Who: New York City Football Club (despite playing soccer in a baseball stadium) v. D.C. United What: MLS match 26 When: Saturday, September 8, 4:55 PM ET Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York Why: We still have 2 away games to play Standings NYC: 48 Pts., +14, 3rd in East, 4th in MLS DCU: 30 Pts., -1, 7th in East, 15th in MLS Form (Old to Recent) NYC: DWLDL DCU: WWLLW International Absences NYC: Chanot, Ofori, Tajouri-Shradi, Wallace, Possible others considering the DCU list wasn't comprehensive DCU: Arriola, Kelly (MLS site lists him), Mattocks, Stieber, Miranda, Moreno Suspended NYC: Unclear DCU: None Injuries NYC: Unclear DCU: Fisher (not called up, may be available), Asad, Odoi-Atsem (training), NDL (training), Ousted, Kemp Lineup? No clue. Could see an ultra narrow diamond...may make sense with how narrow their pitch is. Hamid Robinson Opare Birnbaum Mora Durkin Canouse Harkes Segura Rooney Acosta or to keep the shape Hamid Robinson Opare Birnbaum Mora Durkin Canouse Segura Harkes Acosta Rooney should be a mess regardless and maybe 3 guys on the bench.
Maybe... -----Rooney---Acosta----- ---Segura--------Harkes--- ----Canouse--Durkin------ Mora-Opare-Birn-JRob No attackers off the bench. Maybe DeLeon wide as a sub option? But Rooney/Acosta need to go 90, no choice. Hopefully Asad can go.
According to Emily Olsen, Kelly is not called up. That is one attacker on the bench. This will be a goat rodeo. However, the narrow, short field should play to Rooney's strength which is ball movement in tight spaces. It will be up to him, Acosta and Segura to find some goals in this game.
So. Are we seriously going for a win? Settling for a tie? Saving our best for Wednesday night for a more likely 3 points? Why Acosta and Rooney for a full 90?
Maybe next year I'll make it up to see soccer played in Yankee stadium, assuming we play there next year - can't go this weekend and I see no other reason to be inside the stadium, but I do have some curiosity about the place. A chance for some of the bench guys to try to prove they belong in the rotation. That will either be fun or frustrating to watch Will we see nervous/spastic Harkes, or calm smooooth Harkes? I think that will be a big key to how this goes. Along with who will be where. We can guess at starters, there are only so many rostered uninjured players, but formation may be more difficult to figure out. It would be cool if Durkin and Harkes had the same kind of chemistry from training as Moreno and Canouse do so they can plug right in (assuming that's even where they'll play) I'm gonna say DCU -2 powder-blue team: 2 I hate UniMas games, but luckily all the player names sound the same in most languages so even though their camera shots often seem miles away I should be able to figure out who's playing
Vytas should be available. I haven't seen him on the Latvia roster, but not sure if info is up to date.
Firstly, Yankee Stadium is an abomination. It's just terrible. It's awful for baseball and it's worse for soccer. I've no idea how they spent $1.5 billion on poured concrete. It's the worst stadium in the league by a long measure and the field itself is an unfunny joke. Mora needs to wear LONG cleats. I couldn't tell you the number of times a left back has come off the field this season to change their shoes but it's more than two. Secondly, Manchester City USA is terrible. I have no idea how they got so high in the standings when they're trotting out players like Tinnerholm and Ring. Their new coach hasn't convinced me he has any concrete notion of what he wants to do, if anything. They looked listless against a Revolution B side last night. Even Villa looked eminently human last night as he sourly walked around the field drenched in sweat. As I said in another thread, if you told me that DC would face them in the playoffs I'd be delighted. The only thing they have going for them right now is that their field is so tiny that it precludes decent soccer. Teams that like to counter on the break can't really do that since the distance from midfield to goal is only a few paces. And it's hard to play possession ball when there's alway a defender a few steps away. It's like human foosball.
I worry more about saving people when it's Sun/Wed; less for Sat/Wed - for some reason. They should go 90(ish) in both, they're the team's leaders and there will be a semi-inexperienced roster around them.
Getting word D.C. United might try to sign free agent defender Kevin Ellis before the MLS roster deadline next week. Ellis, 27, was waived by Chicago last month. #dcu #mls— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) September 6, 2018 We sign free agent defender Ellis of Chicago
So that means a guy trashed by Chicago is better than calling up the legendary Conor Shanowsky from Richmond? Isn't that why they park some players down there? And how much are they paying that trainer?
Why did Chicago cut Ellis, a RB/CB who'd started all year and had 2 goals and 4 assists in 19 appearances? I mean, maybe he's a terrible defender, but he's played a lot of games for that to be true. He apparently had a conflict with Vermes at SKC that ended with him suspended and then traded. Any insights?
What I think we'll see: ---- Rooney Acosta - Harkes - Segura Durkin ---- Canouse Mora - Birnbaum - Opare - Robinson Hamid We really needed 4 points last week. I didn't expect to get anything out of this game, but I hope now we can make up that point. We've only got 15 players,some who haven't played 90 in a while. Resting players for Wednesday might be a workable strategy if it was really a viable option. Since it isn't, I think we need to go for broke here, whatever that looks like, and let the chips fall where they may on Wednesday.