Blaming NDL is erroneous! Sam was not tracking back all night, making NDL choose who to defend, the offensive player or the left full back. I must admit that I was surprised Olsen saw who was to blame for two of the goals (ironically not tracking back is what led Neagle to the bench!). But I think what this game showed everyone the limitations of the experienced journeyman veterans, there is a reason most of these players were not wanted elsewhere! I am wondering if Acosta would want to come back next year...
Look, they didn't need 2 weeks to prep for us. The offense was/remains (hopefully) centered on Acosta. We just needed a better plan to take the pressure off of him. That means having faster backs and a better complement to Acosta -- agree with those asking for Buecher -- and more scoring options off the bench. Bringing in a (seemingly not very match fit) Marcelo didn't help. Taking out the person who had the most fight in him down two goals seemed like a stupid move to me. I think it would have been better to let Acosta keep trying and -- maybe -- get that red card, unless he was injured. Our inability to bring a deadly striker off the bench (Sabo is too old and played in Orlando, and nobody else has impressed me) is a killer. Neagle seems to play more like a mid than a dedicated killer. Down 2/3 late in the game you need to change the format and go for blood, and putting Birnbaum up top... well that shows our personnel weaknesses (not his fault, but he's no Suarez). The team was fun to watch this year for the first time in many, eye-gouging seasons. It was a joy often. And many of the players are young and talented. We need faster backs and there is a lot of room for more upgrades. I'd be happy to see Acosta as our #10, and hope we get to keep him. That said, I remain convinced that we need to be harder to play against by having the ability to make tactical adjustments and present the opposing teams with different looks. We also need to make sure we come ready for big games. Beating an NYCFC team that had already qualified may have led us to think we were better than we were. The decision to rest the entire A team in Orlando seems like it was a mistake -- we had zero rhythm starting in the first 20 seconds last night. These are decisions that come from Ben. My grade for the game last night was an F. For the season, a B+. The sad thing is that with this team we were -- finally -- capable of more. I have less than zero hope that the owners will put big money into advertising or a big name signing (and no, buy our new logo swag doesn't count as branding). However, if we can hold onto Acosta and some of the other young guns, improve our team speed and find a striker who can get hot, we could be fun for some years.
Just some random thoughts: Montreal out-coached and out-hustled us. We have no room for complaint. The better team won. Obviously, the book on Acosta is that you can take him out of the game by double-teaming him and getting physical on him. We need another play-making option to open things up for Acosta next year. Have to respect Montreal's bunker. Very Italian-like. Quite exceptional as far as bunkering goes. Piatti picked our pocket. Their little playmaker is a real stud. Maybe, we should give some thought to playing Acosta outside the way Montreal plays Piatti.
I see a lot of blame on the defense and not much on the midfield/forwards. Vincent's extreme laziness in marking resulted in the first goal, 3 minutes in . You can't keep up 3 frigging minutes into a playoff game? Reminds me of his laziness with fresh legs in the CCL game. Boswell was lazy on the 2nd goal and Birnbaum was so far off his man on the 3rd for no good reason. However, what also pissed me off just as much was that Montreal was pressing pretty hard in the first half and the midfield/attacking players except for Acosta barely moved to be available to the defenders with the ball. He had to keep coming back deeper than he wanted to I feel. Along the same vein when Montreal countered especially, the transition from defending to attacking was pathetic. The shape was stretched out so bad because the midfield/forwards did not get back - not to defend, but to be available for the ball in transition. Just plain laziness, selfishness. In our attack, when we possessed in their end there were so few dangerous runs that we mainly just passed around the perimeter until we crossed to a defender or tried to force it through and we had a guy with his back to the goal with two defenders on him an nobody to moving forward in space to lay it off to. There was just ability to find space at all.
Yup. This was always a rebuilding year. I think we, as fans, were fortunate to have fun with the strong streak they had at the end of the season. However, there are too many gaps on this team for it to truly be a strong team. Hopefully, Olsen can continue to build upon the parts that are working.
