I dont know if Twellman and Wolde were on the same page, but they were more effective than Twellman alone up front. In the next couple weeks, the Twellman/Wolde connection should be improved. And yes, Leo Cullen did suck tonight. BTW who got the correct score in RevGuess tonight???????
Jah Mon, let the Reggae Boy play! Yes, welcome back Rusty. No, Griffiths was exciting on the wings. Great dribbler and schooled a few Rapids. Needs better service to the forwards. Kept noticing that TT was in the box while Wolde was hanging out by the arc. You wold hope for a better connection with at least Wolde. Let him play, he was fun!
The globe says "and Twellman left the locker room on crutches because of bruises on both ankles." ... at this point....bruises would be a *VERY* good thing. Z
It's been a long time since I've felt that the Revs had a real chance to score when they brought the ball into the offensive third. Wolde wasn't great, but he worked hard, including on defense. He certainly is a threat that the opponent must consider. No double-teaming of TT as a result. If only Griffith could pass the ball! Great game by Rusty! He's not only tough, fast, and quick, but gets in the right places at the right times. Significantly, the Rapids only score came when Rusty was bleeding on the sidelines.
A few thoughts... Wolde Harris, all over the middle of the field in the first half trying to win the ball. His striking touch hasn't returned and I think he was getting a little greedy on some of the crosses at the end. He wanted a goal badly, but really acquitted himself well with his work in the Colorado half. Winston Griffiths, the man was off for the first half hour. I'm not sure exactly why he was pulled, but he was looking for one extra pass all evening or just mis-hitting what he had. He showed great tenacity down the left flank during his time on the field, battling guys who looked to outweigh him by 30 pounds. The key to last night's game for me was the ineffectiveness of Carlos Valderamma. I don't know how many times he got dumped on his keister in the first half, but everytime the ball came to him early on he fell down. In the Rapids games I have seen defenders have not been able to shut him down as quickly as the Revs did last night. He's so good at creating space for his teammates, just not when he's sitting on the turf.
I've seen the Rapids play five times this year, and I don't remember them being such hackmeisters before (Ritchie Kotschau excepted, of course). They did it early and late, and seemed more interested in throwing elbows and cleating people than they did in playing soccer. I love Griffith's dribbling, but his passing really needs work. Kante and Pierce looked really solid in the middle. I missed the tackle that knocked Twellman out of the game. Can anyone tell me exactly what happened?
Re: It's great to see the boys kick butt, but... I'll agree with that comment. Pierce looked a lot like he did in the Dallas game, when he easily controlled the back. I think that this time, he was ready to come back, unlike in June, when he didn't seem to be match fit when he returned. Pierce and Kante looked pretty good together, against a team that just put 3 goals on th best defense in the league. I'd like to see the defense of Heaps, Kante, Pierce, and Franchino play out the rest of the year, although I agree with the comment that Jay and Joey need to be upgraded long term. The Cullen-Hernandez combo seems to be working, but I'm not sure why. Cullen is the more instinctive of the pair, but he is limited physically. Hernandez looked good on the free kick, but he occasionally seems to overestimate his ball skills. However, I don't think that there's any advantage to starting Rooney over these two, so I'd also try to run out the season with these two. Barring injury, Nicol seems to have a decent lineup of fairly young players to work with (Brown, Jay, Kante, Rusty, Joey, Ralston, Leo, Hernandez, Griffiths/Kamler, Twellman, Harris/APC/Fuller). If he can keep a consistant lineup over the next 5 games he should be able to mold the team into a decent, competitve bunch. I'd rather use this time to decide his fate for next year than judge him on the misfit lineups he's had to work with up to now.
Griffiths is not Evans Wise. He looks up for one thing. Evans was always looking down. Griffiths does seem to have Franchino like crossing skills. In other words, he doesn't really know where the ball will go (in contrast to Ralston who is much more accurate in general). Griffiths was probably pulled because we were playing a 4-3-3 with him out there. With each passing minute Winston became more of a third forward. He wasn't coming back on D very quickly and he was drifting toward the center of the field. I don't think SN wanted to play a 4-3-3 (just guessing). Two wins is fun but I'm not going to go reserve playoff tickets yet.
Hell, why not seize this opportunity to think like a cockeyed optimist - the Revs have just equaled the longest winning streak in the MLS this year. There's no stopping these guys!
