Well that sucked. At least my mix went really well.. But that game was such a gut punch....my condolences to everyone who went in person. I hope some nice things happen to you all this week to make up for that. Sigh....
I won't type my actual thoughts as I'd like to spare @TrickHog the work of censoring them for BS consumption. Rest assured that there is lots of swearing, crying, breaking stuff and disturbing imagery involving the Front Office's various collective orifices and a dremel.
You would think so, if the Football Gods were Just Gods. But a warning from DysRevia....Once the Gods get going with exacting revenge, they seem to revel in the joy of it all.
God I was thinking of you and all the (temporary) joy and pain that was waiting for you to finish work and watch the match if you managed to avoid spoilers.
Could be. But remember he is twenty years or so older than when he took on this project. As someone approaching his age, I think I see what is happening. At some point you begin to set some priorities. You realize you are not going to able to do everything you want, so you focus on a few. In Phil's life, LAG is small potatoes and maybe a hobby at best. As long as it is not a financial drag he will let it be handled by underlings while he looks at the big stuff.
The loss sucks, and yea I was pissed yesterday about it, but today, it's a meh feeling for me. We did not deserve the playoffs. RSL were the better team this season, and I fully believe we would have lost in the first round. Our defense has improved, but we've essentially put duct tape on the problem and hoped it would hold. Romney and Steres are still only depth guys. We need a better defense.
The one good thing out of all of this is that despite our recent failings, our years of dominance and unparalleled success still have a lot of people butthurt.
10 assists is nice, but Cole was one of our weaker defenders, contributing to many lost points. And he isn't getting any younger.
All true. I had written off the team about half a dozen games ago when realistically they could only suffer one loss. A combination of RSL and Portland stumbling and LA seeming to have turned a corner. Again much like the '03 debacle in San Jose the team didn’t deserve to be in the position they were in, but somehow they were. I’m certainly not shocked they collapsed like they did, but at 2-0 up they certainly had me hopeful.
My favorite player on this team was Alessandrini. He wasn't the best - that belongs to Ibra. But he is the only player on the team who I can truly say gave it his all every minute he was on the field. Yes he made a mistake yesterday. But at least it was a mistake of commission- he was trying too hard. And he owns it. And he put the blame for the loss where it belonged. (Kinnear didn't - instead of being furious about the lack of effort he went with classic coach-speak "we needed to be sharper with the ball" "we had our chances".) But Romain saw the lack of effort. Our defenders aren't great but their skill level wasn't why we lost this game. We lost because the players quit doing the basics - fighting for the ball, talking to each other, making runs for each other, making the simple hustle plays. Without that effort we couldn't keep possession and that left us in danger for the entire second half. I'll let him speak for himself: On the foul committed in the box that led to the penalty kick call: “I was late because I tried to kick the ball but he touched the ball before me so it’s a big mistake. I’m very sorry about that because Houston came back after that and it was tough for everybody. I’m not happy about that but I have to move forward.” On the missed chances: “After the first half I think we had to continue. But the second half, I don’t know why we played a different way and that’s why Houston came back. I think we missed a lot of things the second half, and we missed why we were there, why we fight and get into the playoffs. I think we forgot the basics; fight for each other, talk to each other, run for each other, and that’s why Houston came back in the game and why we lost this game. But we have no excuse because when we see the season, we don’t deserve it. But when we see the last two months, maybe, because we fought a lot to come back and it’s a lot of frustration.” On the team’s energy in the second half: “We gave so much in the last two months, we left a lot of energy in every game to win and it’s the end of the season so your body is feeling a little bit tired. The time we played, with this weather it was difficult too, but it’s not an excuse. We have to be better, and we had to win this game and that’s it.” On the team getting too ahead of themselves and too confident with the 2-0 lead: “Maybe. We thought maybe it was easy. I think we forgot why we were there. The first half we played good, we fought for each other and that’s why we scored two goals. And the second half, it was a different team. We just have to blame ourselves. Now we just have to move forward. It’s hard to say that for the fans because a club like LA Galaxy has to make the Playoffs every year, and two years in a row without Playoffs is tough.” On this game being a little version of the season: “It’s soccer. You can’t control everything. Sometimes it’s hard. When you’re alone like a tennis player it’s different, in soccer you have to play as a team. Sometimes when you don’t give what you have to give as a team something happens like tonight. There was a lot of frustration because we gave a lot the last two months, but when you see the season I think we finished well. Even the last 45 minutes. We have to move forward. It is what it is and unfortunately we don’t make the Playoffs, but we gave everything to come back in the game, to come back into the Playoffs. And his last sentence pretty much says it all: I think we made the fans proud the last two months, and we are sorry about the last 45 minutes.” This team needed more Alessandrini's.
I agree. I think Pete is absolutely out and Klien is almost certainly going to be the GM going forward until we find someone else. I also don't see Jovan going anywhere since it was he that got Zlatlan on the roster for non DP money. I was for signing Dom Kinnear being the fulltime if he got us to the playoffs. If he gets the sack I won't cry about it, but I blame the team more for the total fail yesterday than him. (Unless I hear that he told the team during halftime that we can take it easy now that we are up 2.) Dom was hamstringed from the get go since he had to work with Sigi's roster after all. I give him credit for at least putting in a mediocre defense because the one we had prior was non-existent. I mean worse than 2008 bad( which was a roster that also featured Pete and Klien in the back 4). Perhaps if he gets final say on the roster then we'd have a for real defense instead of a defense that was at best a bunch of guys that would be on the bench of one our dynasty teams. Even if we won this game, I thought we would only get one win in the playoffs by upsetting LAFC. I thought SKC would have then kicked the tar out of us, but at least the season wouldn't have felt like a complete waste. Right now I am all about the following players moving on for damn sure,... David Bingham Michael Ciani Giovani dos Santos Perry Kitchen João Pedro Jorgen Skjelvik and since they haven't even sniffed the pitch in a real game that mattered Brian Sylvestre and Justin Vom Steeg If these people are not replaced in the offseason, then don't expect anything at all for next year because the odds a full season of Zlatlan will result in more than 22 goals is almost impossible.
