You can dig up plenty of highly qualified soccer coaches who can do as well or better. The issues are exhuming corpses is impolite, insensitive and except in a few Eastern European countries, illegal.
I can blame Olsen for one really stupid thing we did. Steiber was a left footed player hugging the right touchline. If you're going to invert your wingers, they need to be much narrower than Steiber was. Yeah, he got the ball a lot, but he couldn't do very much with it because he wouldn't or couldn't cross with his right, and by the time he got close enough to take a shot with his left, he had been closed down. If you're going to play for the counter, either Steiber is the 3rd attacker, in which case he needed to be much more central as a right winger, or Steiber is supposed to deliver early crosses, in which case he needed to be on the left.
That falls 50% on Olsen and 50% on Stieber. He know what his own strengths and weakness are. He needs to compensate for his coach playing him out of position. Olsen needs to communicate better how to attack from the opposite wing. Also this is hardly the first time Stieber has played on his off wing. I know he has swapped wings mid-match before. So there again that falls on him.
Is Steiber hearing impaired? Does anyone on the DC staff know sign language if he is? In all seriousness...is it your contention that Steiber played in an ineffective manner, and the manager is blameless? That's completely insane. Are you saying Olsen picked up on the same thing, told Steiber to change the way he was playing, and Steiber didn't listen? If that's the case, Steiber is going to get suspended. If it's not the case, then you're full of it. Or is it your contention that Olsen didn't notice it, in which case, QED.
Woah, woah woah! Steiber should know how to play on the off wing. You have your panties wound way too tight here. How is it Olsen fault if that a 11 year professional player, who has played in the situation he played in many times before, is not effective. Sorry I can agree if you say that making that choice tactically was poor by Olsen but Steiber is the player it is on him.
Either Steiber is doing what Olsen told him to do, which makes it Olsen's fault, or he was disobeying his coach. If it's the latter, either Olsen will be suspending Steiber soon, or the players have no respect for him. C'mon, Olsen is the ********ing coach. If a player misses a tackle, that's on the player. If a player is performing his role in a terrible way from a tactics standpoint, that's on the coach. This isn't a "the player should have passed instead of shot in the 81st minute" deal. This was the way he played great swaths of the match. NOTE TO SELF: If I ever commit a crime, get shawn on the jury.
The player I saw "hugging the right sideline" wasn't Stieber - it was Oniel Fisher, who made many runs forward, much like DeLeon, his predecessor at RB.
He was playing in the position Olsen told him to play in. How he played that position I suspect and I am saying was up to him. As I have said he has played his off wing before. So he knows how to play it. And why are we beating on Stieber here anyways, unless I am wrong he helped setup Mattocks goal with a cross from the right. He crossed it, Arriola shot, it was saved and Mattocks finished it. I did not see the whole match as I am no longer allowed a local broadcast in the Baltimore market. But I saw the highlights.
The best review of the match I've read is David Ousted's post-match comments. Read them on the DCUnited.com website. He's right on.
Was Arriola seriously injured right before the losing goal? Right before the cross, he put up his hand and let his man go. His man continued forward, creating a 3-on-2 against the right side of the defense. That's why there was an unmarked attacker when the ball was crossed there. And, seriously, don't we have anyone worth bringing on as sub when trying get a result on the road?
He is, but we've heard Ben say it a million times. Goalkeeper David Ousted On the match... “I don’t think we were good enough today. I think we did what we needed to up until we got up 1-0. If you do that away from home, especially away from home, you need to do the nitty-gritty work and then defend it and be tight. But we leave one of the better players on the field today wide open on the top of the box and he finishes. And then, again, we leave one of their guys wide open in the box for the second one. Those are mistakes that you can’t make at this level, and those cost us today.” On making his 150th MLS appearance... “It sucks that it comes with the defeat. But, no, I’m obviously proud to play 150 games. But right now, the defeat is a little bit more on my mind than that. I’ll probably look back on this later on and say it was a good milestone to hit. But right now, the defeat hurts.” On what the team needs to work on in training the next few days... “Get back it. We need to make sure our bodies are right, make sure we do everything correctly to go into Toronto and do things correctly there and get points. That’s what it’s all about now. We need points and we need to climb the table.”
Hmmm... When I click on the thumbnail it seems to blow up ok--and it's even annotated for bonus helpfulness .
Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day....Sooner or later the owners have to recognize that, right? We have not seen steady improvement in this team in a decade. No exaggeration. It's not that we don't have better players - we do. It's that we don't have better coaching and GM.
If you look at the unused subs, the answer is no. Other than fresh legs, they don't have a lot to offer. Well, maybe Durkin.
After reading Ousted's quotes, I think he should be player coach. Showed some leadership by calling out his teammates collectively for two breakdowns that should not have occurred. You always can lose through an individual exercise of skill, or a perfectly executed set piece. Losing by failing to mark players in goal scoring territory is just unacceptable and someone, coach, player leader needs to call out those who ******** up.
What did we gain by keeping Durkin on the bench, especially after they tied it up? He's 18, and would have probably recovered before they got back to the hotel. This should not have been a battle to keep a point on the road, it should have been a full out brawl for 3 points - this was our best shot at a win before the Ides of July I would have paid 300K/yr for Bruin and not cared if he scored once for us. Worth it to prevent the damage he's done and is destined to do. I feel strongly that if Acosta is having a run of poor form, we should replace him with the obvious backup on the squad, Sir Not Appearing On This Roster.
I remember another DCU player (briefly) who made similarly cogent and intelligent post-match comments which were printed in the paper: Greg Vanney.
Let's see if he's between the pipes again for speaking out of school. He was correct in his assessment perhaps wrong in going public.
Perhaps, but someone needs to shake things up over there. There is some talent on this team, but it is disorganized and prone to mental lapses that are evidence of poor preparation, bad habits that are not corrected and a general lack of accountability. The only players that Olsen seems to hold accountable are Mullins -- who has been awful -- and whoever is between the pipes in a loss. The ten other jackasses in front of the 'keeper seem to be able to keep their jobs by performing to some mediocre "mean" that satisfies the coaching staff. Kurt Morsink was a very average player, but he played like he gave a shit. I would love to see that same determination from some of the more skilled players on this team. Ousted was right to call them out and you are right that he probably will be "punished" for speaking out of turn. We'll see tomorrow.
I don't agree that Mullins has been "awful." I think he has a better touch than Mattocks and puts himself in good positions to advance play. But I don't see him as a striker, but as a more withdrawn facilitator. But if Ben won't put him in (even in Open Cup matches) we'll never know.