Matchday #28 San Jose v Union, September 5, 2015 p/d/p

Outside of Fabinho's stupid handball mistake our back 4 played very well tonight.

 

Guess Curtin will leave McCarthy in the nets for the next game despite him looking questionable when catching/punching the ball a few times - Curtin rarely wants to mess with a winning line-up.

 

Good win. They didn't fold after the goal. Nogs left it all on the field last night. He's still not 100% and covering for Lahoud on his right and whatever the eff Fabinho is doing on his left must be exhausting. He and Barnetta still not completely on the same page but apparently when you've got technical skilled players up the middle it shows.

Btw- we are a tougher team to defend with two strikers. That is all.

 

Nice performance from the Union -- they packed it in and didn't let San Jose beat them on the break. They've essentially gone on a run with counters and physicality. Without Bernardez, Godoy and Pelosi they were a bit less physical, and with the Union packed in San Jose couldn't counter.

I really hate the Quakes, their stupid announcers, their winning streak, Quincy Amerikwa, root beer float night, Dom Kinnear's dumb face, fake Ultras, Lenhart in a Lenhart wig, Goonie Magic, etc so this was extra nice.

I do have to say that I'm a bit annoyed we're going to hear more "the Union are in the playoff hunt!" nonsense, though.

 

Ehh that Vitoria gaff was awful though... what a waste of money there.


Other than that really solid and enjoyable game... we looked solid.

 

The pain for me is not that we won. I love wins. Even when my team sucks or is great. The problem I have is knowing the playoff BS we are gonna be spoon fed. MTL has 4 games in hand (Very tough schedule.) However what makes them think we can string together that many wins in a row to make it even close

 

I'm happy we won, but fluke results like this just help prolong necessary FO changes and help them avoid how horrible things actually are.

 

Just a few odd points to make here... We all understand that no matter what the Union do with their remaining games Montreal, lead by Drogba, would have to have a season ending stroke for us to have any chance of the playoffs. Still - I'm happy to have a reason to go down to PPL this weekend so great game.

Was it me or did Letoux display zero interest in playing soccer last night? He seemed very pissed off when he came out of the N.E. game last week and I was a little surprised to see Barnetta with the arm band instead of Letoux but who knows.

If someone put together a highlight (lowlight?) reel of absolute stone-cold bad calls that have cost the Union points this year, could any objective observer NOT conclude that the league is rigged? In my own little humble opinion, we ARE the designated losers of this oh-so-single entity sports league. It's the one thing I hate about following MLS. I can never shake the feeling that the referees are not just incompetent in MLS, I think that's a given now, but I also believe that they follow a narrative or script from Mr. Garber as to which teams HE wants to feature and which are OK to flounder for a while. Reminds me of old timey style pro wrestling. Maybe Curtin should try throwing a chair into the ring?

 

I think you are giving them too much credit. They are just simply bad at their jobs.

 

And then he somehow managed to recover almost perfectly on a tackle that easily would've been a red if he messed it up so. idk. I thought he played pretty well overall outside of that to be honest. if nothing else it was consistent.

 

Also drove up from Monterey. Great win although I wasn't as impressed with Barnetta as others seem to have been.

 

This.

To pull off a conspiracy you need smart people who are all aligned on the outcome. MLS isn't. A loudmouth like Merrit Paulson wouldn't sit still and quiet if he knew they'll finish 5th. Besides, if you've set the roster rules up like this, you know who can compete and who will struggle. Knowing our FO doesn't have or won't commit resources,well, who needs to scheme against them? Who could do a better job of denying the U results than the U? No one,that's who.

 

At least one other Gaddis assist was on a Casey goal...he knows to feed the big guy.

 

I can't believe Curtin does not feel the same anxiety we do when Goalie Local does his suspect handling and ill thought-of jaunts to the edge of the box and beyond.

Le Toux's touch was once again awful all game. When Maidana is back he should be benched.

Just wanted to bring some Nexus back. Other than these 2 I was happy with all players. A good team, when it wins, will think about what could be better.

 

I have been very close to the top of the referee chain and I can tell you 100% that this is not the case. It also wouldn't make sense to screw the Union since they come from the fourth largest market in the country.

 

For last season's USOC run, Curtin did stick with MacMath through the Final despite M'Bolhi starting to become the regular season starter among international call-ups. Fast forward a year and McCarthy is in the MacMath role of playing well in the USOC games (except MacMath was good in the regular season games as well) while Blake's situation is a bit like M'Bolhi at least in terms of starting to become the regular season starter wih Jamaica call-ups thrown in the mix (the similarities stop there as Blake has been toiling on the Union bench since last year while M'Bolhi was a newcomer - also Blake actually makes saves and did not cost a fortune). Curtin is following the lead of lots of other managers in giving the reserve goalie all of the Cup games. On the other hand, Curtin did bench Okugo for the USOC final despite him starting the USOC games leading up to the final.

 

people all over the globe complain about officiating. every fan of every team in every country around the world believes their team has been wronged by a soccer official. why is that? because refereeing soccer is f*ucking difficult. there is one whistle for 22 players spread out over 6600+ square yards of playing space. people who believe there is this big conspiracy need to get their heads checked

 

Never said anything about a "big" conspiracy. 4th largest market? What difference does that make if they compete like the 40th? All I'm saying (and Curtin alluded to it post-game ) is that the officials don't respect the club and will do nothing to aid it-they will not get the benefit of the doubt. What do you think Nog and the others were remonstrating with Elfath about after Fab's handball? I can read lips and digits.......... Even the SJ announcers were stunned Philly didn't get the first 2 calls. One mentioned the exact same scenario happened to them a week earlier and it was a no brainer.

 

OK so I respect your inside knowledge from being on an inside position with regard to referees. Help us out here then. How do YOU explain the extreme disparity of blown calls AGAINST the Union this year? Is it just very, very bad luck? I'm not the only one positing this disparity by the way. Jim Curtin himself made a public statement a few weeks ago to the effect that 'I guess we're not going to get the same breaks as other teams since we don't have any superstars on the team...' I was quite cheered that he finally let this slip and I cannot believe that the league didn't fine him for it. Finally, from a purely business perspective, it DOES make sense to screw the Union regardless of the market they are in 'as long as the attendance stays up'. We don't NEED to make the playoffs as long as the stands are full. Toronto on the other hand needed all sorts of help in the way of secret MLS rule changes and 'blown calls' once their stadium started to look empty.

 

Really, we're chalking this up to a refs hate Philly conspiracy? every god damn sport....

 

I don't think that it. As with most things, its just money. If Philly all of a sudden got some guy that wanted to, say, splash 8 figures on a guy like Zlatan next season, all sorts of rules would be rewritten for us, too.

 

Yes.