What a disaster..I think if he gets to start for the team than half the people on this board should be able to try out..He was the result of at least 4 very good scoring chances for the Rapids..

Just half?

That guy is seriously bad. So many of Colorado's attacks came from his side and DC's offensive ineptitude during long stretches of the first half was a direct result of lack of midfield posession because Olsen and Carroll were basically playing on the back line to cover for Stokes.

Stokes in a nutshell can be seen on the Rapids goal. Despite being 6'3'' and athletic, DC has him standing on the edge of the 6-yard box covering a zone for the near post. That's right, the tallest person on the field is assigned to mark NOONE because the coaching staff and/or Perkins have absolutely no confidence in him doing it correctly.

[Hedbal]

Just half?

That guy is seriously bad. So many of Colorado's attacks came from his side and DC's offensive ineptitude during long stretches of the first half was a direct result of lack of midfield posession because Olsen and Carroll were basically playing on the back line to cover for Stokes.

Stokes in a nutshell can be seen on the Rapids goal. Despite being 6'3'' and athletic, DC has him standing on the edge of the 6-yard box covering a zone for the near post. That's right, the tallest person on the field is assigned to mark NOONE because the coaching staff and/or Perkins have absolutely no confidence in him doing it correctly.

And to think that we had Prideaux on the bench! But at least Peter made a change to his usual starting eleven (OK, he had to because of Namoff's card accumulation, but still....) Maybe he will get really radical and sit Jaime and Christian (especially Jaime) in favor of new and faster legs. Yeah, I know, they were the goal scoring combination, but if you were there you would know what I mean.

Now I will retire to my blastproof underground communications center and monitor the incoming flaming posts accusing me of lese majeste.

[Footer Phooter]

Wow. What a disappointment. My first thought upon seeing the starting lineup was, "Man, Boswell's in for a long afternoon with Erpen and Stokes back there." We've got to beat mediocre squads like Colorado.

I was also disappointed that I didn't get to see Fat Clint Mathis out there.

[Publius]

Tough game to figure out. Colorado played well enough but DC really dominated play despite the fact that no one in particular had a terribly good game. I have to admit that I didn't see the horrible game that Stokes had, but he was across the field from me. Still, he didn't make me anywhere near as nervous has he's done in times past.

I've tried not to harp on the refs this season but today's performance warranted a good number of the FU chants. In particular I thought the yellow on Esky to be very weak and then Marrufo missed a handball in the area on Colorado but then called a non-existent handball against Adu to destroy a serious scoring threat. I'll reserve complete judgment until I review the tape.

[Section106]

That ref sucked hard. Did he go to the Kevin Stott School of Sucking? He didn't call what Wynalda described a "typical Pablo Mastroeni tackle and a clear penalty." Any other player or team and its a PK.

Carroll and Eski get cards but Mastro and Gargan escape? Say what? Gargan had at least five seperate cardable fouls in the second half.

Donnet needs to get his paperwork tomorrow. We need some fresh ideas in attack and another dangerous player to draw the pressure off Gomez since the refs in MLS can't or won't protect our playmaker.

Freddy has to feel hard done by. I can't reconcile any of those non-calls or mystery calls with reality. That was a PK. There was no handball. Freddy got dumped, mugged, pulled, etc... all over the field.

The cRapids fans should clone Cannon when he retires. He's the only thing keeping them in games.

And we should play the ball just a little faster in attack. Just a little faster.

[Th4119]

Jamil Walker is one of the best values in MLS.

[human cannon fodder]

Worst... ref...ever.

Heres hoping for a better showing on Wednesday.

[liverbird]

It seems that MLS lets crap teams simply kick the tar out of better teams. Mastroeni and their entire back line just hit us every chance they got. Every third one was called. Gargan should have been carded enough that even Graham Poll would have thrown him out. That said we didn't play well except for about 15 minutes leading up to the equalizer. Also had Jaime's snap volley gone in rather than hit the bar we are winners. Perkins had another great game.

[jackrock]

when Adu went down in the box it was a total penalty, no question. Just garbage reffing.

[Th4119]

Josh Gros still is very bad at crossing.

He got off one good one today out of at least five or six. Apparantly that ball had "fluke" written on it.

[Jasonma]

The ref also let his assistant call the yellow on Esky in a late game challenge of a Colorado defender trying to clear the ball from near the corner flag. Esky jumped up with his foot up to try to block the clear and made some delayed contact, not worth a yellow IMHO. The linesman waved his flag and tapped his pocket, so the referee came over and gave Esky a yellow. There were many other, far worse lunges, by both sides that went without yellow cards. Love the MLS reffing inconsistency.

Right or wrong, the card wasn't only fot that tackle. The AR clearly signaled twice after patting his pocket, saying that it was the second time Eski had taken Freeman down in the corner, which it was. So it was a card for persistant infingement.

Now the worthiness of the card can be debated, but I just wanted to point out what the foul called was.

As a Rapids fan, I feel we did get some breaks from the officiating today, but on the flip side there were numerous occasions that posession calls were mande, IMHO, incorrectly against the Rapids. A lousy job all the way around.

And yes, the Pablo tackle probably should have been called. If it's any other Rapi making the tackle or any other United player getting tackled, it probably is called.

[newnew]

Posted by Garbarggio :
We should dominate this game. Colorado's road record is 1W, 6L, 1T with a
-11 goal differential.

And they don't have Terry Cooke. Mastroeni and Cannon are their best players so their strategy might be to try to get us to extend our consecutive scoreless ties streak up to 2. And who is this Karanka kid? I don't remember seeing him in MLS so he must be a rookie.

Seriously they started Dan Gargan, Daniel Wasson, and Thiago Martins in their last game. We should be at least 2 goals better than them.

I'll say DC 3 Colo 0.

We started with Gargan, Wasson and Thiba. What happened that your team do not beat us ? Do not be arrogant !;)

[roadkit]

Let's see.. we cant put it away with THREE forwards? We're not playing like we should be in the home stretch toward the playoffs. Those "first half of the season laurels" aren't much to rest on if we SUCK offensively going into the fall.

Perkins did well -- as usual.

Oh, and even though I sit on the "quiet side" whoever had the wooden clacker in Barra/SE section...it was coming in loud and clear! It was driving me nuts trying to figure out what the sound was - It looked like the guy was wearing an orange texas Longhorns shirt. Anyway, props to him and the rest of the supporters, you did great.