CCL

Congratulations on a good start to the tournament. Here's to hoping you can reach new heights for the Canadian entry.

 

Tonight's the first game in Latin America for the Impact since March of 2009.

 

Does anyone know if this game will be streaming online?

 

I'll post one when I find one.

Here's the radio stream: http://www.sonora.com.gt/

Video: http://atdhe.xxx/soccer/watch-cd-heredia-vs-montreal-impact-3iif4

 

Geez great debut by Lopez.. what kind of tackle was that? Impact were just starting to look like a football team. Doesn't he know this is Concacaf .. I don't know if I can watch any more, nearly turned it off with that stupid PK call. The field turf is Concrete #5

 

I have one, but seems you got one now..

 

Impact lose 1-0.

 

Ouch. I was hoping for Montreal to sweep Heredia and be able to play for the draw in San Jose. This unfortunately just made things much more interesting.

 

There was no reason for the Impact to lose to Heredia, however you had to get the sense that it was coming if you took a look at the roster Schallibaum chose for the game. The moment I saw Lefèvre in the roster, I knew that it would spell trouble and the penalty kick he granted the opposition just testifies to that. Granted, anyone could have made that mistake but the rest of the team had basically never played together and, even more unfortunately, they were still planning on relying on the unoriginal strategy of feeding the ball to the striker and attacking through the center. I have to wonder why the Impact is so scared of trying things from either side, I also have to wonder why the mids don't enter the penalty zone as often as they should. There needs to be a change in the way the team attacks because it is incredibly unpredictable and not even slightly hard to defend by a team (just cover the striker, done).

 

Without Camarra their ability to get the ball moving from the back is really weakened. That's one reason why the flank play dries up. Which is another reason why S. using him as CB mystified me. Early in the season they were talking about how much better they did with Nesta in the line up. In my opinion, it was because Camarra was at FB when Nesta played.

Also the field .. most of the play was heading the ball around .. nobody could control it on the ground.

Camarra did play in the second half I see (I didn't watch the 2nd half) but by then they were down a man.

I thought the PK foul was not a foul .. as somebody said, the ref was a trogolyte and it was he that imagined the foul... I could see early he was looking to influence the game..

In the past S. had moved Camarra over to CB when sitting out Nesta .. So the move he often made, that is, Iapichino in, and Camarra at CB (which was also bad because Camarra is sorely missed at FB), left the young players without an opportunity. Now he sits both Ferrari and Nesta. He has no Iapichino .. what's left? Young players he ignored for many weeks in favor of a player he let go.

 

Thank you for your insight claw hammer, I'll have to keep more of an eye on Camara because I admit that I haven't noticed much in regards to him. As for the penalty kick, I actually think that the Impact deserved the call. The way the player basically moved into Lefèvre's path was genial and definitely a manipulation but I believe that given the circumstances, it still deserved a call.

 

Ya, in my opinion he is critical to their offense .. they have no spark out of the back without him. He can beat his man too. Many FBs in MLS don't ever try to beat their man except in the final third.. but Camarra can beat his man on occasion and will try it anywhere, and the opponent has to respect that.

Oh ok .. I'll have to look at the PK foul again .. I only saw it once. In the heat of the moment perhaps I misread it..

 

You're not wrong about Camara. Tonight's match against Houston showed that Camara is a key player on the right side. It was by far the prettiest Montreal soccer match I've ever watched.

 

Yes. I was disgusted by what are coach/management did in this game (who knows who is making the decisions). Not bringing our 5 best players and then not even playing the best ones we did have there is disgraceful. If we do not respect the CCL we should not be playing in it. And the 5-0 against Houston does not make me feel any different about this. Even if Di Viao needs to rest how can we not at least bring him to sit on the bench if we need a goal because we have no other goal scorer and when we were down 1-0 had no one to put on the pitch to get us a goal. And if he is so tired that we need to rest him and not risk injury why did he stay on the pitch for 15 more minutes against Houston after it was 4-0 and a frustrated Houston was getting pretty chippy and rough? Heredia is not a good team but they are better than we expected and are good enough that if you do not put them away with your chances they can hang around and score a lucky goal. San Jose played a much better lineup against them than we did and learned the same lesson. Now we really need to win our last two games to advance.

 

Actually, the team DOES have other goal scorers. Wenger and Paponi are supposed to be able to play the position properly. However, neither is an INDEPENDENT goal scorer. Essentially, either one of the two needs proper support around him to get the job done. Both are attackers who are highly dependent on the mids not only passing the ball forward to them but also taking position in front as support. You'll never see either become a Di Vaio-like star who can run through or past a defence to set the ball into the goal in a skilled way, you will however see them appear in the penalty zone and kick it in at an opportune moment. Under a 4-3-3 formation, they might shine. However, under that same formation, the midfielders and defenders seem to flounder so I guess it's a 'pick your battles'-type of situation.

