Once again, it was a strange game where it is difficult to know whether there is a take away. Weird year. I understand they are high on Anderson’s talent at 16. But he is also 16. No .500 team or above would play him. Not arguing the Rapids shouldn’t play him, but when they do, expect mistakes. He’s a project. Bassett, by comparison, is a project who is already competitive. As for the Nicholson play, definite penalty. But as Cello pointed out, when a player plays 100% for a penalty, it can make a referee pause. Again, it was a clear penalty, but depending on his view, Nicholson gave the ref a potential look that he was faking. Again, by comparison, Lewis could have fallen on the Rapids goal, but decided to make a play instead.
Which play, the one where he waits for a ball to come down and the defender pushes him in the back? That shove sure looked like it came outside the box. It did look like a foul though.
I didn't have the energy returning from vacation to make it to match so I watched the replay last night. Frustrating. That was my take away. The calls didn't go our way. The ball didn't roll our way. The passes didn't go our way. Tactically nothing went our way. Everything. It's hard to play 57 minutes down a man against a team like NYCFC who can relentlessly attack. You are going to be mentally and physically fatigued and will eventually crack. The most frustrating thing of all was the fact despite everything seemingly going against us, the boys still had some chances. They were still in the game. I don't know if we could have done enough to win the match but there were chances to at least earn a point. If we are going to live and die by the youngsters the rest of the season, I am okay with it. I just going to have to accept games are going to be like this and just cross my fingers these experiences will pay off next season.
I know it's pedantic and shallow, but hearing Casey say "Offsides" in his post game comments drives me up a wall. #Caseyout
It doesn't drive me up the wall as much as seeing the replay and noting that not only was the player suggested to be offside not involved in the play according to current FIFA rulings, the replay has a fairly clear image that he wasn't offside in the first place.
I feel like I watched a different match from most of you. From my recliner the Rapids got comprehensively outplayed except for a very good goal (great pass from Bassett to send Lewis in). Our midfield was mostly invisible. It was only NYCFCEIEIO's inability to put shots on frame that kept it close.
While the result - and the calls - and pretty much everything - didn't go our way, I actually take a lot of hope from this game. As Mr. Fleming pointed out in the broadcast the average age of our starting front four was 19.25 years old. The average age of all the outfield players was 22.8 years old. Read that again...That's insane. The Rapids played 65+ minutes down a man against a possession based team in NYCFC. Yes, they out-possessed us. Yes, the out-shot us. But aside from their two goals (one with a debatable offside play), and Heber's brilliant open goal whif, they really didn't have many "great" chances. We played our hearts out and put in a great defensive performance with young, inexperienced players, and had enough in that game to at least get a tie. If Anderson doesn't get the red, we probably could have even had a chance to win this thing. Just imagine if we had Kamara and Acosta in the game too? I love Shinyashiki, but he doesn't do the same things Kamara does - and he doesn't have the size to do it either. Once Mezquida came on and Shinyashiki went wide he became at least twice as dangerous as he had been all game up to that substitution. Shinyashiki is a great creater/playmaker, but he's not built to be a target forward like Kamara is. Wilson got lost a lot in this game. He was constantly behind the play and his release passing left plenty to be desired, which made Price have to put in an even harder shift. Acosta would have shored that up tremendously. A lot of things went wrong for us this game. We played a man down for 70+ percent of the game with an extremely young lineup in a low defensive block against one of the best possession teams in the league. We had to waste a sub on a goalie change. There was a missed PK call. A clear cut foul just outside the box that went unnoticed. Rosenberry missed the back post sitter on that corner kick. Mezquida and Nicholson were inches away from hitting on that counter break that resulted in Sams' goal being called back for being offside. Mezquida was a foot away from scoring a banger of a golazo in the 93rd minute. And did I mention already that there was no Kamara or Acosta while we were down a man? And yet, we still almost got a result in this game. It was a great effort by the Burgundy Boys and it really shows that the future might actually be bright for this team.
That was my immediate reaction, too, followed by a facepalm. He's young. He seems like a good kid and he will learn.
