We're all so excited about this one, I can tell. I predict we draw, yet again, and (hopefully) finally silence all the randoms that are like "we can make the playoffs!" News flash: this team has 2 out of their last 9 possible home points.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict a 3-1 win, mostly because I think revenge is sweet and Petke will be hungry for it.
Houston does well at home, but they're stinkin' it up on the road - only one win. Things are going to kick into high gear for RSL tomorrow night; we're going to start our run to the playoffs with a 4 - 1 thumping, goals by Rusnák, Savarino, Plata and Glad, with two more near-misses from Yura. You heard it here first.
I am going to stick with my prediction on the other thread but playoffs are still a longshot. In my opinion. But anything else puts a stick in our spokes for any hope of a playoff chance, little as there may be.
We're five points below the cutoff line. The mathematical side of me says that's ridiculous to say "no hope." However, I have personally been "over" the whole playoff question for a good month or two. I enjoy watching the team play. I enjoy seeing the improvements under the new coach. I enjoy analyzing players and strategy. The team gives me a couple hours of entertainment every week. I don't need to sit and pine about the future to enjoy the present match. Edit: and to those who want to talk about "games in hand," I'll remind you what we said when it went against us the other way: you can't count on points from those. You just can't. If we couldn't then, we can't now.
I really want Petke to start mixing things up a bit in the lineup. To do this, I think playoffs have to be a complete pipe dream. There seems to be a strong belief within the team and writers that, while difficult, playoffs are something that could happen. I hate this. See this thing I wrote on it
we're 5 points behind, sure. But Vancouver also has THREE games in hand on us. They're getting points out of those games. Even if just a few, that gap widens A LOT.
Yes, I get the point with Vancouver. But you have Seattle and Portland that are six points ahead of us, and only one game in hand between the two of them. I see Vancouver jumping over them in the standings and one of those two landing at the bottom. I'm not saying playoffs are likely, and I don't really care/think about it that much. But given our strength of schedule, it's not impossible. Unlikely, not impossible.
Edit: want to say something better without sounding hurt While I think we may win, I think it would be better for development to lose squashing any chance for playoffs. It's nice to dream, but the question for me is, with more TAM monies in the fold. We must decide what young players we want to use around (if any) player(s) we may gain in the off-season window.
Pffft. Youse people and your "there is no hope" attitude. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the 2018 pre-season, we are not only going to make the playoffs but make a deep run into them! Who's with me?
I've been tracking Sportsclubstats.com for several years now, and they tend to be dead on with their odds of making the playoffs. Right now RSL has a 9.9% chance of making the playoffs. That's not zero, but it's low enough that I would totally vote for experimenting and giving young players more chances for the rest of this year. I've already made peace with the fact that we aren't making the playoffs this year.
Since mathemagically RSL can still make the playoffs, I'm not ready to write the whole season off just yet, even though it doesn't look like we will make them. RSL should have won one if not two of our last two games, but.......the eternal optimist in me (which sometimes wins in fights with the brutal realist in me) says that RSL is undefeated in four games and that should count for something. So, given that statistic, I'm off to my happy place full of kittens, rainbows, unicorns and butterflies. Speaking of butterflies, did you know what that the word for "butterfly" is in other languages? In French, it's "papillion". In Spanish, it's "mariposa". In Italian, it's "farfalla". And in German, it's "SCHMETTERLING!!!" German, the language of METAL!!!
Yeah, I'm not pining for playoffs, just improvement, and we're getting that. I predict a win that'll disillusion the hopeful among us further when it's followed by losses and ties. I'll back up J, I mean LBee at 3-1, Red Shirts.
It'd be nice to make the playoffs, but we still haven't shown form that is worthy of it. We probably need to average something like 2 wins, 1 draw the rest of the way. We've started trending that way, but not for long enough that gives me the belief that it will continue. Sadly, until it's not mathematically possible, the FO will continue to think we'll make the playoffs. Even if we lose a couple the win one, they'll talk about how we're 'just' 7 or 8 points out, and just a few weeks can put us in the playoffs. Sure, those scenarios are possible, just very unlikely in a real world scenario.
7th in the West is a pretty great accomplishment given that we quickly outpaced Minnesota for the worst team in history after they dropped Demidov from the game-day roster. Luckily, DC has made the rest of us look better. We forfeited season 2017 when DLH decided to keep Cassar on over the off-season. It's okay guys. I promise. They can't all be good times. EMBRATSU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It bugs me that the head ref can ignore the VAR result if he chooses. I feel like if you're using something to make calls better, the VAR result should stand no matter what. That being said, I full expect them to continue to get calls wrong, even when the limited angles we get on TV will show otherwise.
Well, yeah. Being a cynic, I absolutely expect there will be aspects to the execution of VAR that will reveal depths of incompetence/conflicts of interest that that most of us never would have otherwise observed.
As in Ref A hates Team B and no matter what the VAR says he is awarding the other team a penalty kick for a blatant dive in the box as perfected by the team that used to be called the Wizards.