Neither Ambrose or Shea can get any crosses in... where is the Brek Shea from last Thursday? I don't like this club footed version.
The club footed version is the usual one, sorry to say. Atlanta players look like they are struggling to figure out where there teammates are going. They were having some success with long balls over the top, but I don't think that Atlanta's coaching staff is willing to play that way.
Had Rooney not stubbed under the ball it would have been 3-0. Total domination, and a surprisingly good defense. Arriola was my MOTM.
They looked very good, just ran AU off the pitch. The Dynamic Duo is going to be the Three Musketeers this year. Didn’t like what Lucas Rodriquez did. I’m less worried about his ability. After all it’s just one game. I’m more concerned about his style. As someone mentioned upthread, the way we’re set up, we’d be better off if he was a righty tasked with cutting in to combine with Acosta and Rooney. Ben has often misallocated the talents of his wide mids. I’d hate to see him do it again. Infinity The way you bitch constantly about the league, please do us all a favor, yourself included, and stop. It’s tiresome and wrong and tiresome. Why watch if it’s rigged?
I must say that is the best I've seen DC play on opening day in some time. Arriola, Lucho, and Rooney were excellent. Birnbaum, Brillant, Mora, and Moreno were solid. Hamid didn't have much to do, but was excellent when he was needed. Titi Rodriguez looked good to me, and I don't think we need to get Asad back at DP money. Was he subbed out because of injury? I also liked what I saw from Leonardo Jara. Except for one bad brainfart - letting a pass get past him and go out-of-touch - I thought he had a terrific game. I think I might have subbed Rooney out for Amerikwa at about the 80 minute mark. He had a couple of breakaways at the end, but couldn't out-run the defenders. We don't need to run him into the ground. I'm pretty happy with what I saw, overall.
Just got back from the game and I liked what I saw for the most part. I think Jara is still not in good shape. He was a little indecisive on the counter attack too. When he gets into sync, I think he'll be the real deal over there. He's also big enough to play centerback in a pinch. You could tell Arriola has been playing with the national team because he was in great shape. At minute 70 most of the team began to lose gas. I would have subbed more liberally if I was Olsen. I loved the willingness to attack and the intelligence/patience with the ball (during the first 60 minutes). If we get lucky with injuries it could be a very good season. * One last edit to say that I counted about 9+ shots in the box for DCU. Two were blocked, but the rest were clean. That's impressive. Atlanta probably only had 1 shot inside the box all game and it was a high difficulty one timer.
Agree with @Winoman , that was a comprehensive performance. Jara and Rodriguez looked very good. Acosta wants to make this his team. In the last 10 minutes Atlanta was starting to retain possession in the DCU half. At one point Acosta just charged out and stole the ball from the Atlanta player -- a sort of "this shit stops now" type of move. A very thorough victory. As @Winoman says, I would have subbed Rooney for Amerikwa in the 80th minute -- at that point you don't need goals, you need disruption.
Because it’s pretty much only rigged for the Galaxy. They make great Villains. I don’t really watch teams other than DC and LAFC (my son’s team and youth club). The league has its problems. Why don’t you do us all a favor and acknowledge them. The league doesn’t need cheerleaders anymore. It’s grown past that point. James (since 1996)
When did Guzan get so bad at distribution? Isn't he still considered among the top US goalkeepers? Don't get me wrong, he was probably no worse than Hamid but Hamid's worst distribution was after the game was effectively over.
Were you right? Seems like that while we played extremely well they were a little bit either physically or mentally tired. Maybe both. Or maybe we were just that dominant.
Guzan had one fantastic punt off a corner (I think). Some of it was bad, but go back and look at that play. I don't think you'd call him "so bad" at distribution. It's not easy in the rain.
While I know that Atlanta had rotated a few of their starters with CCL last week and this week, but without looking at the stats, I'd guess we had close to 60% possession and felt much more dominating than that as Atlanta was really only threatening on the break, the one Guzan punt was really excellent. Very good all around. Titi Rodriguez looked really good. He's the goods right off the plane. Lucho spent a lot of time out on the wings and did a lot of "little" things and while he might not have been as influential as last year, thats really good for us because teams are not going to be able to hack him or stifle him to stop us. We beat Columbus last year if we'd had Titi.
I think so, I think they could have started all their starters too but losing an away game under these conditions is what it is and I guess they just didn’t take it seriously enough. Tactically they made poor choices, relying heavily on Brek Shea (who is ass) but after halftime their adjustments were effective. I wonder what our equivalent performance would have been with a first half without two of Rooney/Acosta/Arriola but that’s what teams in international competitions have to deal with. In the end they got outplayed because DC players put more effort in and wanted to win at home more than Atlanta wanted to win. So in short we were dominant. That’s really to me what Rooney brings, a desire to win. Frankly, I am kind of hoping we learned our lesson about the preseason and just didn’t need take any such events seriously. More than half of the last 10 years we sustained relevant injuries in these matches and that we lost most preseason events is actually probably a good thing in the end if we perform better when it matters.
I can't remember the last time I went to an opener and saw us play AND win so confidently. Arriola was on fire! I also liked our two defensive backs we got, they seemed aggressive and had some minor flaws, but still I was impressed. Rodriguez I felt has potential to get better, enjoyed his play, he just unfortunately gets a bit out muscled by his size Loved the Durkin sub for Acosta. Canouse was just a beast and great as always.. yeah much to enjoy. I also see room for improvement, but in a good way, meaning we should get better as opposed to, woah we got some problems here that seriously need to get fixed.
I am warming to Moreno in the middle along with Canouse. He can do more than just interrupt attacks. And did you notice that he took one of our corners, allowing Rooney to station himself among those attacking the net?
Atlanta actually had a lot more possession - 56.2% to DCU's 43.8%. There were only 5 5-minute intervals the whole game where DC had the ball more. DC did a lot more with their possession, obviously, but Atlanta did see the ball quite a bit more of the ball than DC.