I hate to come off like a know-it-all ass on this one (not that its ever stopped me before) but I think this is an important point. This is not in any means a debatable offside, for two different reasons. 1. If the NYCFC attacker was offside he wasn't involved in the play under current FIFA rules. We saw this exact scenario multiple times at both the recent U-20 and Women's World Cups. To be called offside you must be involved in the play. To be involved in the play you must play the ball or make an attempt to play the ball. To make an attempt you have to be close enough to play it. Just being in an offside position to receive the ball doesn't make you offside until you actually receive it. When Lalas heads the ball he's a good two steps in front of the NYCFC attacker, which means the NYCFC attacker isn't making a play on the ball (yet) because he can't reach it from his current location. Yes, it sounds asinine. Lalas is clearly playing the ball because the offside attacker is there but under the current offside interpretation that doesn't matter. Lalas is expect to "know" (somehow) that the attacker is offside and play the ball without worrying about the attacker. Its not how I want the rule called, but its how refs are instructed to call offside right now. And that's not something that changed in this year's changes (which don't take effect for MLS until 2020), its been that way for a couple of years. 2. Setting all that aside, watch the replay in this week's Instant Replay or in a couple of other places today. The replay cuts back to a split second after the ball is played. You can tell that at that moment the NYCFC attacker is onside (due to Smith) buy a step. Now its probably physically possible that he was offside that split second earlier when the ball was played, but that would require Smith to move insanely fast. They're both moving towards goal when the replay picks up, so in that split second Smith would have had to have moved from behind the attacker to a step in front of him at the same time the attacker is moving the same way. So in the end the player was likely not even in an offseason position at the time of the pass and if he was he wasn't involved in the play anyway. I'm actually a little frustrated at Casey bringing this up in the post-game press conference the way he did, considering that from his angle he would have had no idea if the player was off or not.
But NYFCABCDEFG was man up for most of the game. And they are a better team to begin with. I agree our midfield was invisible, but I don't think the chances heavily favored them.
I guess I should have been clearer with the "debatable" term. If the AR raised his flag on that play, every one and their brother would have argued he was on. Because the AR didn't raise his flag, everyone and their brother are now arguing he was off. Hence, debatable. It's a game of inches these guys are playing, and sometimes you get burned by a matter of inches. I also don't mind Casey bringing it up. He's a coach standing up for his team after some seriously hard calls going against us - along with some calls then went unnoticed. I watched the Instant Replay too, and you might have seen that at 6:30, there's an almost identical foul on Accam to the one on Nicholson. Sagna takes Accam out from behind when he's chasing a streaking ball. Accam didn't have control of it yet (just like Nicholson), but was in the position to control it and was playing the ball (just like Nicholson). Sagna is the last defender, clips him from behind (except Nicholson gets bowled over instead of just clipped), Sagna get's a red card, whereas NYCFC stays with 11 men. Wonder why no one is arguing for the same call in our game I doubt it would have made a ton of impact on the game with it occurring so late (and the Rapids history of not being able to score against 10 players), but I'd like to see us get the same calls other teams get - just like when Nicholson's foot gets stepped on in the box, taking him out.... Anyways, I digress. All arguing aside (what's soccer without arguing eh?), I think we can still be proud of the fact that an extremely young team put up an extremely good fight while down a man against a great possession team. Anderson lost his head for a minute, and hopefully learned a valuable lesson with that early shower. I'm also sure our other young guys took alot of experience away from this game as well after having to hang tough against a team that plays like NYCFC. We also did exactly what Casey said we should do at his halftime interview - "We're not going to have control of this game. Now it's about limiting their chances and trying to hit them on the counter from time to time". We limited their quality chances to very, very few, and nearly scored a couple of our own on counter attacks.
Funny thing, I don't really have a horrible reaction to this game. There were some facepalm moments, but NYCFC is a deep side, and I doubt that many of us would have expected a win here. It would have been great, but even at their best this season, the Rapids are at best a mid-table team. This one would have been a reach. There were some positives, mostly early: the quick touches and game vision on the Rapids' goal, Abubakar's nimble work on defense, Shinyashiki's acceleration and ability to create space, Rosenberry's alertness on several attacks, Mezquida's efforts off the bench, and Irwin's conditioning and quick warmup to enter on short notice. The negatives are obvious. They come from youthful players who will learn and from overmatched players who likely will move on. That said, NYCFC's talent was a good test of where the Rapids need to be in order to compete in today;s MLS. It is a gut-check. This team isn't hopeless, but it isn't at that level. The next three matches are against mid-playoff level teams. We will see how the Rapids do in that stretch.
Rapids can't really look ahead, but we can. These next three will be important. After that are four straight road games: At Minnesota (mid week) At Houston At NYRB At RSL