Our building out of the back was bad in the first half into the wind and bad in the second half with the wind. Interestingly enough though, it seems if we do get the ball into their half we do relatively well.
65 minutes in and I have not been impressed with theth passing. Not impressed at all with Castillo. He's too cute on the ball and has put Penilla in some very bad situations.
Turner comes out and misses the ball and Bye doesn't know where the ball is and has no control of the player he is marking....
Turner with a faux pas in goal.. Bye's mark gets the better of him. Fagundez, Rennicks, anibaba and Heriveaux just came on
Plus there is a 45 - must be the "trialist"? So 8 field players change - Castillo, Bye, and Turner stay on
Nice one-touch passing (plus or minus the quality of defense) and Revs up 2-1. Now was that Caiceduno or Caicedos who scored?
Not so sure that was an assist as much as a shot that went off the post and bounced around before C1 put it in.
My only real question heading into the season is this: why does Fagundez do that dopey thing with his shorts?
Well we'll see. Not that impressive on offense but hopefully it will be OK. Looks like a 50% team so far to me
My personal opinions: Knighton looks to be the starter - I am sure Freidel will be reviewing Turner's swat in no man's land on the goal. If Knighton does start - it will be very interesting to see how Turner reacts throughout the season, given Friedel's comments at the start of last season (National quality) to late in the season (He needs a break). I personally continue to be underwhelmed by Mancienne, but I am waiting till I see him in some real games again and in person this year to see if he has "changed". His partner looks to be Delemea which most of us thought. Castillo - looks just like Tierney/Somi. Bombs up the field. Better dribbler in tight spaces than Tierney/Somi though. But just like Tierney/Somi, plenty of times he was no where in the frame to help defend his area of the field since he was caught up. He passed to or gave the ball away to the opponent in a couple of shockingly easy ways. Hope that is just off-season rust. Bye is still learning on the job, not in a bad way, but in a "it will take a long time" way. With Farrell's absence, Bye probably starts next week. If he does, can he keep Farrell off the field? Zahibo started, but I thought C1 was way more active when he came in, goal aside. I would say C1 has the nod and like tsb11 notes - he may be working back from an injury. But he looked plenty mobile in his 20 minutes or so. One tactical change I noticed was when Castillo was bombing forward, Zahibo was definitely sliding over and behind him to be an option for an outlet pass (instead of Mancienne) and to help provide some defensive cover on turnover. Logical, but there were a couple of times, when the ball was switched after the turnover and Caldwell was isolated centrally. I think C1 helps this and something for Friedel to address. The other problem was(and has been) when the opponent started to make runs into the vacated Castillo space, they play over Zahibo, and suddenly Mancienne is dragged way over, and then here comes Delemea, and then they are not organized at all and chaos ensues. Same on Bye's side. Another thing for Friedel to address. Thought Penilla looked good. That is super positive. Interesting that Fagundez was odd man out, Bunbury who led the team in goals was shifted to the right and Agudelo up top. There was no C2 at all, so not sure if he was injured. Will be interesting to see what Friedel does between these 4 then, who starts, and in what places. That leaves Gil - he looks and plays like a DP - that I like. Not "blow me away Almiron DP level" yet - but still quality. Clearly the players are getting to know him and how he likes to play so it will take more time unfortunately. There were times I thought the players went out of their way to get him the ball, where they might have been better served with another easier decision presented to them. Again will come with time and how Friedel wants them to play. In this game he didn't look like a scoring midfielder, ie getting into pockets where he took a shot or that allowed him to get a shot. In this one viewing he looked more like an assisting midfielder. Would like to see him be more of a scoring midfielder personally so will take some games to see where he trends. In the sadness dept - I think Heriavux is going to take a long time to come around. I appreciate Friedel trying to do something with him - but you can see how much of his development was tragically wasted by the Heaps years. If I was Friedel, he would be the #1 guy to get somewhere(Hartford?) where he will get major minutes and games if he is going be anything like the pro he was projected. In the positive department - I have to give Freidel and Revs major props. Rennicks, Buchanan, and Jones all look like very good youthful adds from an attacking sense. Attacking adds out of the draft or homegrown that can contribute right away are hard - so Buchanan and Jones look to be very good finds (Surprised that Jones is not an official signing yet). And Rennicks is a really good Homegrown signing. He looks legit and I think will really be pushing to get time with the first team. I like their trajectories (and Angking even though he did not play) - hopefully Friedel will still use them when the pressures of real games starts to hit. Don't make them the Herivaux sequels. Unless C2 is our version of Martinez, it still looks and plays pretty similar to last year. I still think it will be a challenging year though even with that extra playoff spot. Friedel is going to have his hands full. Let's see what he can do. Well, that post sure got long - doh! Happy reading
Thanks to all of you posting about the game, the first batch of in depth analysis re: actual on field play. Special shout out to @swedust for so much of the PBP.
Still tough to tell who the starting keeper will be next weekend. Remember, Cropper started the last pre-season game last year ... and we saw how much that mattered.
I agree that the FO needs to work out loans for the young depth pieces that clearly arent in line to play. Firmino, Herivaux, and Jones all need to get games and they probably arent MLS level. Buchanan, Angking, and Rennicks are and i expect to see them get at least spot minutes over the season, if not a handful of starts during the hectic early season schedule
He does have his visa, I think he has an injury and Friedel said he was 'very, very close' a couple of days ago.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/02/26/doyle-why-every-team-can-win-supporters-shield-2019 New England Revolution will win the Shield because... New England won't win the Shield because... Literally every spot in the XI is a big question mark, save for Cristian Penilla. This feels a lot like a team that'll make a run at the Wooden Spoon, not the Supporters' Shield.