This team isn't good. The young players are like college kids. Don't blame the vets. How many were out there? Wingert and Phillips ! I would fire Weibel , Williams , the fitness coach and get a better city pr to show how great the area is.
That HAS to be rock bottom....doesn't it? The game was a stinging indictment of the Waibel Experiment. On the one hand, we have had a few promising signings--but the portfolio of decisions is truly relegation-worthy. Unfortunately, we don't even have that threat of relegation to light a fire under DLH. We are going to need to borrow players from other teams against Man United, otherwise we will embarrass the league.
If you want to feel better that somewhere somehow this organization has any clue about playing soccer go watch the Monarchs. They work together look in synth for the most part and I'll be damned if they don't hustle their butts off. Refreshing after watching whatever it was we saw with RSL last night.
Form the RSLer peanut gallery: 1. I will repeat that Maund is not a 3rd or 4th level MLS CB. 2. Maund and Wingert as a starting CB tandem must be the worst the league has ever produced. 3. When can we cut Silva loose? 4. Dunk was not a slam. 5. I'm on the fence about Hernandez. He connected an a few give and goes in the second half. This attack needs that. On the other hand he was poor defensively and made some bad passes. Maybe he needs more time on the pitch? 6. This might be premature, but I feel RSL has never had a player with Sava's abilities. His dribbling at speed was awesome. He gots the quickness. He understands the game. He has good vision and made nice, accurate passes. His shooting was on-frame (we finally have an attacker who can shoot on-frame). I'm looking forward to see him work with Rusnak and Yura. Rusnak has to be thrilled to have another player who understands the game. 7. Delamea showed us the template on how other teams will defend Sava...repeatedly knock the beejus out of him. As long as the referee refuses to show yellow anyway. Of course, that seems to be Delamea's defensive tactic against every opposing player. 7. I like that Schmidt went forward every chance he had. 8. After the game Petke said Sava will typically play wide rather than in the middle as he did yesterday. 9. I'm not sure what to take from the 2nd half. Positives: We gave up no goals. They guys played hard. There was good interplay in the attack. We had pressure on the attack. Negatives: We scored no goals. Holness had his chance and looked very, very bad. We were open to the counter and were lucky to not give up a couple of goals. On Sava's first shot everyone was ball watching and not available to put back the spill. While there was good interplay, we needed to shoot more...I've always felt that in wet conditions you shoot often and you shoot with pace. On the fence: Was our attacking pressure in the second half a direct result of NE's playing deep rather than a sign of good things to come? 10. 2 years ago I posted that RSL's starting 11 was weak in all areas except GK and that big changes were needed in the back, midfield and forward position before they could consider a deep playoff run. I also posted that CB seemed to be the priority. It obvious that the organizations has chosen to strengthen the attack first. While I think that is a mistake, in the end it's all 6's. You have to start somewhere and they started.
I do think that there were some moments of positive play for RSL. Especially in the firs half when the change of formation had New England back on their heels trying to figure out what was up. It really seemed like RSL had something but then New England went all Nicolas Cage, ok more like Nicolas Copola, and cracked the code of RSL's back line and put one in the back of the net a good 180 to 220 seconds into the game. Enough time to steal the Declaration of Independence, evade bad guys, start a fight at a house party in the 80's and get back to the stadium in time to help the Revs break the code of Wingdunk Maunillips. A feat that seemed quite impossible until New England realized they were a professional soccer team and pretty much just walked the ball into the back of the net after dribbling through the training cones RSL left on the pitch, I mean the mysterious Wingdunk Maunillips secret code of defending only Nick Cage could ever figure out. It's a movie that writes itself. More horror than comedy but it still writes itself.
Confession time. For the first time since the team was formed, I chose to not watch an RSL match in preference of another entertainment. (Previously, genuine life intrusions, such as being in London on honeymoon, had been proper reasons to miss a match.) I had an opportunity to play in a charity role-playing game that started about the time of the RSL game, raising money for the Southern Poverty Law Center (we raised $125). Historically, I would have angst about this decision, and if I resolved to play the game I would have watched the RSL match later. I decided to not watch the match with no expectation or desire to watch it later. Not only did I know we would lose, but I knew we would lose embarrassingly. I wanted to have fun, not suffer through ignominy. I'll watch next match, probably. I'm not quitting RSL (yet). But, I know I made the right choice. I had a great time playing the game as a Dishonorable Glaive (fighter) who Fights Dirty (Numenera/Cypher system).... hmmm... seems to fit the moment, eh?
