He had some "nice" moments. Unfortunately, the dropped ball on an easy scoop and the awful attempt on a clearance kind of negated those "nice" moments. He's young. He need mature a bit before he hopes to being the national team goalie.
Well, that was...underwhelming. Saw a few good things. Not very many. But I think there's enough talent on the field to at least be in the mix this season. The back line is a concern, but what really needs to get worked out is a passing rhythm.
I missed the first three minutes. Please tell me we did something great in those first three minutes, because I didn't see much that was positive for the remaining 87. Did we win a single contested head ball tonight?
Underwhelming, exactly. I'm not surprised the back line looked a little shaky (they were okay, though) b/c it's the first game and KC can strike some fear when they're coming full bore. To me, it seemed like the team wasn't prepared for the speed of an MLS regular season game. If I'm the coach, I've got take that one on myself. I can't think of a good excuse for that to happen.
good team find a way to win. it really shouldnt be a surprise the wiz made it happen. what sucks/is that it was in stoppage time and on a set piece.
I think the gap between DCU and playoff teams in terms of talent has grown Salahi is a poacher, but he's slow. Woolard and skunk boy are not yet MLS level backs, and we've got a college defender playing in the center of midfield with Bosky - who didn't really look ready to anchor possession against a KC team that I don't think is really that good. Najar is really athletic, but he still doesn't look like a guy who can find the final pass or get in position to finish with regularity. Yikes. I thought the little combo between DeRo and Pontius was the DCU highlight of the game.
Deflating at the end, but not unexpected. Fashion note: Nielsen in orange traffic cone uni with black tights! Hello sailor. Should have received a yellow at kick off for visual pollution. I witnessed the difference between a team that has played together as a unit for over a year and one where all the key parts never have played together in a regular season game before tonight -- it showed. Pontius looks about 85% right now. He just doesn't have an explosive burst yet to turn a defender, he's mediocre now, but let's see where he is in June or July. I thought Ben should have pulled him about 10 minutes earlier. Najar has been watching too many clips of his run through the Battery. Andy, that was a D-2 team in its first weeks of training. You can't do that in MLS on a regular basis. There never was a flow to DCU. Credit to KC's defense, but DCU's players seemed to be running in lanes all night, making KC's defending even easier. I really would like to see the Dude get some minutes over Dennis Rodman. DR has no distribution skills and his cluster******** effort at the end led to the sequence resulting in KC's goal. Jakovic isn't perfect, but he actually has skill with the ball and I think he and the Dude working together would do wonders for DCU's possession game. I really hope they catch the guy who kidnapped Boskovic, stole his uniform and then "played" in midfield for DCU.
Very good assessment of the game. We deserved to lose and almost got out of there with a tie... Andy's crosses were atrocious. Passing out of the back was slow an inaccurate. Passing in the midfield was slow an inaccurate. Passing for the forwards wasn't too bad in the first half. Did they even see the ball in the second half? This team seems to need a couple weeks more to even start to gel. I credit Vermes with noticing and picking up the high pressure as they saw what it did to our passing. KC is also a big team all around so I'm not surprised it ended with a set piece header. I'm chocking some of this up to SKC being a really good team and some of it up to our guys not being used to each other yet and some of it to just plain blaming the players.
A few weeks ago I was at a fairly drab 0-0 game between West Ham and Palace. I thought that the quality of play was no better than what I see on a weekly basis in MLS. Tonight had me re-evaluating that opinion. Neither team looked good. As others have mentioned, DC looked like they were introduced in the locker room just before the game. KC pressed very well for the first 20-30 minutes but seemed to tire after that and the match was fairly even from that point forward. A stoppage time loss seems cruel but with only one shot on goal for the evening, even a point was asking for a lot.
on paper, this match up seemed like an exciting opener. KC with last season's performance and DC with some surprise pickups... LOL. i thought the same about the tie.at about half way through the 2nd, i'd rather have any team score for the win. even worse i thought about "shoot-outs" KC pressure was on and off although they did set up a nice midfield line. Bosko was absent for most of the time in a scenario where i think he would actually play better against a countering team. the team just didn't gel together.It is the first game so all I hope for is that we can come back from this lose. Santos had a very good chance of scoring late in the 2nd and just wasted it.
I finally got home after sitting in the clusterfsck of a parking lot. I'm cold and I have ennui. Tonight kinda sucked. It wasn't from the cold and the ennui is as a result, not the cause of the sucking. Would the team get together and have a social mixer so that everyone can be formally introduced to each other? I don't think they've really met before this game because they sure didn't play like it. They are still slooooooow. I'm tired of having a slow team. As for KC being a good team? Really? If playing like a bunch of thugs and lobbing the ball far upfield as your prime defensive move is a mark of a good team then okay, they're a good team. But during the first half, I don't think there were any decent shots on goal. The second half, KC started stepping up but they still didn't impress me as a "good" team. The goal that they scored was in a goat rodeo of a set piece and I think Hamid had about had it with the rest of the team by that point because he didn't look like he didn't anything to stop it. Oh spot on with the Jimmy Neilson OTC fashion disaster. I thought the jumbotron was going to blow out every time he appeared up there. Add in all the construction in Lot 8 and the mess getting out of there to the South and color me not happy with this evening.
Or a giant 3 mo old banner out front. Pretty deflating way to start the season. Hope this is not our attendance high mark.
There's way too little pace between Salihi, DeRo, Pontius and Boskovic to be playing this system. It places too much work-rate responsibility on Kitchen. We would have better balance in a 4-2-3-1 with Boskovic on the bench (DeRo behind the striker).
