Friday, July 27 • Kickoff: 7:30 PM • Lockhart Stadium Big one Friday night. We need to win to keep ATL down in last place and plenty far away from us. Wynalda will surely have his boys playing hard in his last two games as coach, hopefully the Red & Gold are up to the task and can beat a team that they should. If you come to one soccer game this weekend, make it this one! If the Dolphins get any crazy ideas, your butt, and everyone else's, at Lockhart on a consistent basis will hopefully steer them in the correct direction .
I've heard they want a team there, but they don't want to own the team. So it would be a Marlins type situation, surely with a crappy lease and it would probably be an absolute disaster. They best stick to doing their crummy job running the Dolphins, and bringing in the big clubs for cash grab friendlies. Ross & Co. are already doing their best to ruin one kind of football the Robbie family helped thrive in SoFla. I sincerely hope they leave the other kind of football alone.
Back on topic, any thoughts for tomorrow night? Could be tough drawing a crowd with the Olympic opening ceremony on TV at the same time.
That regime doesn't have a clue how to run the football team they own now. They have no business considering a pro soccer team. And that's not even getting me started on the whole history of the sport in South Florida and why Dade will never work..... I think hosting the friendlies/international games is probably a profitable endeavour. Using the stadium to host an MLS team will almost certainly be a money eater instead. Hopefully they've got level-headed people advising them of this, and just stay pat doing what they're doing now.
I think this will be one of those times when you look around the stadium and the crowd you see won't seem like the crowd they announce. I'm guessing we'll have some no shows for alreayd purchased tix, but no rain in the forecast might help a little, I'm going to say around 3,000. Unfortunately that will lower our average a bit. That three game homestand against SA, Rowdies, and Islanders end of Aug./beginning of Sept. better be big. The team really needs to promote that stretch, especially the Rowdies game of course! As for the game tomorrow, I am getting loathe to post possible lineups since I never know who is hurt or unavailable anymore thanks to the total lack of PR by the team.... So I'll post what I'd like to see the lineup be: Glaeser Laing - Stahl - Stewart - Gordon Anderson - Shanosky - Restrepo - King Herron - Paulo Jr Lots of speed and attacking in that group. I know Wynalda has come in and lit a fire, but I think he's also almost completely overhauled their lineup, so I think there is an opportunity to catch them here while they are still learning to play together. I like the Strikers to have a chance to win big here. Go Strikers!!!
I was out of town last weekend, but I thought I heard Andy caught a red @ SA. So.......he's out for this one. correct?
Well crap, you're right. I actually missed watching my first game over the last two seasons last week as I had a prior committment Saturday night. Forgot about Herron's red. So, that probably changes things a little bit. So my adjustment would be pushing Anderson up with Paulo Jr and inserting Lorenz at left MF. It makes it sound like a 4 - 4 - 2, but I bet they'd play it more like a 4 - 4 - 1 - 1 with Anderson behind Paulo Jr. Even without Herron I think we've got a good chance for a solid win. Something else I've been thinking about is that, with the excpetion of the first round USOC game against Fresno, Big Matt has played every single minute of every single game this year. I know he's a workhorse, but I'm wondering if Coach isn't going to spin that roulette wheel of his prior to one of these two Atlanta games and come up on Martin giving Matt a rest for one of them. You'd think it might be more likely next week in Atlanta, but I won't be overly surprised if they do put Martin in tonight, especially if we have everyone back and available on the back line.
In a game that set team defense back 50 years.......FtL 5-AtL 3 Paulo Jr. pays early dividends with a wonderful post-to-post chip into the upper 90. Sparky with his 10th on the give and go 2 on 1 with Walter. Hassan re-discovers his braces, and Restrepo ends the suspense late.
3,160 claimed attendance. Strikers win 5-3. Exciting game. Too exciting. As are too many of our games this season. We have to learn how to play defense immediately. We are in 4th place with 27 points after playing 20 games. We are the only team in the top 6 with a negative goal differential.....-2. All other teams in the league have at least 2 games in hand on us. The 7th place team, Edmonton, has 3 games in hand and trails us by 11 points & 2 goals. They could possibly catch us if the Strikers falter. Still, we are in the hunt for a playoff spot. If we can ever learn how to protect Matt better we could very well make this as successful a season as last season. Keep scoring - we are lethal on the counter, but, unfortunately, are weak on preventing it, too - and cut goals against to 1/game & we may be happy in October. If not & we'll have another discouraging off season. Especially if the Dolphins do take over the bid for MLS. The only organizations that could be worse are those running the Panthers or the Marlins - who may have a soccer game in the super stadium next summer. Can't we get 'Bron to get Riley & the Heat interested in the Strikers?...
The win was great, badly needed 3 points and a result we should get vs. Atlanta. But still... There is a lack of focus/killer instinct with these guys. They go up by one or two and then relax. They need to either learn to defend, or more likely, learn to keep their foot on the gas pedal at all times. We certainly have the offensive firepower to do that. If we go up 2-0 the other team should never catch us and even the game up.
We are no longer the only team that played in an 8 goal game this w/e, nor are we the only team in the top 6 with a negative goal differential. Carolina lost a road game to San Antonio Saturday 0-8 & now have a -5 goal differential. More importantly, it keeps them 3 points behind the Strikers. TB beat Edmonton 1-0 for it's 7th win in the last 8 games and to keep it's grip on 2nd place, and the Islanders beat the Stars 1-0 to give the Stars a goal differential of 0 and keep them 1 point behind the Strikers. On to Atlanta Saturday. Here's hoping the Strikers can get 3 more points there with their 2nd road win.
I enjoy watching your games for this reason. The Strikers have an awesome counter game, but lack the muscle in the middle of the field to kill off a game. During the off season, you should try to get Pat Phelan who is playing in the Finnish second division currently. He's a big defensive midfielder that's decent on the ball who I think could excel in the NASL.
It's a shame more people that showed up Saturday for that borefest at Sun Life didn't bother to come down to Lockhart on Friday night for some real excitement. First things first, we got the win we absolutely had to have. And we did something Friday night we have been unable to do all season - had a team on the ropes, and delivered the knockout blow. The Tampa game here is the only other instance I can think of that happening. We finished off an opponent at the end rather than allow valuable points to leak through our hands. Kudos for that. Next, we obviously have to mention the defense. We continue to struggle in this department. I think Shore inserting Pecka into the starting lineup again was a concerted effort to try and improve the overall defense, but we just continued to struggle. Perhaps Coach needs to rethink is philosophy of not caring about the other team having possession until they get to our back 1/3. Repeatedly we see teams that, allowed that possession, have little trouble breaking us down in that final 1/3 to create chances. I think we need to be stronger in pressuring the opposition in MF, trying to create turnovers, or at least disrupting attacks. I think we now see how the Coach is going to play it the rest of the way. DR is right about the guys needing to develop the mindset of not taking their foot off the gas. Look at what the Scorpions did to the Railhawks Saturday. When you get the upperhand, don't relax, pound them some more, because unlike the Scorpions, we don't have a solid backline currently. We have tons of firepower now, let's just keep reloading and firing away for the entire 90 minutes. Personally I think we've got one hell of a group on the attack now, so if we can just improve even a little defensively in MF and in the back, we can compete with anyone for the title.