Super Liga DC vs. Houston [R]

[Eismahn]

DC 1- Houston 3

No flames
No trolls

For those that didn't/don't care about Superliga, feel free to take on the topic of our club going 0-3 with GF 4 and GA 8- with all matches at our own friggin' house!!

[Cweedchop]

DC 1- Houston 3

No flames
No trolls

For those that didn't/don't care about Superliga, feel free to take on the topic of our club going 0-3 with GF 4 and GA 8- with all matches at our own friggin' house!!

It's pretty obvious the defense was horrible the entire tournament.

One has to wonder what the mental effect this will have from now on. This team isn't exactly known for their mental toughness, often going on runs of poor play after being knocked out of various competitions the past few years.

Until this team can solve it's defensive liabilities, it could be an ugly second half of the season.

I don't care much for this tournament and it's plainly obvious the United players didn't care either by their play. However, I am not using that as an excuse.

Anyone who assumes the light switch will be flicked onto "start playing better" after this debacle hasn't been watching this bi-polar team the past few years.

[Eismahn]

I agree, and what's more, what's it say about our coach who... was a defender when he played?? :eek::mad:

[griffin1108]

I took my niece who is visiting from California -- she said she had a good time -- which makes one of us. One word describes the mess we saw -- "Refund."

Doe deserved his goal, he worked his ass off, he, Emilio, Namoff and Simms were the only ones who showed any skill, initiative or pride.

Why Zach Wells has a job in this league baffles me, I saw Thorpe stretching at the half and thought that Soehn would at least give him a shot -- nope.

After watching Fred in the CAM role, don't be so hard on Rod, Fred sucked too.

Pat Carroll and Ryan Cordeiro are not MLS caliber players. Thompson is marginal.

Quavas Kirk is like David Stokes. Everyone looks at him and says, "the guy looks like an athlete." Yes he does, what he isn't is a skilled soccer player.

Soehn, in another bone-headed move put in Martinez with about 30 minutes left in a meaningless game to play out of position at DM. I saw him take a bad knock and come up limping. If he is hurt, DCU is beyond screwed.

The tale of the game: Houston's top subs: Ching and Holden. DCU's top subs: Dyachenko and Kirk.

[owendylan]

Oy vay! the first goal was really bad. How that ball goes between Wells and Namoff I don't know. On the 2nd goal McTavish needs to goal side and in front of Boswell. Poor positioning on that although Boswell is big guy, once he got position McTavish didn't have a chance.

For those of you who think Peralta isn't that good, I think are recent defensive woes are in direct correlation to him being out of the line up.

[JeremyEritrea]

Pathetic. And no excuses are acceptable, at least IMO.

[liverbird]

Wells is a terrible keeper.
Our back line has no idea how to defend a set piece.
Fred is not a number 10.
Thompson is a Div II player.
Doe is a good third striker. P Carroll is a reserve player
Zaher looked like he wanted to play and is willing to get stuck in.
Namoff and Martinez tried hard and played well when on.
Third game is a row where the other team was better prepared and knew how to exploit our weaknesses. Soehn is simply not a good manager, but we'll have to live with him for this year

Dynamo need to go down hard on Tuesday. Vamos United

[Jimbo]

Cordeiro was the one that blew the coverage on the first goal DC gave up. He let Clark run past him to get position at the near post. There were other culprits but it was some very poor marking. Likewise on the second goal. And the third, Carroll was the nearest player. But really, who cares?

I went to the game with some neighbors who had never been to a game. I explained to them that the salary structure of the league is such that if DC loses any of its top 11 players there is a very large drop off in talent and that it shows. I also promised them that the next time I'd take them to a game when the team is healthy. Tino, Gallardo, Peralta, Olsen out injured and Moreno on the bench means this team is dire. As far as I'm concerned tonight's game was mission accomplished. Get out of the Super Liga and get healthy. The team has to get through Tuesday's game and then they can enjoy some time off.

Now DC needs to find some more talent to bolster the team. They've dumped Carvallo and Neil so they have roster spots and some cash. The transfer window is open. Olsen isn't coming back any time soon and we may not have Peralta and Gallardo back until mid August. How about some reinforcements.

[liverbird]

For all of that, a win on Tuesday puts us third in the league with a game in hand on most of the teams.

