Sarvas did not have a good game, for sure. I personally apologize for that, because as we know, as soon as I buy someone's jersey he's toast. That said, we are also asking a lot of that spot w/o Acosta, and I don't know of many DMs in the league that could lose their go-to creator and take on that + the defensive role. I think we'll need to think this through better. Vincent is a role player, but on a cold night with a good home crowd, why not put in more offensive firepower? Not sure if LeToux or Harkes would have been better, but we know Vincent's style and it spoke to me of a goal to "not lose" a la 2012. Not a bad team, both cold and in early season form. But we don't want to be that dependent on Acosta, agreed... Last thing: soccer gods. FFS. 31 degrees? Really?
Seems like Hamid has gone through an Altidore esq transformation this year and has traded some muscle mass for speed.
Yep. Frustrating night. Subs were too much like old version of Bennyball. It's early though. Both teams looked in preseason form. No panic at all, just disappointment.
I understand the Vincent sub from this standpoint. You are in your home opener, the game is nil-nil late into the second half. KC has a very good playmaker in Feilhaber. You throw Harkes out there in that situation and you are putting a very heavy load on a very good prospect. What if he does a Mishu and makes a completely boneheaded play that allows a goal? How does that weigh on him, and how does that weigh on his teammates? You know Vincent is dependable and will help lock down a leaky midfield. Now, you could argue Vincent for Sarvas, but Buescher was toast at the point due to lack of pre-season conditioning. Maybe you put in Harkes for Buescher and Vincent for Sarvas. That leaves one sub left, so two of Mullins, Sam and Nyarko are going the full 90. Sam probably isn't a full 90 player at this point and Mullins was getting mugged and was left stranded. With the sub Benny made, you have more of a lockdown in midfield. Vincent does have decent long range shot which is about all you could expect from DCU's offense at that point. You put in Ortiz for Mullins for a bit more energy and hope he can create "something". Neagle for Sam was a no-brainer, put should have happened 10 - 15 minutes earlier. In other words, I don't have a real problem with Benny's subs other than the timing of the Neagle sub.
On one of the corners I think you are referring to, the replay showed he was spot on. Looked like a horrible call live. As for people killing Sarvas, he was bad tonight. He'll have good games and clunkers like this. He's not good enough to be the regular starter, but having Acosta and Harkes in front of him will make his job simpler. We can win with him, but he's not great.
I thought we looked like the better team, but we didn't look good. A lot of times, you could see the good pass they were trying to make, but the execution was just so bad that it allowed the other team to just pick of the pass. Hopefully just rust.
I'd be curious to know why. It was 63% possession for them throughout, they completed more passes, had better shots and required less compelling goaltending to make it through the match. We even got a 50/50 call to go our way on the penalty and couldn't get anything from it. KC wasn't amazing or anything but I can't see any particular area of the game they were worse than D.C. (Well I guess I already insinuated that we were better at goalkeeping but that generally goes without saying)
They looked better than us. What was scary about it, sitting in the stands, was how much quicker KC looked all over the field. And with Sam and Nyarko visibly slowing down, thats not a good thing.
Yeah -- I didn't like the Vincent sub, but it's defensible. In re: Neagle's sub, here's the only defensive I can come up with for the late timing: In sub-40 degree weather and in the first game of the season, it's a miracle we got out of it without SOMEBODY pulling some muscle. Maybe he was holding the last sub just in case?
I really sort of hate and sort of respect that hardcore SOB Peter Vermes. He consistently puts out teams that are hard to beat. That's why I repped this post.
I have to disagree with this. Two legs studs up into the attacker's shins is not "50/50" -- the PK wasn't a gift. Legit call IMHO.
I mean 50% of the time we or other MLS teams don't get the call for one reason or another, not that it was justified or not after the fact.
The penalty was garbage and easily saved but the goal line saves were fine. Is the argument you're making that they actually had better goalkeeping than D.C. or are you suggesting we had better chances? I think the former is debatable but the latter they clearly had more, better and regular opportunities throughout the match.
Let's make more work for the mods: Close the thread, and move the post-game discussion to the Post-game Thread.
Baloney, KC didn't threaten. Everything was outside the 18. Maybe they were more dangerous than DC on the day, but it's certainly debatable. I mean, how many times did they even get to the end line after the first ten minutes? Zero? I think I would like you, probably a good hang with a quick wit, but I sometimes wish you had a different favorite team to constantly disparage. If it was '98 you'd still fabricate reasons to bag on United.
In the end, we seemed to start off well, but as we progressed it got worse. Still, it wasn't bad enough that it cost us. Yup Sarvas was pretty lousy last night. And my feet were absoultely FREEZING on those stands ...
So I disparage the team despite you agreeing that it's debatable whether D.C. was more dangerous throughout the match (we know there were at least two KC opportunities requiring Hamid to be Hamid so they did threaten the net for what it's worth). We know DC's passing was less efficient by available stats and we know they controlled the ball less. So how am I disparaging the team when I say that overall KC had the better team play? It's not like either team played particularly well and we know it's the first game without Acosta so there is always room for improvement.
That's not what you said. You said it wasn't debatable regarding who had the better chances. Of course it is. United had two goal line clearances and a penalty. I could say KC's only equally dangerous chance was the free kick. Where are these dangerous chances KC created? "They clearly had more, better, and regular opportunities throughout the match.". Yeah, clear as mud.