I had mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I was unable to catch this game live as I had a coaching commitment I had to attend. This turned out to be a blessing. Not because it allowed me to miss the game (I went back and rewatched) but because it gave me the benefit of having the emotions of a 4-0 loss known ahead of time. Because of this, I could actually watch the game and not get so hung up (as I tend to do) on the goals we gave up. In fact, I went into this game thinking "we must have played like ass in every area of the game to lose 4-0". This, IMO, was flat out not true. We were the better team in the opening minutes. We were actually pretty good in the middle portion of the field in terms of offense. We had NE on their heels and were pushing the issue. This was also our undoing. One of the biggest flaws of the diamond, IMO, is the way it sets up your outside backs defensively. They get put on an island. Newcomer Dunk was hardly given a chance against a quick Fagundez. But more concerning on the play was the complete lack of tracking from the other 3 defenders and the midfield. We had more players in the box than NE yet they had more than one player open. Thats just awful. What started to become more and more clear as the half wore on was that we had some really good creative players on the field. Holness wasn't amazing, but he was different in his movement and passing. Velazco has a motor on him. Hernandez as well. Once we got the ball near the 18, though, we went into idiot mode. We can't make the final pass consistently - and when we do? We proceed to shoot like a blind kid. The diamond needs to die a fiery ********ing death. We certainly don't have the players for it, even when healthy, and it put a spotlight on our glaring defensive weaknesses. Never again, please Luis Gil Silva When our best chance of the first half is a header by Joao Plata, we need to rethink how this team tries to score. Kei Kamara is a much better striker than Yura. Kei Kamara makes $800K. Aaron Maund is, at best, a 3rd string CB. Make the recovering from injury excuses if you want, he looked really bad in this game at key moments. Craig Waibel is trying to be worse than Pastorino, I'm convinced. Savarino looked to be a really fun player. Howe he fits on the field will be interesting to watch play out. With Lennon gone I assume he starts on the wing. Once Lennon is back, though? Hard to say Plata should have a start over either. And this doesn't address the CF situation, still. So... wtf It is important to note the score in the game when Savarino came on. New England didn't much care for the game in the second half so those glimpses of good play - well I'm not 100% sold on them. Schmidt should be starting over Wingert. We gain nothing in these games with Wingert playing. I'm so ********ing sick of this. He isn't bringing any form of veteran leadership. Why is he out there? Again, I didn't think we played awful in this game. Having the benefit of knowing the score as I watched, allowed me the chance to take the knee reaction out of my thoughts for the most part. We still just aren't good enough in any part of the pitch, though. We have decent players, some really good depth players, in fact. But out and out starters? Difference makers? Lacking. We gonna get our asses kicked Wednesday
5. I thought a diamond was a more advanced formation that you play when after you have mastered the plain, vanilla, white bread-bologna-mayonnaise flat 4-4-2. Why RSl came out in a diamond, I dunno. 9. On more than one occasion, Aaron Maund seemed like he was playing midfield instead of CB. I didn't know if this was a tactical change or what, but I was surprised.
I noticed RSL did a good job of getting Maund downfield into the attack, along with other back line players. This was encouraging. The bad parts of that is (1) it leaves us vulnerable in the back, and (2) Maund was useless in the attack. He won no headers. He did have a corner come to him but he kicked it away with a bad touch (see my ball controls observation earlier in the thread). The thought was good, but he's not the player to have in that role. Olave and Borchers had the necessary attacking skills. Maund doesn't.
I considered this factor too. There are two sides to the coin. First, as you say, how motivated was NE to defend him? Probably not much. I will also add that they knew nothing about him and probably din't expect to see him in the game, so they were unprepared for him. He will catch NYCFC off guard too because of their lack of prep time. Also, In close games he is going to have to deal with much more physical defenders. His size is against him in that regard. We will see a lot of hack-a-Sava. On the flip side, his quickness with the ball, ability to see the field and runs, pass accurately, and shoot on a dime with pace and accuracy cannot be denied. And those obvious skills were shown against a defense (granted, a bad defense) parked in the box. He's going to open up defenses just because of those skills. I think the heretofore seen defensive tactic of shutting down our attack by bracketing Yura with two defenders all the time will disappear. Anyway, I'm wearing my claret and cobalt glasses on my sleeve right now.
Watching other teams play, the lack of ferocity in attack is just glaringly absent for us. Other teams (FCDallas) get a ball in the box and 4-5 people charge. We have 1, maybe 2 on a good attack, often 0. It's like we don't believe the attack can matter, so it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy, plus we're so bad on D that any counter just F's us...which I think leads to hesitancy. Trust matters a lot in soccer. You have to believe you should make that run, or track back, or flow ahead, because you believe in your ability to defend or possess or both. If you lack a belief in both...you get this year and last year and the year before.