[CHICO13]

Did anybody see the chick in the black shorts with the blue and white stripped shirt? Pretty much the highlight of my night :rolleyes:

[roadkit]

This might as well be the Uselessliga, but my concern is that we will now take on the negative energy from this into the rest of the MLS season.

Are we screwed? Perhaps.

But I'm staying positive for now.

[Publius]

But for the three goals allowed, I didn't think DC played all that badly, which is a little like saying "other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

I'm not sure there's ever been a bigger disparity in talent between the nominal first XI and the bench in the history of DC. With a healthy first team, they're MLS Cup contenders. With just two or three starters out of the lineup, they're wooden spoon woeful.

[6 ft. Leprechaun]

The defense did not help Wells tonight. That being said he's not MLS quality. He's proven that he's a poor keeper. A couple of those goals, I started to wonder if he was gifting them to his old team.

[Hedbal]

Santino says he's pushing to return in early August for the Red Bulls. Gallardo and Peralta are doubtful until then. So, with the exception of Jaime, who isn't 100%, what we saw tonight is just about what we've got for the next several weeks. It's not pretty.

Yes, coverages were no doubt blown on Houston's two set-piece goals, but Brad Davis is in the very top tier of dead ball servers, and he showed why.

Cordeiro might have had a defensive lapse or two, but I thought he had his best match. He looked quite confident. Thompson hustled, as usual, but I didn't think he looked as confident when he got into the box. Kirk had some fine moments (to my great surprise), and Dyachenko did not suck. (He put a move on a defender - Ianni, maybe? - that had Quiet Side patrons applauding.)

It could have been worse had not our defenders caught some of Houston's breakaways from behind. But they couldn't catch up to Stuart Holden.

Here's hoping for a better lineup and a better result Tuesday. Jaime will have to be at his best, and Emilio will have to show a much better touch than he had tonight. Fred, too.

[Bison1997]

Wells is a terrible keeper.
Our back line has no idea how to defend a set piece.
Fred is not a number 10.
Thompson is a Div II player.
Doe is a good third striker. P Carroll is a reserve player
Zaher looked like he wanted to play and is willing to get stuck in.
Namoff and Martinez tried hard and played well when on.
Third game is a row where the other team was better prepared and knew how to exploit our weaknesses. Soehn is simply not a good manager, but we'll have to live with him for this year

Dynamo need to go down hard on Tuesday. Vamos United

I was amazed at how poorly we defended on the set pieces. Your marker is right there next to you, don't let him get in front of you!

Houston came in with a game plan and utilized it. Whatever; thankfully we're now done with this POS tournament. Hopefully the boys can put this behind them and bring it on Tuesday, in a game that actually matters.

[cwnunited]

Classy move by Boswell to score and not celebrate.......I remember when Emillio did that against his former club and I thought that was a very respectable thing to do.

We were out of this tournament before kickoff, so take this loss for what it was. That said, our defense was pretty poor tonight.

I thought Thompson played pretty well? He doesn't start on this team when we're healthy, but he's definitely an option off the bench.

Surprised people are giving Rod props for a decent outing, I feel like I'm normally alone on that note, although last game he didn't play well.

I know I've had to eat crow on Tommy this year, and the team has turned around, but honestly, I do wonder how much of it is the players having played well inspite of......if we don't win the MLS cup I have money on us going after Arena.

Finally, I do back this tournament, we just played like dog sh*t. Too many games in a row, we were too banged up (from having already played too many games), hopefully we win a chance to play in this next year.

Gallardo can't get healthy quick enough.

Finally, it'll be real interesting to see how we play Tuesday, just 3 days after this performance. That will answer the question, "Did we just not show up because we were out of this tournament or are we really burned out?"

[highlander]

I hope I don't upset anybody, but I really enjoyed the game. I thought that a lot of the reserves really played well and showed a lot of hunger. We actually dominated the play. The scoreline is deceptive because Houston score on almost every shot that they had on goal.

Can we allow timely mistakes like this in league play? No. But I was very impressed that we have a lot of reserves that can come in and give quality minutes. The mistakes were made mostly by exhausted starters. Also, Wells will be a very good MLS keeper one day. It probably won't happen this season, but it will happen. Despite the three weak goals (I know, I know - this happens every game), he continues to battle through his mistakes. He may not help us to win a championship this year, but I would be willing to bet that he will be a valuable MLS player in the future - probably next season. He will have the experience of playing a complete cycle and will know what to expect and be able to prepare himself for the challenges of each phase. Also, I like that his mind has grown quicker.