There is not a single veteran on this team that came from a successful organization in the last year. That is the problem. We have good vets but they don't have or lost the mindset that made their previous team successful. James
A lot of truth in this. Still, after all of it I'm left with one core thought -- the TEAM is rebuilding, but its strong ORGANIZATIONS (top to bottom) that win championships. I think this is the issue. Our organization is poor now, and until it changes, I won't bet on much more than what we saw last night. Front office, coaching, marketing/fan attraction -- they all go hand in hand with winning. More fans help create atmosphere which definitely helps the team. Good coaching makes people want to come play for DCU. Media coverage makes going to Washington a better gig for someone coming here from abroad hoping to make their name. We had 12k for a playoff game coming off a season with no small amount of excellent play. How? Who even knew there was a game? United in the 90s was more than a great team. It was a great organization, built around winning AND creating a great experience for fans. I heard chants last night of "we want new owners". And I was exhausted, but I joined in.
I mean, they STARTED pretty shitty. I remember the "Arena Afuera!" signs walking about the stadium...Much as it stinks now, I think it'll turn around once we get a better revenue stream than RFK let us have. Yeah, we were supposed to start down that road 12 years ago, but......Optimism, you know.
Maybe United can refuse to accept the results of a "rigged season" and withhold their "concession" from the MLS Cup race. If they keep on showing up enough there's bound to be some fools who actually think they won
1 - Franklin wasn't very good on Sunday 2 - NDL has been fine when he's had help in front of him 3 - Franklin was reportedly in a boot and wasn't in the 18. If you don't play him on Sunday, I can't imagine just throwing him back in a playoff game without any game time to get ready. I don't put that on Ben at all. You just said yourself that you weren't complaining about NDL starting. It was the right decision that didn't work out.
I also love Buescher. If we could get someone better than all three of those CMs... and someone who was really dedicated to defending like Marcelo was early in the year, that would work. Those guys aren't easy to find... but we should have *some* cap space and may not have many other big holes to fill.
United needs a player that grabs a game by the scruff of the neck and makes things happen. Pontius was that guy, briefly. I hoped Kitchen would be that guy, didn't happen. I'm sure Lucho would love to be that guy, but physically that's a big ask. I always look to Alonso and McCarty. Those guys go get the ball and drag their teams along until they are humming together. Every team needs this 'talisman'. Historically great teams have great ones. Roy Keane, Xavi, Pogba with Juve, Zidane, Schweinsteiger. They refuse to lose. United were miles away from that mentality yesterday.
As far as wingers, I would like to see United look at some Koreans. Nova has a huge Korean community, and I have no doubt a Korean player would constantly bust his ass up and down the line all game long. MLS is not too difficult for a very good Korean player. Just a thought. United needs to look to build the roster, but also consider garnering new fans in the process.
I'm convinced this team thought they were going to cruise to an easy home victory when Drogba didn't show up.
After a few days reflection, let's give Biello and the Impact credit for playing a smart game and executing when they had to. Some random thoughts: Originally I was blaming Boswell's lazy marking for the second goal and I "knew" I was right because I sit in the mezz above the goal. However, after reading Goff's piece and looking at the video from a different angle, give Piatti props for an inch perfect pass and props to Mancuso for timing his run perfectly. Boswell was sliding with NDL to keep the line, Piatti put the ball into a narrow space between Boswell and Hamid that Mancuso poked in. Now, you can say NDL should have tried to dispossess Piatti, but if he made the move and missed, Piatti is free in the 18 with Boswell having to make a choice between marking Piatti or Mancuso, a disaster waiting to happen. As regards lack of support for Acosta and the need for another playmaker. In Olsen's system, both Nyarko and Sam are supposed to be secondary playmakers, either going wide to pump in crosses, or cutting to cause disruption in the box. Both had poor games and Montreal defended them well. That left Acosta on an island and actually forced to Jeffrey and Vincent to be more "offensive" to compensate and helped open up the middle of the field. In the end, Montreal executed, DCU didn't. That just happens and it's not necessarily because Olsen is a bad coach or DCU has bad players -- it's just sports. Ask the undefeated Patriots when they played the Giants in the Super Bowl, nobody would have expected Tyree to catch the ball one-handed against his helmet, but he did and the Patriots lost.
