I actually think Henley is USNT eligible as well. He's never been cap-tied for Wales - he's made the bench for qualifiers but he's never appeared in anything but a friendly. I think he could file a one-time switch if he wanted to... though it's probably a long shot.
By the time it even gets to Silva, there was so much wrong going on that he was just doing his best there. There was a lot of blame to go around. It was a painful sequence to watch.
Great stuff 15. Side notes: - with Kreilach and Barry both in the game, I no longer worry about giving up headers on corners. Last year was rather nerve-racking as RSL was very small. - Because RSL was positionally sound they didn't foul. i think Kyle kicked a couple guys just to remember what it feels like. - Luke not playing was one of the key reasons for the lack of fouls. - BTW, it is completely disconcerting to not know where Kyle is at all times. (Missing the hair.) - Luis S wil get some love for working hard defensively late in the game after a give away. He certainly is NOT a 9 for "pack back and counter attack"...but he is a good teammate. - Every team is going to flood Plata's side of the field as he is typically the outlet for the counter. Acosta HAS to know that. The moment that ball got lost and Dallas was behind him the team was in full scramble mode, which should never happen at that time of the game when RSL had the ball. Note that Petke called him out without mentioning him after the game. Ouch. - If Sava doesn't fight thought the attempted football tackle, RSL is up a man. - I thought Rusnak was through near the end when he went in to full slalom mode. - Despite not playing as much defense as we would like, Plata looks more fit than last season. - I'm just as excited today as I was on Friday. Let's see how much they can improve this week.
I feel like we never should've been in full scramble mode anyway. We had 5 defenders at that point. Honestly, I kind of think that was the problem. We added in Horst and messed up the overall chemistry and shape. It's like everyone just assumed someone else was where they were supposed to be, and they weren't.
Interesting stats time: RSL's 9 shots was the lowest for us since the New England road game last year (early season, post Cassar firing) The trend of taking way more right footed shots continues. 6 with the right compared to 1 with the left and 2 via header Despite feeling like we were under constant pressure, we had 47% of possession and 639 touches (a higher number in last years data) which surprised me Passing percentage of 76% wasn't great, but wasn't anything noteworthy in terms of bad. We had quite a few worse games last year, though most were earlier in the season. We had a 79% dribble success rate. Would be in the top 3 of last year's dribble numbers. More shocking is that the number of successful dribbles we had (19) was higher than any 2017 number. So we attempted more (26) and were more successful at it. That's really impressive We also had 20 aerials wins, a number larger than any other last year. Marcelo really stood out here with 5 of those wins We were rather poor on our tackle percentage, though. At 68% it wasn't the worst we've seen, but it was on the lower side. We also had 17 turnovers and were disposed 14 times. Neither the worst numbers I've tracked, but neither are exactly good. The game still goes through Rusnak. Of the 8 "key passes" RSL had, Rusnak hit 4 of them. But the most interesting stat of the game, for me, was that Kreilach was the highest RSL player in terms of possession (5.8%). That's just simply amazing for a guy who has been with the club as short as he has and was subbed off. Only three players in the game (all FCD) had more possession of the ball. They were the two CB's (7.3% and 6.3%) and the holding mid Hayes (6%).
I was in the stadium, but to late arriving to hear our starting Eleven, I also thought 26 was actually Henley, well Guess what? Berry played pretty well, I did think to myself during the match, that I thought from all I had read that he would have been a bit quicker and more likely to push forward.
What a great series of post-game thoughts in this thread! I can’t really add any more light than what has already been pointed at the game here. Just a couple of thoughts: 1. As 15 pointed out, The strategy in this game put L. Silva at a disadvantage; but in my opinion it was important for him to start anyway. At this opening stage of the season development of in game teamwork is very critical. That is hampered if he doesn’t start. 2. Yes, we stole a road point in this one and we should be thankful for it. 3. I thought Phillips did ok considering everything. I was especially impressed that he didn’t attempt any mind-numbingly dangerous tackles and didn’t pass the ball to unmarked FCD strikers in our half. 4. Henley not starting was a disappointment. 5. Kreilach is obviously a midfield upgrade. He missed badly on his only shot. He has a reputation as a quality finisher, so I am hoping the miss was due to first game jitters. 6. Justin Glad’s play had me on the verge of acknowledging he has MLS starting 11 talent. I’m looking forward to seeing his growth with a good CB partner at his side this season. 7. Surprisingly FCD did not engage much of their historically pervasive persistent infringement tactic. I expect LAFC to be fully committed to hack-a-Sava this Saturday.