Soehn continues to develop his skill at managing player minutes. Doe continues to grow comfortable as a member of our offense - even without great service. The entire team continues to battle until the final whistle, despite being behind. We have some defensive liabilities, so I don't know if we can win a championship this year or not, but I still like this team.

One thing that this year really shows is that the players at the bottom of your roster are critical in MLS. I was impressed that a number of those guys stepped up tonight. I am psyched for the "real" Houston game.

[griffin1108]

I hope I don't upset anybody, but I really enjoyed the game. I thought that a lot of the reserves really played well and showed a lot of hunger. We actually dominated the play. The scoreline is deceptive because Houston score on almost every shot that they had on goal.

Can we allow timely mistakes like this in league play? No. But I was very impressed that we have a lot of reserves that can come in and give quality minutes. The mistakes were made mostly by exhausted starters. Also, Wells will be a very good MLS keeper one day. It probably won't happen this season, but it will happen. Despite the three weak goals (I know, I know - this happens every game), he continues to battle through his mistakes. He may not help us to win a championship this year, but I would be willing to bet that he will be a valuable MLS player in the future - probably next season. He will have the experience of playing a complete cycle and will know what to expect and be able to prepare himself for the challenges of each phase. Also, I like that his mind has grown quicker.

Soehn continues to develop his skill at managing player minutes. Doe continues to grow comfortable as a member of our offense - even without great service. The entire team continues to battle until the final whistle, despite being behind. We have some defensive liabilities, so I don't know if we can win a championship this year or not, but I still like this team.

One thing that this year really shows is that the players at the bottom of your roster are critical in MLS. I was impressed that a number of those guys stepped up tonight. I am psyched for the "real" Houston game.

I need a double of what you're drinking. This game was awful. DCU did not control possession in any meaningful way. Once Houston scored they sat back and let DCU ping the ball around in meaningless backpasses.

Thompson showed nothing. He hung on the wing and didn't make any dangerous runs to show for the ball. Just awful and I was somewhat high on the guy from the Open Cup matches. He's filler material at best.

Doe was the only one on DCU tonight that shouldn't be embarrassed by his effort and accomplishments.

[sitruc]

That was another frustrating game. When I saw the lineup I knew how DC would treat the match, but I still wanted to see more from the team. All I could do was watch and remember it doesn't matter since a three goal victory wasn't very realistic. Tuesday matters. I'm not sure which substitute I questioned more: Q coming in against Atlante or Martinez tonight. All of the Houston goals were bad goals. Once again, Wells didn't have a good night. Can any of the blame for the goals go towards players being unfamiliar with each other in those circumstance? No team should ever allow two set piece goals. I can deal with opposing teams scoring, but why is it that most of the goals DC has allowed are bad goals? The only to come to mind that wasn't necessarily a bad goal was that free kick goal a couple matches back. On the same note, I wish DC would score some bad goals more often. Doe scoring on a header when a Houston defender missed his marking and Onstad missed clearing the ball is about as ugly as it gets for DC. I want some cleanup goals instead of passing inside of the box. The players are always waiting for the perfect shot and then they aim for the posts if they take a shot at all. Good for Houston on having some fans at the match, but why were so many of them assholes? I have no problem with supporting your own team in our stadium, but you don't have be an ass who thinks the world is against you. It's one thing if a fan or group harasses you and you dish it back, but when nobody is around you or even acknowledging you at all, there is no reason to try and start something or pick fights. Likewise, those people that criticize everything and insist everything about their team is better is equally annoying. No, your local USL-2 team isn't better than both DC and Houston and we all know you're lying when you say those bleacher seats at the high school stadium they play in are better than RFK's seats. That guy with his family next to La Barra... that's just bad parenting. Go ahead and support your team as a family, but to have your kids cursing and taunting fans in hostile territory is just dumb. I don't have too many comments on the game since it looked like many of the players didn't care and the match was pointless. The DC yellow cards were bad calls. What was dotcom's goal celebration?

[sitruc]

Was Martinez the captain at the end of the match?