Well..... wasn't expecting that! We looked like an unbeatable team and I am really concerned we fielded a team that isn't ours. Everyone played a complete game... really front to back. Atlanta looked loooooooooost and a shell of the team last year. Granted this is the first game of the season, but was impressed with everyones play. Ref in the first half was straight trash with the tackles that took place, but overall he did his job. Penalty was iffy in my eyes, but they missed so whatever! Right before the Third goal the Atlanta fans started really getting into it with their songs.... that goal sucked the life out of them. Big credit to them and the numbers they had.... impressive!
Photographers take pictures of photographers! Thanks Mr. Brooks! (I hope picture below shows up, can't do that facebook thing)
Ah dude, there’s 33 games left. You’re “October table watching” like the English are found of saying when Wigan is in first place with 12 points only to end up with 38 points come May.
I think that was about (1) their dumb pushed up tactics and (2) our forwards versus their backs. They could not handle Elis and were losing track of our weak side runners. What I will be curious about is when some teams go back to sitting back on us and we have to break them down, do we have the chops for that. I wouldn't read too much into the defense because they got the PK and then missed, and for the first 10 minutes were giving us fits on the wings. Could have been about 4-2. I don't think that's a playoff backline. But I enjoyed the thrashing since we were on the other end of that last year.
Agree with all the other observations. One key thing that we worried about was Garcia's spot. I thought he was improved from what I saw in pre season. Wenger played very good and was much more productive than Quioto was in the game. He put in some serious work tracking back and helping snuff out attacks near our box, creating turnovers in the midfield to start counters, and getting in Atlanta's box to create havoc with a goal and an assist. For that I give him the slight nod for man of the match. Obviously there is some argument that Mauro and Elis but overall I think Wenger overall had the more important contributions to winning. Fortunate that Ceren filled in nicely for Cabezas. It's too bad that he had to sub early - I think that cost us a sub appearance by Memo. Overall a good performance, great weather, and a good time. $13 for a barbQ beef sandwich / torta - not as good tasting or as good a value as the Dickies bbq. Just gotta make sure to eat before I come to the game. There quite a few Atlanta fans sitting in 108 - boy were they bummed!
Hell'uva start huh boys?!?! atlanta's travel section was loud, organized and large. atta boy goes to their supporters group I was surprised that our one trick (counter attack) worked to such efficacy. After having seen it all of last year, it seemed strange that ATL seemed to not know it was coming. Having two of the slowest CBs in the league doesn't help, but I would have expected that they not be surprised. Also, Tata not adjusting to the same trick (or adjusting very late) surprised me as well. Big Phil getting in a header reminded me of the old days when our back line was fearsome on set pieces. great to see i look forward to seeing Martinez play in the center and hope he can get Manotas more involved. I know Elis was a terror and there was no real need to go away from him but I'm interested to see what it looks like when teams have to choose between him and Manotas. Also interested to see what how our DM plays with Martinez in front of him knowing that Martinez will not play D. The new concessions were a great improvement. $13 sandwich was a shock so won't be doing that again. Funneling 5k ppl through one gate to get a midget cooler was about one of the dumbest ideas this organization has ever done. Massive safety hazard, terrible fan experience, no sense of urgency or extra help when exit was clearly clogged for over 30 mnt and to top it all off, the decision to allow the supporters groups to march their way through hundreds of jammed up people was flat stupid. Can this Org do anything for the fans that doesn't include some sort of FUBAR taking place?
Two goals off set pieces, yes. I went back and rewatched highlights and both crosses were Boniek. That poses something of a conundrum because that was missing last year and would further leverage the squad, which has several players who I think can finish dead balls but weren't getting the service last season. But Boniek could be pretty bad last season, giveaways, etc. To be fair, even if there's a downside, there's also plenty of upside, I could see even under a reinforced squad he and Alvarez as regular subs.
I watched from home so I can't comment too much on operational stuff, other than to say that I don't see how "trending towards a near sellout" (or whatever it is they said) was accurate or wise. Accurate in the sense that I or anyone else who saw the game could see empty seats, it looked more like 3/4 full. And to the extent the media was paying attention, it comes across as either wrong or parsed. "Was he really saying it's trending towards being not quite sold out? Did he use me to sell a misleading miessage that the game may sell out?" From a wisdom standpoint I don't know if it's wise, when you have a venue people have to travel to, to push too much of "sell out." I wonder what it does to walk ups if it's not at Rob in populated areas, and you hear it may sell out. Do I get in the car. Are you better off saying we've sold literally precisely x tickets which would be a good crowd as it is, and let's see if we can sell this out.....
I have appreciated Wenger in swiss army hustle roles. Last year he came in to the opener as a bench DM. He works hard and even has a nasty streak, and what this team missed for years was active harassment (as opposed to positional passivity) on defense to the level of ball winning. Now, is he a starting forward, if you find Manotas' occasional profligacy annoying, Wenger can be even more wasteful. It'll be interesting how it all shakes out with Steves not dressed, Quioto reduced to bench, Martinez suspended, Fuenmayor not dressed. I enjoyed the game but I don't think that's the 34-game lineup we just saw.