Agree with your must-exit list. But I’m down on Kinnear now. Not because of the result but because of how it came about. Watch most of the great coaches in world soccer - Pep, Mourinho, Tata, hell even Marsch and they bring an insatiable desire to win. During games they are on sidelines actively fighting for their team, challenging referee calls, yelling directions to players, some (like Pep) standing and clapping for good play and twisting their bodies into contortions after mistakes. And especially so when their team is flat and needs motivation. In a word they bring their passion for the game and for winning and their teams reflect that. Yesterday we needed that from Dom and we didn’t get it. I only saw the game on TV but from what I saw he was about as passionate as his players in the 2nd half. Which is to say not at all. As just one example any coach worth his salt would have been ejected protesting the cowardly decision by the ref to not call that late pk. Passion comes from the top. When we needed that passion Kinnear didn’t bring it. He has to go.
Exactly what I was thinking. Brutal! The biggest tank-job of the season, maybe a few seasons. Ibra has been a blessing and the main reason we even had a last chance but even he had no answer for the team just wilting like that. So many chances to score squandered by Ibra, Boa, Lletget and others. That's what did us in. Not Houston. Not the coach. The possibilty to lose was there and so was our hope for redemption. Don't know what the hell Galaxy were going to do limping into a playoff slot against teams that are just better but it would have been some sort of achievement for a team like Galaxy and fans that are not used to mediocrity. Instead the redemption goes to Dynamo. I have to say next season under this FO does not fill me with hope. They will have to go into overhaul mode depending who goes, retires, gets cut etc. And that is spookier than a good haunted maze where you simply dont know what sort of horror is waiting for you at the next bend ready to reach for your privates. I seriously doubt the FO is going any-freaking-where... Trick or Treat!!! My Galaxy side is going into hybernation. The rest, is going on to the playoffs. Too many good teams in that thing not to be exciting. Whomever wins the East will take it to so I hope it is the Bulls although ATL has been lots of fun to watch and may be coming to an end now that Tata is gone, Almiron and Martinez will probably go and replacing those guys is going to be damn-near impossible. Anyway, happy holidays everybody!
But is he a winner beyond the level of Kinnear? Kinnear does have a couple of MLS Cups. Porter of course does have one, in a shorter career, but his Portland teams didn't show any signs of sustaining high quality. I'm just not convinced that either could ever be the person to rebuild the Galaxy to what they once were... [although with current quality of its leadership, it's not so clear anyone can].
When our offense stakes us to a 2 goal lead at home but the team defense blows that and more in one half of play to the worst road team in MLS then the offense isn't the primary culprit imo. Not saying some of those shouldn't have been finished but allowing 3 goals is the main reason we lost that game. Side note: Scoring is harder than it looks from the sidelines. Proof is that the best professionals in MLS all miss 75-85% of the shots they take. When you strike a rapidly moving/bouncing round ball with a founded surface (boot or head) you may have 1/4" and 0.1 sec margins for error (less from distance). Add in the fact that you are likely dealing with some combination of moving yourself to get to the ball, being bumped by a defender, are under extreme time pressure, dealing with inconsistent bounces on grass, it just isn't that easy. It becomes like hitting a baseball - succeed 33% of the time and you are an All-Star. Here are the miss rates of MLS's top scorers: Martinez - 68% (lowest in MLS, bc most finishes are from 5 yards or less.) Ibra - 81% BWP - 76% Zardes - 79% Piatti - 83% Vela - 85%
No, I'm not saying Porter's a winner beyond Kinnear, and I like Kinnear, so wouldn't mind keeping him. But I prefer Porter because he's a winner AND has that desire to win on full display on the sidelines.
Just for grins I calculated Pando Ramirez's 2005 miss-rate it was over 98%. Sometimes stats do tell the whole story.
I don't know if this is even worth debating but if Houston is the worst road team in the league, a team already eliminated with a sieve of a defense, down two goals in the first half... we suddenly can't score worth a damn with the opportunities clearly there on the last game with qualification at arms length? The offense choked, no other way to put it. The team choked. What was Kinnear gonna do, light himself on fire on the sideline? They knew what was on the line and what they had to do. Think about it. Did the offense not know their defense is crap and two goals may not be enough? They have an entire season pointing to this very truth. That the two bench warmers in Romney and Steres somehow came together of late does take away that we dont have high caliber centrals at D and the possibility of getting scored on was ever present with Elis, Quioto and Manotas at the business end of Dynamo. Two goals was not gonna cut it and they better damn have known this. This is what being a top-heavy team means. It means you want to win, you better score aplenty no matter how statistically hard it is. That is your only option. Anyway, all spilled milk. Just a shit season.
It's all cool. Like you said shit season so its moot at this point. But I would note that over the four games prior to this debacle (including road games against SKC and MIN) we allowed 0, 0,1 and 1 goals.