I couldn't watch, only saw the highlights. Mishu, Franklin, Opare and Sarvas looked pretty bad on various goals, but there could be a lot of factors at play. Maybe someone wants to break down individual play for me. For instance, why was Kamara removed in the 40th? How was Martin?
I didn't watch closely enough. I saw both of those two make mistakes and don't remember either doing anything particularly good although I could have missed something. Kamara seemed to pull up injured, maybe a leg injury? Buescher played well and I think he's likely to play in the playoffs, although not as a starter. The rest of the guys looked pretty rusty and definitely looked like they hadn't played together. Worra looked bad. Aguilar notably absent. I presume he'll be gone in the offseason unless he's injured and they're keeping it a secret.
Thanks, Heist. Goff says Aguilar has an injured ankle. Flat footed defenders like Opare and Mishu bug the crap out of me. Gotta step, maybe you get beat, but standing on your heels definitely gets you beat.
Kamara looked to have come off with a sore hamstring. It's clear communication between the defenders was....not good. They never could sync their step-up timing, and defensive handoffs were dodgy at best, but Robinson, of the three, was most consistently good, followed by Opare. Martin was also out of sync with his teammates, usually by passing at or behind people, or not in the direction of their runs. Again, a chemistry thing, I think. He had some good ideas, but they were different than other people's ideas. Worra I can't fault overmuch because the defense generally left him out to dry. Maybe one of the goals he could have done better on, but the other three? Ick. All bad defender screwups.
Thanks, stang. I guess that's all to be expected. I'm surprised Franklin and Sarvas were even ready to play, so plenty of rust I'm sure.
Funk that. This game is about preventing injuries and being ready for the knockout game on Thursday. Doesn't matter where as much as are we healthy. Olsen had team prepared for both outcomes. Ready to fly to another city that night or return home. This was a perfect chance to test our depth in real minutes. Sad Aguilar wasn't out there. Was hoping he might still be around
I remember 2007 when Soehn ran out both Emilio and Moreno in a meaningless last game and both picked up knocks the effectively ended DCU's playoff possibilities. I know this game wasn't "meaningless", but Olsen was right. Before the game started he knew he possibly had a Wednesday-Sunday or Thursday-Sunday set of games coming up. The only question was the location of the first two. He decided, correctly, that rested players were more important than the location of the first game.
The fact that mtl needed to win may have made that decision easier. Does he make the same choice of we needed a result to get home field?
That worked out OK. Once NE was up by 2, it was just a meaningless exhibition to watch while drinking a lot of beer. Nice goal by Iggy, but I can't see him sticking around next year. Kamara must have some kind of curse. Defense was horrific. Buescher had a good game. And we play Thursday because it's the only day of the week with rain in the forecast.
yep, we were trying to decide which day based on the weather forecast we saw Saturday - Wednesday is the coldest day of the week so we figured it might be that day, but then they added rain to Thursday evening and we had really wanted to hit our local brewery for Halloween trivia that night too, so we had basically already decided it was gonna be Thursday. So, no fun Classic Halloween movie trivia I suppose the TV people picked which game was gonna be when and no-one wanted to see the DC/Mtl game so it fell to the spanish station on a Thursday night which I assume is the lowest expected ratings time/channel. As for the game, the DCU starting 11 made it easier to pay more attention to the race at Talladega than the first half of the game. The race ended just after the second half started. So I had to watch Joey Logano win a race and DC United lose in 40 minutes of my Sunday; both depressing, but at least Denny Hamlin barely made it through to the next round of The Chase™ and DC United will still host the play-in game, so it wasn't all bad
I think BootsyCollins mentioned this. If I remember right the meaningless last game was against the Crew.
You know I'm a fan of the 11 and JGR, @fatbastard. He's a good Virginia boy. He was just born in the wrong place. All of the knockout games are on unimas.
Chesterfield [.... satisfies .... ] I can't help but say the last part whenever I hear the city's name - and I'm not sure I was even alive when that commercial actually aired, but I'm really old so I probably was). (can't see whatever image may be there)
I could understand sitting a player or two who are can't be replaced if injured - Acosta and Hamid for example. But I can't justify starting 11 players who haven't played during our hot streak, and I certainly wouldn't have replaced the entire back line. Setting the players up to fail, as Ben said, doesn't really help much of anyone.
Except for all the guys who were rested. The positive is... if (almost) none of the starters on Thursday started yesterday, they won't likely be affected by the Orlando game.
Plus, some players who might be needed in a pinch have some recent game experience to fall back on and we've tested a few recently injured players to see if they could stand some playing time. I don't like having done it, but since it didn't change anything playoff-wise, I can see some accidental benefits.
The disappointing thing is that of the guys who started yesterday (other than Vincent) only maybe Buescher/Neagle/Robinson (sort of) inspired any confidence that they are ready if needed on Thursday. I suppose we could use Saborio, but he's exactly what he's been all season.
Ben's decision was quite a gamble. In essence he decided that being rested for the mid-week game was more important than home field advantage, because in fielding 10 reserves he gave up any meaningful chance of earning home field advantage on the field. The true test of whether it was good decision would have been if Montreal had won and we then played them away on Thursday. The smarter approach would have been to rest a few of the older and/or banged up starters, but put enough talent on the field to possibly win.
But in the end, Olsen got it right. Because Montreal was resting Piatti, Drogba, and most of their finesse players, it was a pretty safe bet. I, for one, am totally comfortable relying on Dominic Oduro to pratfall when it counts. We learned that DCU's Open Cup team can't quite beat a below average MLS team on the road and that Luke Mishu will have a brilliant career doing something other than playing professional soccer. And United's actual players are rested and ready to go for Thursday.
It was a 2-3 game gamble. He got the first one right (enough). Probably he assumed Montreal probably wouldn't go for it too hard, and if they did win and we lost, then at least Montreal would be a bit tired and we'd be fresh. In a sense we got the best of both worlds... as long as none of the stench of that game sticks to the team. You'd think it probably wouldn't since he changed basically the whole team. But, let's wait and see if the starters are out of their rhythm on Thursday. I'm pretty confident and pretty hopefully that we can beat Montreal at home. If we get through that game then we can definitely say Olsen got it right.
I'd just like to take a moment to point out that we're referring to a game in which we scored three goals (even though the AR screwed the pooch on one and got it taken back) as "the stench of that game." Admittedly, defensively, it was pretty stinky, but what amounts to our C team putting together three goals? I wasn't expecting that at all.
I think it was quite a gamble, and Ben is lucky. In a sense, its the right kind of gamble, as its one that suggests we're hoping to go deeper into the playoffs (where we'll really need our best players to be ready) vs. "gosh we're happy just to be here". At least that's the way I'm choosing to look at it... No surprise our C team, never playing together and with some rehabbing elders got creamed. Still should have been 4-3, which is impressive considering. What we know from the game is more about Orlando than DCU. A lot of the guys who took the field from our side clearly are not in the long term plan. I only wish our bottom tier of defenders were more confidence-inspiring.