Here is the highlights: https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2018-03-03-houston-dynamo-vs-atlanta-united-fc/recap Really proud of the cohesion and team effort from our guys in Naranja tops! As well as how simple and effective our back 4 played. Beaz with the one sombrero move was class! Let's see if we can get another 3 points this Saturday. DALE DYNAMO! The supporters were always told to enter the Southeast Entrance in the first years. Then when we got returned to the North End of BBVA we were told to enter the Northeast Entrance. Now the past two seasons we enter the Southwest gate. Which is decided by our FO alone. Could you perhaps elborate on how this situation got so out of hand at that gate?
This is a golden generation of forward quality, Wood, Pulisic, Altidore, etc., but the telling thing about the midfield last cycle was try as Arena might Nagbe and Acosta have yet to prove a pimple on Bradley and Jones. [To be fair, on defense, the last two coaching staffs didn't even know who their competent but disappointing Nagbes were. And keeper is quietly becoming a free for all Guzan won't win -- I mean what was that crap on the 4th goal, he couldn't have punched that to a worse spot......] Nagbe seemed to show signs of becoming something last summer but it was a flash in the pan and I now start to discount it for being Gold Cup. I think the convention wisdom was this was the future but in reality he may be a transition figure behind Bradley only to get run off the field by the next generation of McKennie and Co., who can ball at a Pulisic level. I won't shed a tear because the problem this cycle was not enough Donovan/Beasley/Pulisic type players emerged to raise the level. Nagbe has always been a player of uneven interest and effort, and to me doesn't make enough big plays, nor is he a violent defender. He's about to get shuffled out of the lineup and whether he remains a bench option or takes the Mixx road to oblivion is up to does he really care enough to reinvent and up his game, or does he just like cashing checks.
WARNING -- LONG POST AHEAD APPOLOGIES the first 5k fans into the stadium were given a post card that was to be used at the end of the game to redeem a soft sided mini cooler. fans were to exit out of the methodist gate to redeem item. so after the game, some hundreds of people massed onto the spot at once and caused a 30-45 mnt jam of people crammed together at the mouth and down both halls of the gate. no instruction. no movement. no update. nada. and once you were in, there was no turning around. very much like being in a mosh pit in the 90s. after about 30 mnts in the sea of humanity, the supporters march right up to the mob of people and continue to revel. as you can imagine, 15 mnts of bass drum 10 feet from your face is not the positive experience most in the now grumpy crowd was wanting. some how, a hole was made thru the mob near the back wall and the supporters, still in full volume, slowly pushed their way through to the other side. i don't blame the supporters, at least not the rank and file. whom ever "leads" them could have seen the path completely packed chose to go out the other gate or negotiated another route to avoid collision with the mob. or if not possible, at least stop playing at full volume so the toddlers in front of me could stop crying from the noise. despite my perceived opinion of their lack of situational awareness, the main fault is with whomever organized the give away, not the SGs. please understand that my frustration is not with the SGs. it's with whomever decided to set up one table out side of the gate--staff it with two people--then invite up to 5k people to come at once to collect their prize. They were lucky that the only bad thing that happened was that everyone was uncomfortable. One drunk idiot taking a swing or one panicked person starting to push, and many would have seriously been hurt. just another sh^t show. what's new?
I'm pretty sure he chose this route when he didn't go to Europe a few years ago, and when he turned down a National Team spot.
we should all be happy about this emphatic win - however we’ve seen early season games like this before and we ended up not so good - remember smashing FCD like 5-0 under Coyle? I am not really worried that the wheels are gonna fall offf but I certainly don’t want to change my mid table at best prediction too much.
Ok. So nothing to see really. Just the concern n safety of our children and fans. Check got it. FO Preventive Maintenance Team is on it for sure amigo.
They were supposed to stage the giveaway at two gates but they pulled the "Pokemon Go Night" operations manual instead which directed staff to send everyone to one gate.
You have to avoid drawing the "but they were good last year" conclusions because it's a new year. This league has sufficient parity that having a good team last season doesn't necessarily mean a thing. You can deteriorate. You can change the mix and throw off the team's niche (Colorado traded away its midfield junkyard dogs last winter and returned back to bottom on their roller coaster ride, from high up). To me it takes a few weeks, maybe even a couple months, for teams to shuffle out into the new pecking order (even then, you can change that with summer pickups). So trying to draw a straight line from last season isn't helpful. This phase of the season comes into more focus when you see how teams stack up now. You obviously want to win now as always but you won't know for a bit if we're that good or simply Atlanta wasn't (or if in the absence of their new marquee guy or with certain backs playing Atlanta is different). I mean, you go back and look at last season and we had 3W and 1L out of the gate but if you correlate it to the standings at the end, we beat the league runnerup on opening day, beat the 5th and 6th best playoff teams in the East, and then lost to Portland that took the regular season West 1st seed. Even the Portland game was one of those "we were ahead at halftime" things we have with them. We then got a bit more erratic til late summer but in retrospect that was impressive.