 

For some reason S. has shyed away from 2 strikers. When they played the 4-3-3, they still only had one striker as Nyassi and Mapp are not strikers. I'm still puzzled why S. played that formation. But sure Mapp, Felipe know how to score.

As you say, occasionally he has played more than one striker, either Paponi or Wenger with Di Vaio in a 4-4-2 and if memory serves the results were encouraging. He just hasn't done it much. And so it has not developed. Wenger unfortunately has muffed probably 4 breakaways .. but still Wenger was getting chances and finding Di Vaio too. Would far rather that than that dud 4-3-3 set up that started to threaten their playoff chances. Instead of screwing with that, he could have been establishing a Di Vaio pairing. That S. didn't see this quicker bothers me. He stuck with 4-3-3 too long. Just as he stuck with Iapichino + Camara at CB + Brovsky too long. He did finally see the light, or somebody did. But now he has his backup CBs with no experience or confidence.

S. blow ups on the sidelines is getting old and embarrassing and hurts the team .. enough already. And it's about time Impact showed up for games on the road.

 

Nope, we have no other striker who can score. Felipe has a decent tally for a midfielder with 5 goals but between him and Di Viao's 15 that is 20 goals, almost half of our 41 goals total. And even Felipe is not really a goal scorer in the sense he is not dependable to score nor a great finisher but he does take chances and eventually a few of them go in. Our next best scorer is a defender Camara, and as offensively gifted as he is for a defender I can recall at least an equal number of goals against to balance out his 3 that he caused pretending he was a striker instead of defending. No one else on the team has more than 2 goals, Mapp does a lot of other things good and threatens to score but rarely does so. Wenger and Paponi are supposed to be able to play the position properly but have not done so in any fashion this year despite ample opportunity and their 2 and 1 goal respectively shows that. Paponi has not showed anything to indicate his loan should be extended and Wenger needs to be loaned out to a 2nd division team if he is ever going to get back on track. Right now we are very one dimensional and if Di Viao gets cold or teams are able to key on him and shut him down we are finished. We need a secondary threat at a striker or winger position, not necessarily Di Viao quality but someone that can be relied upon to score 8 to 10 goals a season.

 

While I don't like that Schallibaum gets suspended for his sideline behaviour, I completely understand it. I coached two teams in the past as well. I was absolutely passionate about doing a good job and leading the teams to some sort of an improvement. In being so passionate, I became passionate about the players themselves as well and therefore protective and sympathetic to their needs. The players seem to feel absolutely great under him and appreciate how involved he gets in their well-being. He ends up getting thrown out but he gains points with his team because he shows them that he is willing to sacrifice himself for them. It looks bad in the media and to the administration but is absolutely great for player morale.

 

Well maybe, I dunno how the players feel about it. It's a fine line .. If someone can't control themselves in public, it's hard for me to believe they can in private. I just don't know.

Grizzly makes an excellent point about the scorers ... They are over-weight in mid-fielders and under-weight strikers. This has been true since they joined the league. Wenger's development should be further along. He was a 1st overall pick .. Paponi, I dunno, is he too slow? Haven't really seen a whole lot of him ..

In fact I wonder if Di Vaio does not play that well on the road, and that's the reason for the poor road record. S. should have experimented more with the 4-4-2 and developed Wenger .. but Wenger missed some breakaways and S. got impatient.

 

Wenger's got the speed and the eye to actually get into the penalty zone. Essentially, he's the right guy for the job of getting the ball there. What he lacks however is finishing skill. If he's alone with the goalie, that ball isn't going in. I see this all the time with otherwise talented strikers in amateur leagues. In the case of Paponi, he won't necessarily get the ball there, but he's a playmaker and will make the passes and the plays necessary for someone else to shoot the ball in. Like Wenger however, he's not much of a finisher from what I've seen so far. Luckily, we have a striker in Di Vaio, but moving forward the team will have to alter their way of playing to one where scoring is accomplished through one-timer passes where the receiving striker has an open net. This can only be done as long as there are two strikers at the front. I'd use a 4-1-3-2 myself, but many people are fans of 4-4-2 since it's popular in Europe.

 

Moving forward, the Paponi and Pisanu loan deals should not be renewed. Paponi is not a striker and we have other players better at moving the ball than him. Wenger needs to be loaned to a lower level league to see if he can actually start scoring and get some confidence. If not he needs to convert to another position.

 

Paponi IS able to move the ball around, that's the thing. He simply can't score after receiving it. You won't be seeing a ton of goals out of him but in playing an upper mid position he might be of use. Wenger does need confidence though, I'd support sending him to a lower league as long as he's not benching. Right now, he's definitely learning his craft but instead of being the big fish in a small pond he was before, he's amongst equals and therefore doesn't stand out. If he could stand out for a while like you're suggesting, he's bound to return with the confidence he needs to truly replace Di Vaio going forward.