I've seen a lot of people bitch about "we don't take this seriously". I want clarification what you mean, because a lot have said it's tied to the lineup. You can't play the starters in this one AND have a 3 game winning streak. So pick which one you prefer. In all other threads, people have been pumped by the 3 game winning streak. For every action.... Which brings me to one of my very few complaints with the coaching staff last night: at least APPEAR like you think the game is serious. Showing up in a ********ing polo and khakis when you come to all MLS games in a shirt and tie is just the completely wrong message. If I'm a fringe player trying to break into the squad and I see my head coach show up in casual wear, I wonder just how much of a chance this is. Still, this loss and performance is almost entirely on the players. And these wasn't some collection of scrubs we've never heard of. These were all guys that make the gameday 18 but don't see consistent sub action. These were guys that were killing it with the Monarchs and deserved a go with the first team in a real setting. This group wasn't bad. I know we all put a large focus on the starters, but to be effective as a club, you've got to show your depth actually is worth a damn. News flash (especially to Brian Dunseth) our depth sucks Starting from the back, I can't say too many negative things about Sparrow. Without his quick instincts, SKC probably wins this by 3 or 4. Why? Because Horst and Peay were ********ing awful. That's a scary statement for Horst, given he is just an injury away from being a starter for the first team. I never wanna hear anyone say "we should play actual defenders at outside back" in reference to Lennon v Henley ever again. Henley sucks. He has a Robbie Findley first touch and isn't anything special defensively. Herrerea, on the other side, had some real howler moments as well. He's a rookie so I'm willing to give him a bit more slack, but that was a big chance for him and he simply didn't take it. The best player for RSL was probably Ruiz. He was the only guy out there that seemed to give a damn when the ball wasn't at his feet. Besler next to him had a pretty forgetful night. He seems to be the type of player that doesn't add an impact, but rather is a chameleon to the rest of the squad. That can be both good and bad. Last night it was really really bad. Jose Hernandez showed us why Vela plays as much as he does with the Monarchs. The midget had some bright moments mixed in with a lot of really poor ones. He dribbled out of bounds a handful of times under token pressure. Maybe he is so low to the ground he can't see the sideline as well? Andrew Brody is raw as hell yet he is also 23 so that excuse doesn't exactly add up. He, like Hernandez, had a few good moments sprinkled in with a pretty overall bleh performance. He was the best player of the front three, though, IMO. Lopez-Espin was effective for maybe 15 minutes in this one in total. I'm not sure why he wasn't subbed at half, he looked obviously done going into the tunnel. I'm not even sure he touched the ball in the 2nd. Lastly, Luis Silva gave a performance that I want to highlight to all of you "he does so much for the team" folks. Luis Silva is too damn slow for this level. Like, every attack that went into him with speed immediately died and became ineffective. The guy has a really smooth touch and can make some nice passes, but when he is asked to play with speed (as in running) he is useless. I feel bad Brooks had to sub into this bullshit game. It was nice that he got to play at RW, I guess, but otherwise the whole time I was just afraid he was going to get injured. Pool boy can kiss my ass. ******** him. his one good shot, on replay, really wasn't all that great. It just had power but was literally at the perfect height for their GK to save. I can't wait for his ass to be sent back to Spain and for Waibel to buy yet another overly priced lazy forward. I feel bad that a guy bought my ticket to this one. he was sitting in the seat and I kept contemplating giving him his money back. He left early. I feel bad That wasn't a "scrub" SKC team. Besler was out there, so was Ilie, Russell (who destroyed us), and their kid Kuzain who is a pretty decent player. Vermes could get away with rotating in first team players in this one since they only had the one game at home last week. The whole energy in the stadium was a reflection of RSL's performance. La Barra is on some kind of strike, the south end was more into yelling "you ********ing suck" or "you suck balls" to others in the section than actually chanting. 35 got the occasional chant/song going, but it was mostly a pretty lackluster atmosphere. Summed it all up well.
16. last night was a perfect example of just how dumb it is to build your USL affiliated side with older players. Lots of tweets of "so why wasn't Vela, Hoffman, etc" going in and the club had to be like "well MLS rules state...". These aren't new MLS rules. Building your essential reserve side out of guys that should be full blown professionals is moronic. How that team doesn't have a cap on players over the age of 23 is beyond me. Also: Vela and Hoffman should have got first team contracts. Why did we sign Lopez-Espin? Did we really think more of him than Hoffman? Did we really need Sean Berry instead of Vela?
