I've heard from more than a couple people that Kei tends to wear out his welcome everywhere he goes. He has made 7 transfers in 11 years. When you have a guy who has been a bit of an ass in the past put up career numbers and earn himself a big-money contract, it'd be less than surprising to learn that he was being a jackass.
Sir, I have met Our Lord Guillermo Barros Schelotto and kei is not even worthy of his sock sweat. And then to insult the Holy Stern John. Blasphemous! Please go watch the DVD 2008 MLS Cup Championship Game: Columbus Crew and read A Massive Season: Sirk's Notebook chronicles the 2008 Columbus Crew (only $19.99 so buy two) as penance. 2015 kei MIGHT break into the 20 twenty greatest Crew players but 2016 kei is in my bottom 20 Crew players . . . right next to Santiago Prim.
A few things of note that the press may want to dig into after the first few weeks of the season. 9 wins in the past 37 games dating back to last season. Portland, the team who started this interminable downward spiral for Columbus, coming back to Crew Stadium top of the league after missing the playoffs like Columbus last year. It seems their rebuild is going a bit quicker? 2 goals from the run of play in 3 games (one of which was offside). A red card for our big offseason DP acquisition in his second match. A midfielder who started close to 90% of matches when healthy the past 3 seasons not in the 18 for any of the first 3 games? Don't worry guys, Corporate Shill Andrew King is on it. He continues to have his fingers on the pulse of the club. His brand of journalism will continue to hold the powerful to account! It was only a matter of time...#CrewSC fans, I'm looking for those of you with strong capo opinions one way or the other. My DMs are open.— Andrew (@AndrewKingCbus) March 22, 2017 Absolutely embarrassing. I've seen high school wrestling programs and coached face more scrutiny from the press. Berhalter and Precourt have the coziest jobs in the world. Just continue to drift in the seas of mediocrity on this rudderless ship. It's not as if anyone cares enough to ask for accountability or changes.
Actually, it's 4 goals in three games. After all, you would never discount the others -- you being the champion of how impressive penalty kicks are, right?
It is funny you use Mendoza because he was also a DP striker who was paid way too much money, thought too highly of his contribution, a terrible team mate, blamed the coach, team, and fans for any of his failing. And also had a group of fans who after he left could not get past the fact that he scored goals and did not care about the other parts of soccer as a team sport. The only thing 2016 Kei had on Mendoza was he was always good to the fans. Mendoza was always a jerk. But what should I expect from someone who thinks John "I sleep with your Wife/Girlfriend, I like mocking Americans about 9/11, Missed the World Cup because of a bar fight, Racial Abusing other players" Terry as good team captain. Let me guess Latrell Sprewell is on your all time NBA greats list.
I said two goals from the run of play. For moderators of soccer forums unfamiliar with that kind of soccer parlance, "run of play" typically refers to goals that were scored through open play and not a penalty kick (and sometimes does not include direct free kicks). The post you referenced did mention 9 wins in 37 games. Those 9 wins include last weeks win over DC United when two goals were scored by penalty kicks. So, yes the post does acknowledge that converted penalty kicks are, in fact, goals as well. However, not normally referred to as goals from the run of play. I hope this has alleviated any confusion.
It's actually a rather common distinction made. Shockingly enough one only has to look at MLS boxscores to see that (PK) is noted next to a penalty kick goal. http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2017-03-18-dc-united-vs-columbus-crew-sc/boxscore TADA!!!! But, your right. Maybe we should instead of wishing for media coverage to actually hold this team and ownership accountable, we should do a deep dive into why MLS and many box scores around the world note penalty kicks as such. Surely the teams problem's will fix themselves. Once this hard hitting piece of journalism on capos hits the presses the coach, ownership, and players will feel the pressure and accountabilty that a high school tennis program from Lima, OH feels.
I think at this point that Crew fans know that if they want to read about delusional ramblings about how horrible Gregg is, BigSoccer has the subject matter experts.
It's odd to make the distinction the way you did. Of course it's common to separate but you are almost implying that it is somehow a failing?
Why pick on King? It's not his job to be critical of the Crew. Now, the Dispatch, on the other hand... When you note the lack of "scrutiny from the press" (which I agree with completely), isn't that the job of "Ohio's Greatest Home Newspaper"?
Yeah, I get that. Although I don't know why people go so far out of their way to separate set piece goals in the first place, considering such a high percentage of goals at the professional level are scored that way. It'd be like trying to discount power play goals in hockey as if they're less meaningful. The point I'm making is that when it was Mendoza, you tried to build him up by saying the act of kicking a stationary ball into a net from 12 yards away against a goalkeeper that's not permitted to come off his line was some extraordinary skill. But when you're looking to trash your own team, and we have two pieces of quality attacking play that likely would have been goals that forced the opponent to foul, it's "penalties? Pssssh." It's your habit of constantly trying to minimize everything that's good and maximize anything bad. The same way you're drooling over Portland because they beat a now-toothless L.A. team and hung five on an expansion team playing its first ever match at an MLS level, but a road shutout at D.C. isn't all that impressive because they're terrible.
