Positives: We got a Point, Robinson didn't look horrible, Negatives: Pretty much everything else. We looked dreadful. I know some of that is the crap field, but our spacing was awful, we couldn't string three passes together, and we couldn't do anything other than hoof the ball out on defense. I swear we probably won about 5% of our goal kicks, and when we lost them we were back on our heels immediately. We did nothing on offense at all (did we have a shot on goal other than the goal?). No flow, no movement, nothing. I don't know how NYCFC fans can watch 17 home games a year on that field, I'd lose it, it is unwatchable soccer.
IF we do make the playoffs, I'd say there's a 90% chance they'll host us. This was lots of our backups. Heck, Kevin Ellis and Jared Jeffrey both played. I'm not worried by what I saw at all. If we play like that at home once we get even a few players back, then I'll be worried. I can tell everyone one thing for sure. If we had not picked up Hamid, we'd not even have a chance at the playoffs.
I got to it late #$%&* shopping!!! Why did the Univision graphics show the score as 0-0 when it was 1-1? I'll take the point and get out of that shit hole stadium. (Note I am a Red Sox fan)
A stolen point. Hamid and Hope. Birnbaum was huge today on both ends. Rooney missed Acosta on a breakaway at the end, but DCU had very few chances otherwise. This was the C+ team out there. Of that group, Harkes was just awful, he's not fast, he doesn't weight passes well and he looks afraid to go forward. Robinson was OK, but he backed off big time when players neared the 18. Don't know if that was instructions or fear, but it gave NYCFC a number of passes/crosses into the box. Opare still can't play the ball forward with his feet -- Curtin sussed that out, if DCU actually makes the playoffs, that will be target #1 for the opposition. Ellis didn't look completely lost and he does have some pace. Goodbye O-A. I'll take a fast former starter over a fast had to get a second year contract on a try out anyday. Not much more to say other than ******** MLS and scheduling games during mandatory international windows.
One last point, the English language announcers on Unimas are beyond awful. Are they paid with empanadas and beer? My wife said they sound like two not very smart guys sitting on a couch, drinking beer and watching the game and making random comments.
Wonder if he learned that from Pirlo? It really adds to the danger when you have a dead ball expert that makes everyone think twice about fouling 25-30 yards out. All in all nothing to complain about.
I think the necessity for A team English language announcers on a Spanish language station is highly overstated. Learn a second language and call it yourself to see how easy it can be for really smart entertaining people
Also, watching soccer does not require commentary to understand what's going on. If instead than being on Unimas and Twitter the game had been on some middle eastern streaming, would you watch the game anyway.
As far as I remember Villa has always taken very effective free kicks, since when he was playing at Valencia, then Barca, then NY
How do you say, in Italian, that an English translation of a Spanish Broadcast is not necessary? I'll copy it and send it back to you because that's what I said in my post
Actually I was surprised the SAP function was on and I was too lazy to change it back. My point wasn't that the announcers' command of English was poor -- it wasn't, those two guys are fluently bi-lingual. My complaint is that their announcing style was god awful. No real play by play, not even any real type of analysis -- early on they said DCU was playing for a point which was obvious. Now I admit the game was dour, but professional announcers would have attempted to call the game straight. Instead, those two guys got into an extended riff about who was taller and heavier, Acosta or Moralez? The also "virtually" fellated Villa for the 90 minutes he was on the pitch. Never once did they comment on the quality of the pitch and the fact that players were falling down right and left. I know they are sitting in a booth in Miami, but if Unimas decides to have an English SAP broadcast -- then do it professionally. You are right, next time I'll make sure to turn off the SAP function. In my old age I'm struggling to gain some reasonable command of Spanish and Italian -- but I've got a long ways to go with both.
Just finished watching the recording of the game. I havn't seen any of the posts on the thread yet, but that game was utter garbage. I know we got a valuable point, but Olsen managed to take 11 guys and make it appear as if only the GK had ever played soccer before. You could take 10 guys who were in fantastic shape and do what DCU did tonight. Thank goodness for that fluke of a FK. I know Birnbaum can jump out of the stadium and the FK floated in to give him a shot at it, but that's 1 in a million. NYC GK blew it. Did we even have 10% of the posession? Ugly game.
Not exactly 1 in a million. His man didn't track with him. A good goalies get to that ball. Sean Johnson is not a good goalie. With that ball in on that play, Birnbaum scores it at least 10 or 20% of the time. We had very little possession, but NYCFC didn't have all that many good chances. And Hamid stopped the few they had. Props to our back line for making sure most of the shots were low percentage ones.
If you have Jared Jeffrey on the pitch in a "must draw" game, you are down to the proverbial ""last man standing"". I'll give Olsen a pass on this one. The subs were a guy picked out of the recycling bin on Thursday, Jeffrey and the former USL scoring champ and Worra. Olsen did use 2 of his 3 subs, that left Kelly and Worra on the bench.
Next level trolling would have been to sub in Worra as a sixth defender. He would likely have been as good as Ellis. He fell down once and misplaced a ball to give it away in extra time. Not good...
OK, I see your point but after years of Dave, Devon/who ever, and Lindsay I'm extremely proficient with the mute button. I did try them, and agreed they were bad. Bad broadcast, bad field, bad teams and by comparison a grand result.
Take the ugly point. Regroup for Wednesday. Nothing really more. I wouldn't read anything into this game other than Montreal wished they earned a point at NYC.
I just played a rec league game on a narrow field this week. I play in the back and I've never just hoofed it forward due to the other team's pressure so often in my life. I couldn't pass to our outside mids because they had no space to create safe passing lanes. The other team didn't have to move at all to shut down passing lanes due to the lack of width. There was actually more space on the middle. We ended up winning by playing through balls that bypassed the middle third. The field was long and rec league backs often lack pace. Now, extrapolate that experience to pros who cover space way faster than anything I'll ever see in my rec league and it gets difficult. Add that to an NYC team that overloads the midfield pressure. Next, add in that the field is short so you can't make through balls and chips over/through the pressure due to the ball going out of bounds or to the keeper. Very difficult. The Portland Timbers had a small field when they first entered the league. It was 115x70. Just how the grounds crew striped it to fit into the the limited space of a historic stadium. The players and coaches were very unhappy because they couldn't pass the ball in such tight quarters. Coach Porter actually went into the stadium after practice on a weekday and moved around the ad boards, benches, goals, etc. to try to figure out how to get a field that was appropriately wide for pros. To his credit, he was able to get the field to 75 yards wide, a normal width. Unfortunately, Yankee Stadium's field is as wide as it's gonna get. It'll start to hurt them with getting players. Whatever. Garber and the other owners could not care less as the existence of a second NY team is good for TV negotiations.
I think you understood my post incorrectly, I was simply reinforcing the concept that commentaries are really not indispensable in a language or another (if at all)