I had my 20-month old boy with me last night who by the second half was in his tired goofy stage and I didn't get to pay a lot of attention to the late stages. When I was looking, it appeared that by the end of the game Colorado was essentially playing a 2-5-3 or 2-4-4. They seem to play like I thought we would before the season started--attack out of everywhere. It seems to lead to a schizophrenic team that whoops the league's best team one day and gets clobbered by the league's worst the next. Of course, their defense probably works better when Pablo is available at d-mid. Either way, if you like goals the NE-COL games this year have given you something to cheer. 19 goals combined in 4 games or almost 5 per game. For those that care it's 10-9 in favor of the Rapids and a 2-2 record.
Okay, now that I've got that "optimist" stuff out of my system... Carlos Llamoso definitely seems to be looking at the end of his career. He tweaked his hamstring running down a relatively routine ball in his own end. These are the types of injuries that tends to plague old-timers in the twilight of their careers (cases in point, Okaroh, Wynalda, Stoichkov, Novak, Harkes, Spencer, etc...). Personally, taking everything into account, I think the Revs play better with a healthy Rusty Pierce in the middle. Not saying Llamoasa might not have some good games left, but if I were a member of the Revs management, I wouldn't plan on him being a centerpiece of the Rev's defense next year. Just my opinion...
We had good points and bad points. I agreed with taking off Griffiths. He tried hard to create opportunities but consistently crossed the ball too short or to the keeper. He dribbled out of bounds a couple of times and lost the dribble completely even more. But he shows creativity and speed and will be better if he uses his opposite foot. Twellman and Wolde were a little off. The passes in the first half were indicative of it. A couple of steps off here and there. If Twellman isn't injured too badly I think they'll click. Twellman did look pissed on Wolde's head ball in the second half, but to Wolde's defense it was coming right at him and no forward is going to pass that up. I think most people would feel differently if the roles were reversed and Taylor took the headball in front of Wolde. Hernandez should take all the freekicks that present any sort of scoring opportunity. Finally, I agree that Pierce looked great back there. He steps off the field for two minutes for treatment and the Rapids score. Coincidence?
Re: Re: It's great to see the boys kick butt, but... I can't believe I'm about to write this, but I think Jay Heaps might be the answer at right back. Last season I had nothing but bad things to say about him, but particularly in the second half of this season he's done just about all the things you'd like your right back to do. Rarely gets beaten 1 v 1, no more aimless long balls, great in the air, etc. A lot of it probably has to do with playing on the same side as Ralston, but if the results are there the results are there. Agreed that we might be better served with Franchino at dmid, but a backline of Heaps-Rusty-Kante-Franchino is one to get excited about imo, and one that we can probably keep together for a long time.
Yeah you might have something there. I guess what I meant was that, in contrast to all of last season and much of this one, Wolde looked in synch with the rest of the team offensively, and was a more effective partner for Twellman than anyone else has been.
If an MLS player was taken off every time a couple of his crosses went awry, there wouldn't be any players let on the field of any game.
,.., I agree with Rodan here, Rusty was a mad man last night, just every place he needed to be ... he's off for 1 minute and they score anyway, put franchino in at d-mid and find a quality left back and it looks like the revs have a young, strong back 4 ... now if they could just find a quality left back, you think Kamler could drop back?
I think the key to this win was that Colorado didn't (couldn't?) pressure the Revs midfield. As has been shown through most of the season, the Revs have the best scoring machine in the league when they are allowed to have the ball. Good teams pressure the heck out of them to take away any possession game. I thought the real good news out of the Chicago game was that they got pressured real hard, and still found a way to win. C-Bus will pressure them too. If they can handle it, they will win. The difference now seems to be that the defense is finally more organized, and with Kante, they have a physical presence in the middle. I think that to the extent that there has been a turnaround, it isn't a coincidence that it started with Kante's arrival (and Rooney's departure). I thought Hernandez was very solid in the middle, calm and strong on the ball. He gave out a couple of knocks when necessary, but never played out of control. Franchino on the other hand seems to have regressed. With the ball, he always seems to take it to the sideline and get himself trapped. He should take a note from Heaps, who got a lot of pressure in his own end and very calmly played the ball safely through the middle. Hernandez is there for Franchino, but he seems afraid to pass inside. Griffiths was erratic, but his ability to penetrate helped loosen up the Rapids defense and contributed to the space that Twellbird found for his first goal. Twellman's second goal wasn't a mis-hit as some have suggested, but it was the first step of a two-step combination, where Kramer took himself out of the play, so no finishing blast was necessary. Hernandez free kick ability is going to be the biggest factor in protecting the forwards from here on. Who's gonna want to foul those guys 25 yards from goal when H can curl it over the wall and put it in the LOWER corner!! Brown looked very good - as good as he needed to be. The long reach came in handy when he wrapped the ball around the post as he was falling back into his net! Right now the Revs have a very solid system in place, and look like they are playing together for the first time this season. They have a young and energetic central midfield, a good tandem of Kamler/Griffiths on the left, two forwards who are dangerous and a defensive back line that seems to be a solid unit.
