Marcelo Silva on with a 2-0 lead now, that's odder. I'd love to see the field stretched instead of compressed.
Solid performance by RSL. No Beckerman. Rested for the weekend. Good rotation. We will want his bite. 3:0 Baird!!!
What a pass from Damir. The run from Savarino was pretty too, just to provide that option and keep Frei honest, but great goal from Baird.
Dunny was talking earlier about how important Plata might be down the stretch and in the playoffs; that role is going to go to Rowe IMO.
Did we give Sam, Rusnak, and Damir the ball more? Seems like it Also does anyone know why Tyron does the coaches interview on TV and not Freddy?
It did appear that there was a concerted effort to get Rusnak the ball more. Damir had the ball more due to him playing the role Beckerman normally occupies. In addition, it felt like RSL dominated possession even though stats were only 53/47. Freddy hates to be in front of the camera.
I was late to this one because the scheduling geniuses of youth soccer in this state, without fail, always have games run right up to and past RSL games. It is insanely stupid. Anyways, some points: Sam at the 9 isn't sexy but he's sure as hell effective. Whatever he lacks in technique (which is a lot) he makes up for in pure effort and pace. In a lot of ways, he compliments the super technical but slower 3 attacking mids/wings that sit behind him. No KB was awesome. I was nervous to see how Kreilach/Luiz would play. They got the job done in this game pretty well, but that performance wasn't good enough for a team actually in form. In fact, I still don't know how Seattle didn't get a goal, let alone a shot on goal, with how much space we sacrificed in the second half. The first 15-20 were nothing but them in our half with the occasional outlet. Part of this was Johnson not being 90 fit and the short rest, but man... it was rough. Which made the Rusnak goal vital. 5 minutes before that goal I turned to my old man and said we're going to draw or lose this game unless something changes. Kudos to the players for taking their chance there, beautiful goal from Rusnak. You could feel all of the energy leave the game in about the 80th minute. Then once Baird scored it was pointless. A big gripe I have with refs in those situations is that nothing in the laws of the game says they have to add stoppage time. In fact, the guy felt the flow of the game in the first half really well and didn't play a second of stoppage. So with the game 3-0 and both teams doing their best Luis Gil impersonations, just call the game. The 2 minutes of stoppage were pointless. But I digress. Really big win. On paper it looks a lot more dominant than it really felt it was until about the 75th minute. That said, it says a lot about a team to win a game 3-0 against a playoff contending team and not play really impressive soccer. In the post game interview, Tyronne made a point of saying that the team has been a lot different since the USOC exit. He went as far as to give credit to Mike on that and saying that things changed a bit then in their approach. That's great and at the same time makes it all the more unfortunate that Petke couldn't keep his cool.
Well, I didn’t mean for this to be a game prediction post, but the team must’ve read it. So... you’re welcome.
The way someone put this on Reddit was "Sam is the type of player where I watch him get results but am not sure if he's actually good". I did notice that nobody seemed to celebrate with him after his goal, and I don't want to read too much into that but it's possibly worrisome.
I did notice that nobody seemed to celebrate with him after his goal, and I don't want to read too much into that but it's possibly worrisome.[/QUOTE] I noticed that Baird was open quite a lot on the left side and rather than pass him the ball, the guys in the middle tended to either send the ball backward or change fields to the right side. The celebration after Baird's goal seemed a little muted, too. Maybe it's just because everybody was gassed.
did anyone get a picture of the tifo in section 35? I couldn't make out the words on it. I don't have social media (twitter, fb, insta, etc) anymore so apologies if this is on there a lot like I imagine it is
it was there again against LAFC - rainbow flag with words on it but I couldn't make out what they said. Anyone?