Watched the whole thing, at home. I thought about heading to the stadium after my meeting ended at 7:30 but gladly talked myself out of heading to the RioT. The biggest thing that I took from the game was, WOW, OrtuNo has zero, actually less than zero, desire to do anything more than cash a check. I bet he doesn't even jog to the bank to take care of that. I also felt bad for Sparrow. He was hung out to dry on those goals, especially the first one. WTF was Horst doing? He let the guy walk to the end line as he drifted off into space to mark absolutely no one. Horst had the best seat in the house on both goals. Nice. I did like Brody and thought he showed some potential. It was a little disheartening to watch these guys get played for the last 15 to 20 minutes. They got ole'd so many times I thought a bull fight was going to break out. Oh well. Live and learn. I was fine with the line up at the start of the game because of where RSL is in the standings and the congested schedule at the moment but still ended up pretty disappointed by the effort that was given by guys that should have taken advantage of this start. At least Seattle lost. That made me chuckle.
My old lady came to the game with me. She's been put through a lot of bad soccer in her life with 3 sons. Said that was the most boring game she had been to in 5+ years. Multiple instances of "they really could just play keep away from us the whole time, couldn't they?" ******** anyone that defends the pool boy. Did anyone else see when Freddy went down the sideline to talk to him about being subbed in? The pool boy jogged there. Then jogged back to warming up. Never once sprinted. What a gigantic ******** up by Waibel and Andy.
And could still kind of be a goal scoring threat. It was just everything else was off. Now we have a guy who doesn't want to play, and when he does, for some reason he never pushes the defensive line. Instead he comes too deep in order to get involved and just crowds the midfield.
I realize I'm being harsh and that the schedule is crowded with middle of the week games and that we need player rotation, etc. I just can't shake the feeling that this organization couldn't care less about open cup. Not just this year, but every year. I also realize they can't say so openly. Don't worry boys, I got the message. Anyone want my tickets for next year? I'll be giving them away.
Not every year . . . Lewis F-ing Neal. Salt Lake D.C. United Goals scored 0 1 Total shots 19 6 Shots on target 4 1 Saves 1 4 Corner kicks 10 1 Fouls committed 16 14 Offsides 3 3 Yellow cards 2 3 Red cards 0 0
This game was so exciting that I took a nap. I felt really good when I woke up and the game was almost done.
I get your point, but I wonder if that year was intentional or if it was a case of, "Hey, we put out a lineup of reserves and managed to win a few anyway. Now we're somehow 2 games away from hardware, let's go for it!"
I think part of my frustration is that the game was so boring that the people behind me were completely unengaged. As a result, they...would...not...shut...up. if I had to listen to them talk about how often they shower, what their favorite soap and shampoo is, whether they had better results from their ketogenic diet or the paleo diet, their current food allergies, etc. for another hour, I'd be tempted to poke out my eardrums with an ice pick.
In the 2013 Cup we had literally the friendliest draw in history. We didn't play another MLS team until the semifinals, and drew every single game at home. We still took extra time to beat two lower league teams. I'd love for us to make a Cup run sometime but I think the club can be excused for saying this wasn't our year. It's just an extremely unfortunate schedule crunch.
As someone who drifted away from STH to far less investment I’m finding casual fandom a lot easier. It was easy to watch the NBA instead and not regret it at all.
that run featured a game we were down 2-0, completely out played, but by a team that simply ran out of gas, right? yeah, it did: https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2013-06-12-real-salt-lake-vs-charleston-battery/recap
Had to chuckle at the play keep away comment. The most enjoyment I got from the game in the 2nd half was watching SKC work the ball down to our touch line and then work it back to their Keeper, repeat, etc....
In retrospect I agree with you. I’m just disappointed in the players. For the most part the starting group were guys just waiting for the opportunity to show what they can do. None took advantage and it has to make the coaches and FO second guess the justifications for keeping them on roster.
Remember this game in a month or two when the club starts talking about how amazing the depth is, again. ESPECIALLY remember this game come season's end when the club is deciding who to keep on the roster and who to release. When Waibel keeps around a guy like Adam Henley and his stupidly large contract for what he does...
I really thought Henley was going to be much better than this, based on his age and resume. That's the most surprising "miss" to me this year. Also, yet another reminder that we should never grade an offseason until the players actually set foot on the field. Everyone forgets this (including myself). This year it got really bad, with everyone talking about how great Waibel had done. I'm absolutely no exception. Hopefully we all remember this next January.
Some players show better than others and isolating for the influence of the supporting team mates or the opponent or tactics is hard... There is one clear conclusion this year provides relative to finding talent - and that’s that the Academy investment is paying off for real and is the primary key to RSL’s aspirations to be great again. Supplementing up and coming youth with strategic international talent (we should open an African Academy) is the way. People have bad years too. Sunny had taken a while to recover from FaceOff3 - now he’s looking like he did prior to that injury.
A co-worker of mine went to this match. Spent 100 bucks so his family could attend. He said you could have found more cheer in a graveyard.
Maybe the performance of Henley, and some other transplants from the English leagues tells us that MLS is a better league than is given credit by many?
was his family like 10 people in total? Because there was zero reason to spend that much if you looked on flash seats and/or used their bid function