Just got back .... Where to begin? Boskovic is poor and shows zero leadership. Heck I even wondered if we had a midfield out there because Zusi and company were having a party at our expense. The midfield was crap. 50/50 balls - did we win one the entire game? Our players did not look fit and it was pretty obvious that Vermes coaches his squad to apply high pressure when they lose possession. I was not upset with Najar or Pontius because at least they tried. Neither Bosko or De Ro played like DPs. Olsen's coaching performance stunk. This crew will get thrashed next week if they play like this. One bright spot -Hamid played very well.
Bosko gave us nothing out of the midfield, and playing DeRo at a withdrawn forward means that, if the midfield collapses like this, the MLS MVP won't see nearly enough of the ball to make an impact. I liked Kitchen at d-mid, I thought Najar and Pontius were active on the outsides and Hamid played very well. That's a start, at least. Next week will be a loss - I hope we stay competitive, but the Galaxy are at another level. After that, we need to get at least six of our next 12 points (at Vancouver, home against FC Dallas, home against Seattle, at New England), otherwise we'll find ourselves in an ugly early hole. R.
Watched on TV. The only thing worse than sitting through 90+ minutes of lame football -- only to lose in the final minutes of extra time -- is to do it while listening to John Harkes drone on incessantly the whole time. And for the millionth time, it's Con-VEE, not Con-VAY you ********ing nitwit.
those saying KC isn't good, this is pretty much the same team that finished top of the east last year. You want to see a bad team turn on the Revs and Quakes, NE looks horrid. i'm going to go out on a limb and say this team will look much better on the road. just a hunch. a win in LA would be a small miracle but beating Vancouver is doable. Let's go United!
My first home opener, and that sucked. For me everything pointed at the lack of anything through the spine of the team. Offensively, nothing was generated by BB, and Kitchen failed to initiate any dynamic counters. And defensively, pretty much KC was able to move through without any challenge. It looked as if the team only had a week or two of pre-season, a total lack of chemistry. What looked dangerous was the yelling at each other. Emotion is OK, but there was clearly alot of frustration. Silly fouls in dangerous spots. Hamid was the only player that had a decent game.
I've had a feeling that we will have big problems in central midfield. There was not one positive move generated from there all match. Unfortunately I don't see any remedies on the bench unless we change this formation and play a little more compact in midfield. Also McDonald and Woolard had horrible games in possession. I swear I think every attack went through McDonald and resulted in a long ball upfield, even though we have no center forward out there that likes to play with the back to goal. Overall pretty horrible showing. And the cherry on top is that we were undone by a set piece ...
Just got home. Ugh. Not surprised by the outcome, just sucked to give a goal away at the death. This team does not know each other at all on the field, KC was the better team, we chased the game the whole time. At times it seemed like KC had an extra player, they were that well organized. Hamid was a stud. Maybe the large Hispanic gentlemen who puked up his tailgate goodies two rows in front of us right before kick-off was an omen of what was to come. My expectations were low and they were met! I predicted a 0-0 draw or a 0-1 loss. Good night, at least I get an extra hour sleep.....what?!?!?
Oh boy... That was not a great way to start a season. All chasing and then right to forcing everything on attack. No one had a good game tonight. Every team has at least one bad game, well at least we got that over with and hopefully we don't have another game with no midfield possession. KC did use high pressure well, or at least I'll use that as an excuse for a poor attacking style. Somebody please tell me the DP central (attacking) midfielder gets better than that! I'm new to DC and that was my first game at RFK. If I had to wrap up my views, I would say... You really need a new field, followed by a new stadium around it, then maybe a team will show up to play for it's fans. The fans were the best part of that MLS game day experience. Watched it again on TV when I got home, it almost looked better, but I was there and know better. There was absolutely no rhythm to the play tonight. A cold night at RFK for this mild winter season we have had (another excuse maybe).
I agree that Bosko wasn't getting it done, but he was getting swarmed everytime he touched the ball. I think I would rather see Bosko on the left, Pontius up top with Salihi, and DeRo behind the strikers. Some have said that Hamid was excellent, some have said he was very good. I thought Hamid was good, but that's all. Yes, he did make some good saves, but he fluffed some saves that could have hurt us, and his distribution is still horrible! He's doing the same crap he did last year: faking a throw, slowing down a counter (wide open Pontius x2 (at least!), and then wide open Najar x10, letting KC set up on defense and then kicking the ball straight to them or out-of-bounds. Agree. We will need to get at least six points out of the next 5 matches, but it doesn't look like we will, IMHO. I don't think we won many 50/50 challenges. Possession was heavy in KC's favor, and I don't think we won a single header all night. Everyone was slow to the ball and pushed off of it too easily. There are still to many "boot-it-up-the-field-clearances" (*cough*Brandon*cough*), too many "headers-to-no one", and precious few passing triangles. In short, this team still reminds me of last years team. I'm hoping it is only because they really haven't had a chance to play together and gel as a team. I hope.
And you know what? I couldn't care less if they do. This team has won five home games since Ben took over in July 2010, and we're one of the few U.S. sports franchises with a better road record than home record since then. United looked out-of-shape and, honestly, disinterested. Playing in their home opener. We had one shot on goal to KC's 8--playing at home. I swear, I hope we start losing on the road until we figure out to play at home--they can have their lazy Happy Meal shootarounds in Frisco and Seattle, and find a way to play hard, collectively, and with full concentration, for 90 minutes at RFK.
I want to chastise you for dissing Palace, but realistically I can't. They play an ugly game of football under Freeman, and that game you saw was particularly bad. On the flip side neither one of these squads tonight has a Wilfried Zaha, or even a Julian Speroni. This was not a pretty game to watch and I am so disappointed that United was this bad at home, in their opener. The squad looked so good on paper I was fairly excited during the preseason. On the field, not so much. I am hoping they just need time to gel.