To be fair I think the Dispatch is terrible as well. To go further I guess this article isn't really the best example to go after King. The better example would have been his piece last week on the excitement over Wil Trapp's captaincy. That article did not mention a word about the team being without a win in it's first two games, or the Captain being subbed off with over 20 minutes to go vs Houston. It did manage to get quotes from Crew players that were almost word for word what was offered to the Dispatch about 2 weeks prior about Trapp's captaincy. It's all the same fluff piece garbage, regurgitated press release type prose, it doesn't matter the source.
Sure we can say that the two pieces of attacking play were likely to be goals (if not granted pk's) if we want. However, one of the main complaints about the Crew has been how wasteful they have been in front of net. Hundreds of keystrokes have been spent pounding out how the Crew's expected goals (xG, in stat geek parlance) are more than the actual goals they score as both a positive and negative spin on the Crew attack. But sure I'll grant you that they may have been likely goals. What percentage likelyhood? 50.1%? Maybe up to 55%? I stated in the post game thread that the win over DC was a great win. I lauded Crognale. I praised Berhalter for finally making a tactical adjustment. I praised Steffen. I didn't mention that DC's prime attacking threat for the game (Mullins) went off injured. I didn't mention that the shutout of DC United the third time in 3 games that DC United had been shut out this season. Parents shrug sometimes when asked about their favorite child. They are all gifts and they are all special. When you only have 9 wins in 37 games, all those wins are special as well, like all the children. But last week's win was my favorite. ******** everything about DC United and all the bad times we had in that stadium. As for Portland, they did beat Minnesota and LA. They also put 4 past a Houston team (including 1 pk) that frankly made us look like garbage. Andres Mendoza's penalty are eternal and everlasting works of art. Glory to Columbus.
They had a roatation and likely was Higuains turn to take the PK. Also GB left it to the players and our great captain Parkhurst wanted no part of it so he gets a fair share of blame. Finlay was smart and didn't take the PK. Even if Higuain was the designated take every PK guy ( he wasn't ) he still would be a bad teammate to offer one guy the PK and deny the guy going for a hat trick and take it himself when we were already up so much. Pipa was jealous of Kei stealing the limelight and If you don't see my point then just drop it. There is no possibility that Kei instigated the issue he was never wrong for wanting to take the PK. A few facts for you : Anyone but Pipa Higuain should have taken it. By the numbers he's one of the two worst PK takers in league history (minimum: 20 attempts), and that's a large enough sample size to know he's no good at it. Plus his conversion rate (75% in 2013; 62.5% in 2014; 50% in 2015) has dropped each of the last three seasons. Kamara was wrong to air the dirty laundry, but the real failure in CrewVille was letting this be a discussion in the first place. Facts on PK designation: When there is no designated penalty taker, as was the case on Saturday (and Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter offered up a mea culpa for that after the match), it's always going to come down to an old-fashioned battle of wills. Spin it any way you want, at that point there is no right person to take it. Had Kamara won out, you can argue that Higuain was wronged — he's taken nearly every Crew penalty kick since joining the team in 2012. Plus, if it was really an alternating scenario (a point that Kamara says Higuain raised), it was Higuain’s turn anyway!!! But even after all that, if Higuain felt so confident and assured to literally stake his ground — he didn’t budge from the penalty spot, yet offered it to Ethan ???? Chew on that
So here are some assumptions: 1. There are those who feel strongly that Kei should have been traded. There are those who feel strongly that Higuain should have been traded. A year later it's pretty certain that opinions aren't going to be swayed. This is about as insightful as any Facebook political post. Move on. 2. All goals matter. It's true that we have several pk goals but those should not be discounted. Sometimes you build your own luck. Move on. 3. It's still too early to tell how this season is going and overreaction on every level (good and bad) is taking place. I believe that the 10-game mark goals that @hangthadj set in place are a good mark to look at. Move on. 4. Speaking of moving on, I've taken a job in Chicago and will be moving up there the weekend of April 1 (no April Fool's Joke). That being said, the Crew does travel to the area the weekend after and I expect to see many of you fine folks at the game. 5. No, I will not be getting season tickets to the F!re. Move on. 6. I really hate this new BigSoccer format.
Oh, shut up, you ********ing Bridgeview FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ultra wannabe. p.s. congrats!
YES. I hear "tied for 8th highest" touted as an excellent stat for so long, I almost accept it sometimes. If you play conservative and have a fortress for defense, tied for 8th highest in goals is pretty good and you might win something. If you play an aggressive offensive system that exposes you on defense and leaks goals like a sieve to the tune of 2nd worst, you shouldn't say that offense isn't the problem. It might be better to say that the risk/return of your system is out of balance.
The PK gravy train will not sustain a team. Yes, it means you got into a good position, but you certainly can't rely on it. A team that scores a lot of goals from the run of play is also likely to get PK's eventually unless they have bad luck. And if they can have bad luck, so can the team that depends on PK's for offense. I'll take the run of play stat any day.
One comment maybe for the Crew coaches: Pipa's PK was not a great one, and Ola's was terrible and lucky not to be saved. I know we have a lot to work on, but let's get these guys a little extra practice maybe. Something tells me we can't be squandering any PK's we get.