It makes me nervous how well we've been playing. I agree, I was all over Heaps for quite some time, then all of a sudden he's playing inspired defense. Crazy. I loved Rusty in the middle, but I'd like Joey at D-Mid. Cullen could probably play left back. Hernandez on the ball outside the box is appearing to be truly deadly, and Wolde made smart enough runs to take some pressure off Taylor. Kamler is worthless, and I'd rather see a speedy Griffiths beating defenders and working on his crosses than Kamler doing...nothing. Onward, Revs fans!
Interesting ex-Rev sighting at the game last night: Yari Allnutt. He said that he had been in San Diego taking care of his injury. He seemed awfully confident that he was going to be on the Revs next year. He has a house in the area and seems to be set on staying for a while.
On the plus side, the team showed they still believe in themselves and their coach which I doubted was the case. Pierce's play was also impressive, probably his best of the year. On the other hand, Colorado played a stinker and put no pressure on the Rev's throughout the first half. It was a game much like the last home game against Columbus where the Revs looked like world beaters. Unfortunately, that impression has vanished quickly when they meet a team that matches their intensity (or more commonly exceeds it ) in midfield. Certainly Kante is a plus (although guilty of ball-watching sometimes). Griffiths, however, probably isn't the answer on the left. Although he moves very well in attack, he concedes possession too easily with inaccurate passes. I also suspect (but haven't been able to tell for sure) that he gets caught forward too much which puts pressure on Franchino to play wide, something he has not excelled at this year. I think Nicol will return to Kamler who will stay back almost as a third defensive midfielder as he did earlier in the season. This gives Ralston some freedom to move forward ( with Cullen covering behind) but as we've already seen good teams can counter successfully against this formation. Getting Rooney out of midfield has certainly helped but Hernandez is not the quantum improvement Nicol needs to use his system. I suspect we will see more of the 4-5-1 formation against better teams, using another midfielder to clog up the left flank and keep pressure off Franchino. Possibly Rooney will join Cullen and Hernadez and Kamler will move forward some on the left. Griffiths and Chacon will sit unless we fall behind (and maybe even longer). All told, I think the defense has improved somewhat but the Rev's real problem, the insuitabilty of their players for Nicol's midfield system, remains and will continue to hold them back.
Why can't we phrase this: "...the unsuitability of Nicol's midfield system for the players that the Revs have, remains and will continue to hold them back?"
I just went back for a second viewing, and Griffiths didn't do as bad as I previously thought. He did give up some bad crosses/passes, but only after his speed and quickness won him the ball down low. I'd rather see him win some balls and maybe lose them later than have an invisible Kamler out on the pitch. Besides, I think having Griffiths wide gives us the necessary left side weapon to, at the very least, pull a defender over and give our central attackers (and Ralston) more room with which to work. I see Kamler as a safer move, but I think his entry into the starting 11 will prove disastrous to our attack. Remember how bad it was when teams could beat up Twellman, mark the hell out of Ralston, and watch us go down in misery?
Loose ends... • Griffiths may not pass very much. But he opens up the defense. Kamler in the other hand does nothing. I did not see well the Col goal, but I have been told that Kamler's only contribution to the score was letting Chung put one in. • Kamler, however, may be SN's good luck charm. He gets in and the REVs win. • Franchino is easily beaten by balls played wide and/or behind him. He reacts slowly and has no speed. • Kante reads plays very well. A few times he kicked the ball right out of the Col player's feet. • Wolde must have noticed that being in the unemployment line is not nice. Hemastered all his energy and played like I have not seen in a while. By the 60th min he was ready for CPR. • During intermission Chacon must have kicked over 100 shots in goal from the top of the box. He got to score only a couple of times. It does not look like his mind is in the game. I am sure that Slyde would have scored a lot more. • SN' was lucky that Llamosa got hurt. Otherwise his stupidity of not starting Pierce would be very clear. • SN has to go. No if or buts. • Heaps is not Cafu, but he is playing better as a back than Franchino. • Cullen is not the answer for midfield, but Rooney is not even a question. • The Rapids were Rabids, they were ready to kill. #22 and #3 at least should have seen the 2nd yellow. • Adin Brown saved himself from being the laughing stock of the league. If that ball went in, he sure would have made tha play-of-the-day. He had some good saves.