Buscher is too slow to take the pressure off of Acosta. He's good with the ball and with space but not fast enough to forward think himself out of trouble.
Bingo. 1000% correct on all counts. But . . . . . . you realize that you put more thought into your one single post--from a holistic, organization-level perspective-- than the actual owners have over the last x years? And yes, for the record, I'm sick of having to gripe about ownership.
I don't buy the rebuilding year crap. What was last year then? Another average season with a flat ending. Truth is we didn't prepare anything this past offseason. We never really replaced Kitchen's physical presence. We had no plan at center forward and put it all on Saborio's shoulders whose talents were clearly declining for at least 2 seasons. And of course we saw Espindola implode last year and bringing him back didn't inspire any confidence. We scrambled in the midseason and plugged some holes, but it's hard to completely reinvent yourself midseason. The truth is that DC United has had two solidly above average seasons under Olsen in 2012 and 2014. We were never able to build on that and followed both of those up with seasons where we went backwards. It's been 6 years now that Olsen has been there and to me it always feels like we're constantly experimenting and re inventing ourselves and plugging holes. We've never really settled into a consistent identity that builds from one season to the next. The latest incarnation is of an attacking team that gets numbers in the box, but you can't play open like that with a slow CB like Boswell and a weak defender on the left like Kemp and a soft defensive midfield. You're going to get killed every time in transition and we really bled a ton of goals the second half of the season by our standards. If you want to attack fine ... but you have to build a roster that balances that out. I hope this offseason they finally get their heads out of their collectives asses and actually focus on building a complete team. Focus on a system, or a set of systems that the players can master. Enough of this throwing crap at a wall to see what sticks. Someone earlier mentioned earlier how we tend to buckle in elimination games more often than not. The instability in the team is the reason for that. The system is always being reinvented and the personnel is always being reshuffled which means that in the moment of truth we're not battle tested. The players haven't successfully gotten through these types of games as a unit before, so there is no point of reference as to what success looks like.
I certainly saw a huge difference between the style of play from the very first game. A willingness to press forward with the ball, to dribble out of trouble in mid-field instead of constantly dropping the ball back, the attacks down the wings by players with speed and skill. OK - maybe not tremendous speed or skill, but certainly more than we ever had before short of Najar. Yeah - A real attacking up-top Forward threat would still be nice, but seriously there's not 25 of them in this league. Or any other league for that matter. What I really want to see is DC United be willing to spend serious money on and get a player most other teams are trying to sign as well. But I know that ain't gonna happen until we're no longer bribing city officials for the stadium deal.
I do think that trotting out Sarvas/Jeffrey/Vincent as our solution to central midfield was gross mismanagement. Those players are all fine in isolation, but as a unit there isn't enough quality there to go deep in the playoffs. Games are usually controlled from the center. Look at Red Bull. The strength of their team is McCarty/Felipe. It all starts there. Look at Dallas with Gruezo/Acosta. People earlier were talking about Acosta needing protection. He doesn't need a Geoff Aunger enforcer type. What he needs is protection is possession. What I mean is someone who can control the game from the center. Keep possession, keep the ball moving, attract defenders and break defenses down while still doing the defensive work. You get more control in deeper positions and you'll break the other team's ability to double team Acosta.
I agree with John L; at least we were entertaining. Championships are great, but I'll keep buying tickets if going to the games is enjoyable. And as far as not having adequate cover at D-mid, they did think they would have Halsti. Remember him, the fat Finn? I wonder how he would have paired with Acosta, but I'm not going to spend any mental energy contemplating that...