Going to go ahead and start this. Toluca lost this weekend 4-0 to Santos. 8 players who played in that game also played significant minutes on Thursday. They're listed below, including their minutes played. Talavera (180) Maidana (180) Salinas (180) Barrientos (152) Mancuello (135) Gigliotti (139) Mendoza (180) Gonzalez (135) Today they fired their manager.
This is the wild card right here. They might be in freefall or a new guy might spark em up to quality. I don't like this.
I actually would like to think it doesn't matter. To be fair though ... Toluca doesn't "need" to focus on the "league". They're likely to miss the playoffs anyway, and there is NO way they get relegated ... so if they want any kind of a trophy, they could/should focus on CCL. That being said, their schedule lighten's up in Liga MX and they play a lot of non playoff teams in the coming weeks so they could easily get some things turned around and just make the playoffs, but that's much less likely. I do think with the minutes played by their key members though, even if they "go for it" it might not be enough with those tired legs.
They are really not that far into their league season. I think it would be imperative that the caretaker coach would try valiantly to get their team back on track in the league since that is the majority of their games for the rest of the year. They may not win the league, but they can rebuild the trust with the team and the fans by climbing their way out of the cellar.
Getting to the playoffs, while tough, wouldn't be impossible. The top 8 make it, and Toluca is just 5 points back of 8th place America. The problem is that they have to jump over 7 teams to get into the playoffs. Again not impossible with Toluca still having 27 points available for them to win.
If I was a new manager coming in, I'd prioritize the game on Sunday and making a statement, over needing a 4 goal win to advance on Thursday. Why chase a ghost, when the second bottom club in LigaMX is on deck? For a new guy, the league will matter, a lot, because that's where he can prove he's worth hanging on to. OTOH, I don't think they have a new manager yet. We are facing the dreaded interim guy, who is almost surely from inside the club, knows the players well and has a couple ideas of his own and maybe 3 games to show ownership they should be thinking about him. What we saw was a dispirited group playing a system that just was not working. But this is the same group that had done pretty well last spring and this fall. We probably should expect a bump up in their level of play. Still, if we can't close out a second game when we enter with a 3 goal cushion, we've got bigger problems than CCL.
The coach (interim) likely prioritizes whatever the decision makers at the club prioritize. I doubt they have a guy and say "do whatever" with regards to managing the CCL. I agree with those who say it's likely league over CCL ... I was just trying to paint another scenario.
Is there any indication on Triverio? He sat out this weekend, but I can't see if it's a longer term injury. I ask because Giglioti was truly, wonderfully, inept. I admit, I hate seeing players that low on confidence, but I do love playing against them. I'd really like to go down there, catch them on a counter then win the thing. I would love a shutout.
No indication in anything I have seen. Maybe him sitting on the bench was another reason the previous manager was sacked.
Bit concerned with the stream for Thursday. Tuned in to both games tonight and had some significant lag issues. Anyone else?
That and the fact that in the month of February, they've had five matches and scored one goal. We saw why. Even when they created decent chances they had no clue how to score. The fear is that a new manager inspires something new in old players. The form says SKC could as a unit collapse on the field gasping for air, and Toluca couldn't manage 4 goals. God, I hate even typing that, seems really jinx-y. What gives me the most hope about avoiding this, and letting them reset after our match, is that Vermes seemed to have figured out a plan b that might not lead to goals for us, but does a decent job of limiting chances for others. It would be really intersting to see us come out in a 3-4-3 with Barath joining Fontas and Besler, and giving Wallace a chance to use his pace with that of Gerso to totally confuse their right side. I know that won't happen, just saying it would be intersting.
Good news for those with a Roku. The Yahoo Sports app added streaming of the CCL matches to their app/channel. I watched a few minutes of Saprisa v Tigres and the Houston match last night. Both streams worked well. This was not supported last week and is a nice change.
Yeah, I heard about this last week and installed the app. I wish Yahoo would put out the Sports App for the Kindle Fire. I'd really like to be able to watch games on it as it has a great HD screen. They used to have the app but it disappeared a few years ago. I've been watching it on my S9 but the screen is about 1/4 the size of my Fire. We've gone, in my lifetime, from having almost no soccer on TV to a plethora of games that I can watch almost anywhere, at any time.
I don't want to derail the thread, but kids these days just don't have any idea how things used to be. When I was a kid baseball fanatic, I used to love getting the evening newspaper every night during the summer and I PORED over every single box score, noting all the players and their stats. I knew everything about every player in the '80s, but the only games I ever watched were the Braves on TBS and whoever was playing on NBC's Saturday Game of the Week. And soccer was a complete and utter mystery. I had heard of Pele and even Beckenbauer, but I never saw a professional soccer game until the 1990 World Cup. Now get off my lawn.
i think the key period in this game will be from min 30-45. i mean, obviously the first min of the game are important not to give up an early goal, but that last 15 of the first half will be when we're really fighting to push through that wall due to the lack of oxygen being almost 9k ft up. also, until that final whistle blows with us still in command, i'll forever be expecting to be concacaf'd somehow. it would be a proper disaster to not advance after a 3-0 lead from the first leg, but i have no doubts that it's only a couple stupid mistakes or bad calls away from happening... and hell, both could happen at the same time (which would be very concacaf-y). i give us a 65% chance of advancing.
First 5 minutes were a little worrisome when we couldn't get out of our own end, but the goal settled things down. And because I was still worried (because our last 2 trips to Mexico we've lost by scorelines that would eliminate us) I looked it up, KC have allowed 5 goals in a game just 3 times in the last 377 games in all competitions. (Dallas in 09, Cruz Azul in 14, San Jose in 15).
GOOOOOOOOOOOOL DE @SportingKC 😱Sorprenden a los Diablos y ahora necesitan meter 5 goles para clasificar😑@TolucaFC 0-1 @SportingKC (0-4) pic.twitter.com/pTGI6qpoP3— TUDN USA (@TUDNUSA) March 1, 2019 Awesome pass from Espinoza. Gerso with another great run behind the defense, just like the 1st goal from last week. Love Johnny's double fist pump. OK, Toluca is bad. But this is still very impressive from SKC.
Well I guess the oxygen tents were successful, now can this team play at sea level in Panama? [emoji6]