I have seen a lot said about the number of fouls that FCD committed. People going as far to call them dirty. During the game I didn't think this was the case. However, looking at the stats on whoscored doesn't paint a pretty picture. To be fair, the two guys that fouled the most did eventually get in the book (Hayes and Barrios). KB had the next highest fouls committed at 4 and, if we're being honest, probably deserved a card. So while I underestimated the amount that was out there, it's hard to argue the ref didn't put the right guys in the book.
Barrios especially was deserving. I have vivid memories of past Hoops teams that kicked Javi’s ankles over and over without a card being shown. On Saturday I felt their style fell within the league norm.
Great comments in this thread, I agree with most of what has been said. A few discrepancies that I do see: 1) I think Kreilach showed the quality AND heart he'll bring. On at least 2 different occasions he had awful turnovers, but busted it to get back and recover defensively. However, although he showed his quality I think his overall game was sub-par. The good news is that I think there is a ton of upside there. 2) I don't know about Dallas being "dirty" but they did get away with alot of fouls. I don't know how they avoided multiple persistent infringement cards. 3) I hate inserting a 3rd CB late in the game. It changes the mindset and has a CB matched up with a player in a spot in the field that may be uncomfortable for him. I think there is plenty of blame on the equalizer, but I'd give a portion of it to Petke for the substitution. I'd have much rather seen Luke in there at that point.
1. I thought the weakest part of Kreilach's performance here was his positioning with KB. They either got way too stretched out on occasions or were too heavily stacked on one side. Other than that, though, I thought he had a pretty good game. His stats show an average game compared to others in the match. 2. The two players that should have got persistent infringement cards did: Hayes and Barrios. Now, you could argue as a collective they fouled and should have had another player suffer for it, but that's asking a lot in this league. That the two guys who committed 5 or more fouls were in the book is a good sign, to me. 3. I think a big part of this was to give Acosta support having just been thrown to the wolves on the left side where FCD were just killing us. Though, in my mind, the sub that really needed to be made was KB coming off. Savarino's injury prevented that. Still, Horst was the guy he had up the whole time which meant he was going to go 5 across the back and it really screwed the spacing of the defense - as seen on the goal.
My first thought when Horst came in: "I've seen 5 in the back fail more often than it succeeds." I have no idea if that is actually true statistically, but it sure feels like it's the case.
That was always my thought as well. I think if you were going to add another 'defender' I'd rather add another body in the midfield. Moving to a 4 or 5 man midfield doesn't seem to hurt the back line as much.
in my (not anywhere near as high of a level) experience, when you add another defender, especially a CB, you screw up the spacing and assignments along the back line. Even if it's something you've worked on, you're now asking guys to defend a tighter space and thus the player will make assumptions on passing players off. You can see exactly that in the goal, in fact. Horst's "tackle" is not one a normal CB in a 4man backline would make. But he knows there are two other CBs behind him, so he just jogs past Urruti and doesn't even attempt to get back to cover. Berry doesn't track his guy on the backdoor because he assumes MSilva has him. MSilva isn't as deep as he should be because he assumes there is more support. I'd be curious to see if teams give up more goals when they go 3 players in the back (attacking) as opposed to 5 players in the back (defending) from a 4 man backline.
I think I'm with the consensus opinion. If a back usually plays in a 3 or 5 back line, telling a couple wide players to stay home more often won't radically change the responsibilities of the CBs, but will give them more consistent coverage. I'd rather see another DM added in front of a four man line than switching to five.
The amount of help this board could give Petkov, if he only knew we were here, just boggles the mind.