We are undefeated so far this season! Let's talk about this match. Here's my take: Sarvas sucks. Hamid's epic save was the difference (TBH: KC had some solid D too).
Well, that was underwhelming. My general take -- without Acosta, DCU is slow of thought through midfield and Mullins will be left stranded. KC, except for Dwyer, can't score in a whorehouse with a handful of Benjamins. The individual players: Sarvas -- poor, I like @Winoman's "some many hospital balls, so little time" remark. DeLeon -- #94 spun him around so many times, I thought he would throw up from vertigo. Buescher -- kid, it's your big chance to show you are a competent back-up for Lucho. You blew it. Franklin -- you play like you haven't been in the middle for 8 years -- oh yeah, you haven't. Kemp -- you kept trying to move up the wing, too bad no one else moved with you. Jeffrey -- a half step slow all night Nyarko -- a competent performance Sam -- ditto Mullins -- if you don't get service, you won't score. Birnbaum -- looked like a Nat. Hamid -- MOTM Vincent -- OK, wished you had an opening to shoot Ortiz -- good movement, but that weak assed shot when Kemp was screaming for the ball on the wing was USL - level play. Neagle -- Lamar, we hardly saw ye.
I thought Franklin and DeLeon did well, blessedly. Marcelo should sit, but who takes his place? Vincent? Jeffrey (with Harkes partnering with Acosta)? KC was pretty relentless. Dwyer is a handful. That screamer of a shot in the second half fortunately was right at Hamid. And why Klinsi dropped Feilhaber is a mystery to me. He's masterful in the midfield.
I agree with everyone on Sarvas. Easily the worst player out there. Besides the PK miss, he had about 4 opportunities to face goal with open runners ahead of him and he turned it over each time. As usual he couldn't win the ball cleanly so he was constantly fouling. I'm afraid this is Ben's new Pajoy ... Some other players who I thought were poor : Büscher and Vincent. Our central midfield is way below MLS standards. The fact that SKC has one of the strongest midfields in MLS is why we lost the possession battle. I liked the effort to press, and it almost paid off a couple of times early. But once they figured out what was going on, Feilhaber dropped deeper and they played through our press easily. Something our midfield is incapable of, unfortunately. Bright spots? I thought De Leon and Franklin looked great. To get a shutout in game one makes me feel a little less afraid of this experiment. Also good games from Nyarko and Sam ... They looked dangerous every time they got isolated. Despite not playing well, we did create a decent amount of chances.
A clean sheet against KC is a result of significance. And I agree about Feilhaber. Love watching him play.
Le Toux was available as a sub. I would have pulled Marcelo for Vincent and Le Toux for Buscher. Not sure Sam needed to come out, although in a scoreless match why not have last year's leading scorer on the pitch?
Same for Harkes, right? The sub pattern didn't seem incoherent. . . it coherently seemed to say "I'm playing for the 0-0." In that sense it was also 'successful,' but why would that be the goal?
Feilhaber is sort of like their Felipe. I admire the dude's talent and abilities but man, what a complete *** monkey. Non-stop whining, diving, and hacking. I detest players like that*. *Fully aware that our current coach was also that type of player.
True that. Peter Vermes puts together tough teams that are awful hard to break down. And, we had two chances (the P.K. and a wild goalmouth scramble) and basically that's all a good Vermes team is going let you have. Frankly, you could make a reasonable argument that Vermes should have been chosen to replace Klinsmann as the new USMNT coach. Of course, my sense is that Vermes, like Novak, tends to burn out his players before the playoffs begin. I'm glad that Sarvas and Bueschler got long looks because now we know what they have to offer - which apparently isn't much. I suppose that these two guys are going to get at least one more audition before they play themselves out of the lineup for once and all. Jeffrey and Vincent, on the other hand, at least have proven themselves to be a competent journeyman. None of these guys seems to be the second coming of Lewis Neal. But, I don't see how any of these guys are going to keep Durkin and Harkes on the bench past Memorial Day Weekend.
Marcelo isn't the only player whose PK was saved and the match ended 0 - 0. Rimando stoned Giovinco and the RLS-Toronto match ended scoreless. (Somehow, this doesn't make me feel any better about last night's result.)
When Acosta comes back, I would love to see Buscher in Jeffrey's spot. Better passer, better dribbler, way better combining. I can see where he probably isn't dangerous enough to play the ten. But I'm convinced he could excel as the 8, though Harkes probably gets it first. Not that that's a bad thing. Someday the haters will see what I see and I won't even say I told you so, I'm classy like that. I also can't work the damn wink emoji, so take everything I say with a mine's worth of salt.
I said pretty much the same thing at the end of last season. Now that Harkes is in the mix, it will be really hard to get minutes.
If his age is what's keeping him on the bench, rather than the play of those who are eligible at that position, then we have major problems with our decision-makers.
Unfortunately, being 14 was the reason he started. He would have been better served in the long run if he had learned how to play pro soccer instead of being pimped out. I hope he invested wisely.
He would have been served in the long run if he had learned how to play kids games like 3v3 and 4v4 and 3v1 in a box.
As I recall, Adu was shipped out to Utah because he was uncoachable. He probably could have had a decent MLS career if he had been capable of keeping his ego in check.
Probably so. Everyone in the world, including Adu himself, was caught up in his dribbling skill. His real asset as a pro, though was as a passer. On the dribble, he had the problem that he could beat a guy, but he didn't have breakaway speed so unless he promptly got rid of the ball, the guy he just beat could get back on him. Being that he didn't cover a lot of ground, couldn't really tackle, wasn't always 90 minutes fit, etc, all the little things that less naturally talented players do to separate themselves from the pack, he was always going to have to really focus in on how to use what he did have to consistently deliver end product. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes invisible wasn't going to cut it. I have, however, thought that if soccer was the type of game where you got 5 or 6 subs, Freddy might have had a good career at a pretty high level as instant offense off the bench.
Bingo. I'll always remember the home opener in 2006. Freddy matched up against Marvell Wynne. He'd do all sorts of fancy dribbling and cool looking things, but Wynne would simply manhandle him off the ball and strip him of it every time. He always held the ball for too long.