RailHawks at Miami FC (7/20)

[wjarrettc]

Kickoff at 8pm Friday night. Live chat at http://chat.trisoccerfan.com

I'll be in the stadium here in Miami with my son. Look for the two RailHawks jerseys in the "crowd" (based on previous attendance figures, I'm guessing we'll be easy to spot)

[wjarrettc]

The local word is that O'Hara, Kutsu, and Long are in the starting lineup, back to a 4-3-2-1 with Worthen, Steele, and Dombrowski all not dressing out, I'm assuming due to injury. :eek:

[Brandon313]

yay back to the ************ formation! if history proves correct we are back to 0-0 draws or 0-1 losses!


I was hoping that with the recent wakeup call that playing for a draw is not going to keep us out of the bottom half of the table (when one win and two losses is worth more than 2 draws and a loss) you might be more willing to experiment with a formation...especially when your formation has been proven to not work..


sigh, anyways i will be watching this evening. Back to the grind of the league....suddenly im not as cheery as when im talking about the US Open Cup...

[treefire]

I don't think the team generally plays a 4-3-2-1. To me, it's either a 4-4-1-1 or a 4-5-1, depending on how you look at it... maybe I'm wrong. If I am, please tell me who the three and the two are in the 4-3-2-1 so that I understand you better.

Jarrett - did you get the banner? I don't think the cameraman ever gave us a shot of the fans in the stands - he was too busy taking 45 seconds to bring a dancer's face into focus.

I think Maher is out for three games from the fight at Montreal. Steele is out on yellow accumulation, right? Worthen I don't know about.

I sure hope Stokes is all right.

[wjarrettc]

That was horrid. I sat watching that with two of the owners of the team. Needless to say, spirits weren't exactly high in the vicinity of our little section of the stands.

Yes, Jason, I did get the banner and hung it proudly. Thanks.

I've got some more thoughts on this game but I've got to stew on it a little bit before I say what I really think.

[tobee]

Two more reds tonight. Neither were deserved.

[wjarrettc]

Two more reds tonight. Neither were deserved.

Kutsu's looked deserved from my vantage point in the stands. It was as ill-timed as the sending off he got against Duke in preseason. Frankie's first yellow was for dissent. A captain shouldn't get sent off like that. He's got to keep his cool. His second yellow was certainly deserved.

[treefire]

I'm going to have to agree with Jarrett here.

My first thought, after each of these fouls, was "he's off".

Kutsu's challenge was very reckless, very late, and very fast. He flew in there. I could see the referee being lenient and awarding a yellow. I don't think red was out of the question at all.

Whatever Frankie's first yellow was, the foul for which he recieved his marching orders looked a clear and undeniable yellow to me. He was the last man, he took the ball carrier down from behind, denying a 1 v 1 with the keeper. I would have been stunned not to see yellow there.

It seems they just can't find any consistency. Sometimes they really look the business, and others...

I hope they can cobble together an effective defense for Sunday. If Sola's able to play, maybe we'll see him on the outside with Chad and Kupono in the middle. Otherwise... we might see little Maher? Or someone else who has zero playing time so far this season? Maybe Demetrius Donald and/or Cooper Friend are getting on a plane today...

Good luck to them, whoever it is.

[wjarrettc]

Kutsu was absolutely gutted after the challenge. He knew it was rash and more importantly, he knew he had left his team, which was already shorthanded on defense, in a vunerable position. From where I was sitting across the pitch, you could see the raw emotion on his face...he seemed to be literally in tears over getting sent off at that point. Regardless of how I felt about the challenge, I was glad to see that level of passion and emotion from the RailHawks. Often I have worried that they were "zombie walking" through some of those league games without the proper motivation. I appreciate the passion, even if it needed to be a little better checked at that moment.

Here's the Miami Herald article on the game:
http://www.miamiherald.com/628/story/177958.html

Unfortunately, the web edition doesn't include the excellent 1/3 page picture of Santiago that appeared in today's print edition.

[geostadia]

The fomation and player selection must be driving management as crazy as it is eveyone else. To me it seems like a 6-3-1 which would make for a very ugly xmas tree or the relative socio-economic structure of Reganomics. Either way it's a fear-based system not designed to score goals just to prevent attacks on the "homeland". The talent on this team is overwhelming for a first year side. The front office did a great job bringing in some quality but they are simply not being put into a system that will allow anything but a bottom three finish. Perhaps the threat of relegation would shake the formation up, but alas...

[treefire]

I can certainly see the 6-3-1 formation. It seems like a flat back four with Low and Brightwell basically playing as stoppers in front of them. They get forward so little that they don't really seem like midfielders...