Game: FC Dallas vs Sporting Kansas City Date: Sunday, October 21st Time: 4:00 PM [CST] Location: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas, United States of America Weather Forecast: Mostly Sunny; H 62, L 47 Competition: Major League Soccer Last 5 For Opponent: W-D-D-L-W Live TV: KTXA-21 [DFW] | KBTX-50 [Bryan] | KWTX-10 [Waco] | KAMR-4.2 [Amarillo] | KMYL-22.2 [Lubbock] | KFXK-51.2 [Tyler] | KFDX-28.2 (KJBO) [Wichita Falls] | Fox Sports KC [Kansas City] | ESPN+ [Out of Market] Radio: FCDallas.com/radio [English] | KFLC 1270 AM La Voz del Pueblo [Spanish] KC and LAFC have won this past week when we lost. No time for error now if we want to keep our top (2) spot.
F!!!!!!!! Dustin, help a brother out please... "10/21: Don't Hastle The HoF: FCD vs KC [R]" is what it was supposed to say.
Forgive me for my ignorance. Is Pablo Aranguiz hurt? In my opinion, he is by far the most skilled hoop on the ball, best passer (even with his once a game head scratcher) and he is the most creative. So why is he playing junk minutes? Honestly, we have a lot of agressive fast midfielders that aren’t creative enough. When Pablo is out, Cannon is the most creative player on the pitch. If we had a poacher up front challenging for the golden boot, we could sacrifice creativity but our team basically has to dribble the ball into the net. Not a good equation for playoff success.
We've discussed this at length on the radioshow and most recently on the new 3rdDegree podcast that launched this week. Buzz provides a wholly reasonable answer, but you're not gonna like it.
The long and short of it is that Pareja isn't ready to give him free reign. Also, he's not necessarily ready himself. Pareja has a system that is going to give us the best shot of going deep in the playoffs and he's not going to screw with it now.
Well, the final score flattered SKC a bit, but this team is limping into the playoffs. Four goals in the last six matches since September 1. Really lacking quality in front of the goal. Neither Badji nor Aranguiz seem to be the answer. Thankfully, though currently in third, we still can guarantee a first round bye with a win at Colorado. But with a loss, we could potentially even finish fifth and play on the road in the first round!
Yeah, not too optimistic about the rest of the season. 3-0 was harsh, but the performance wasn't, this is pretty much our level right now. Badji offers nothing substantial, I'd just go with Tesho there from now on and hope for the best. Jury's still out on Aranguiz too, but Papi has built the attack around Urruti being a '9.5' rather than having an actual 10 so he just looks lost in the muddle whenever he's in. We won't see the best of him until next season so just forget that right now. Hopefully we can beat Colorado to avoid the first round of the playoffs at least, but I don't really hold much hope for what comes after that. Just hope for the best I guess, not a feeling I ever thought I'd have after a potential 60 point season but that's pretty much how it feels. It's been a weird year as a whole. And as always, everything starts with the thread title. Gotta get it right next week @burning247.
This pretty much summed up my long running opinion of the 2018 edition of this club. Strong defensively, doggedly hard working in midfield, and just horrid in front of goal. It's amazing to me they were able to make a trade for a forward who may be even a worse finisher than any of the other guys they had on the team already. To be fair to Badji, if you focus on him - he wants to get a ball in behind, but no one will make that pass to him. Probably because they know the more time he has on the ball to decide to shoot, the lower his finishing % drops.
Well, where to start? Matt Hedges will go down as one of our greatest defenders ever. He is a great leader and a great asset on the field. That being said, he's prone to the occasional stinker of a game. That was the case yesterday. Seemed off on his passing. Didn't go the initial cross, waited for the ball to get to him for the clearance which resulted in him getting beat and them getting a PK. I felt like in the 1st half we really took it to them but were once again reminded of how much quality we are missing in front of goal. There were a few close misses and Badji has to bury that 1v1. They went up against the run of play (and somehow through Cannon's legs). 2nd half we were handed a reprieve with the PK but when it was saved the whole mentality of the team changed. It looked like everyone was resigned to the fate that it just wouldn't be our day. That plus KC (and their whiny bitch of a manager) know how to suffocate the life out of a game they're winning. These asshats were taking it to the corner flag in minute 49. They keep the ball very close to the touchline and bang it off our guys for a throw that will take them a solid minute to restart. They dive and roll around. When anyone with half an ounce of creativity gets the ball, they kick him. That results in us just lumping balls forward to no one. It was a horror show in the 2nd half. So we can still clinch 2nd with a win in Denver on Sunday but who really feels warm and fuzzy about us getting a result against a team with nothing to play for, at the bottom on the standings? Not me. We could finish as low as 5th, if shit gets bad enough next weekend. We've all felt it this season, this team just didn't feel like the real deal but we shrugged it off since the results said differently. Well, those chickens have come home to roost. No identity, no teeth, no creativity and no momentum heading into the make or break portion of the season. Woof.
Seems like every time the FO actually promotes a game, the team stinks it up on the field. My only hope for the playoffs is that during the highs and lows of a long season, we're currently in a low and will end up on a high.
I was hoping one of you guys was going to talk me down from the ledge. Thanks for nuthin'. At this point I think our tactics are set with Urruti as the playmaker and Badji as the striker. I'm not confident about it. The only short term fix I can think of that has any chance of yielding results is to move Urruti back up top and try anybody else in that playmaker role. I don't think Aranguiz is ready for 90 minutes. Especially not ready for the dreaded "playoff intensity" which is MLS code for Vermes-style non-stop hacking. But either Mosquera or Lamah might be able to put in some shifts there. To be clear I think this wouldn't be a great lineup, but I think it might function better than Badji on top of Urruti.
If there were a bit more time left I'd say give Ferreira a shot. He can at least shoot accurately. Backseat driving it sure seems he and Pomykal should have gotten more time this year. Were they so bad in practice that Colman and now Badji finish better and even if they do it in practices a few games where they stink it up screams for trying someone else.