Last Saturday game of the season. 7 PM start time. We're winless in 3, C-bus is winless in like 6. The Crew will be without both Hejduk and Schelotto due to yellow accumulation. This is a game we must have if we wanna make the playoffs. A win here moves us 8 points clear of C-bus and could move us 8 points clear of 9th place in the single table. The loss of Hejduk and Schelotto will be big. I think the Wizards can and should take this game.
It's a bit closer than that, Chicago is sitting in 9th and only 4 behind with 29 to our 33 (Chi with a game in hand), Colorado and Columbus are at 28. We're going to have run off the vultures for the rest of the season if we want a chance to eat off this kill. Our playoffs, for the most part, have started. Our remaining schedule is not favorable: Columbus - MUST WIN @ Chivas - They're rolling right now and scoring like mad. LA - MUST WIN DC - Toss UP - Golden Boot, POW, POM, in form @ NYRB - We must hope they're locked up and not playing anyone dinged up. @ Dallas - We must hope they're locked up and not playing anyone dinged up. KC better figure it out real soon.
Okay, now's the time for a Wizardscharter MUST WIN thread... It sure would be a great time for Marinelli to find his early season form. What I'm most excited about though is the fun I know I'll have watching a meaningful Saturday night game at Arrowhead. This is the type of game you should try to bring friends to. Call Sam and get those secret 10 dollar Cauldron tickets for a few of your friends who keep telling you they'll come soon. The team should be going all out for this game, and we should too. I'm thinking the Cauldron will be in good voice.
Keep in mind that we also have had some time off to (hopefully) repair some of our pitfalls as of late. Let's hope CO and staff have properly ascertained and relieved said pitfalls. We really need another 4-0 stomping to kind of set us back on track. That being said, I can't believe we have a 0 goal differential right now, being that we've scored 37!
That's exactly what worries me. But, as Waldo pointed out on the show today, EJ, Davy & Zags really didn't have the week off since they were at the USA v Brazil match.....so maybe that will help.....and maybe Davy will still be pumped.
Don't forget that they had 2 players sub out in the first 20 minutes last week. I assume they were hurt? 09:26 CLB -10th Minute. Substitution: 25-Ricardo Virtuoso for 7-Guillermo Barros Schelotto, 10 minutes played. 18:14 CLB -19th Minute. Substitution: 23-Ezra Hendrickson for 4-Rusty Pierce, 19 minutes played. That cannot be good for them. Frost In Growing Raymore
Anyone want to take a crack at our lineup? Man I really wish we got midweek practice updates etc. Does Colombano start? It was really nice those few weeks last year when Chad was giving us regular updates from practice on what was happening. If anyone has the capability of DVRing or putting this HDNet game on DVD I'd love to get a copy.
----------Kevin--------- Jack--Jimmy--Nicky--Jose ---------Morsink-------- Eloy---------------Sasha ---------Carlos---------- ----Davy----------EJ---- Bench: Yura Kerry Scott Micheal Tyson Eric K. This is what I think will happen. But very well could be KM as Amid and KZ as Dmid with Sasha and Davy on wing with Eloy on bench and Scotty in the lineup. I think Yura needs to be on the field with Eloy and Carlos in the 2nd half.
Ahh, that would be our "Classic Horror Movie Characters" lineup: The Mummy? Dracula? The Wolfman? Whatever. They should be scary enough to Columbus with just their skillz.
Current weather forecast for Saturday calls for partly cloudy skies and a high of 71. I'm going to be liking that.
If that holds, we may get decent numbers too. A couple things working against it (2 weeks till non-Beckham so the infrequent folks may have universally decided to go to that game instead, and the fact that it's C-bus) but lots of things positively correlated with attendance as well (weather, Saturday, the 2 season packages that include this game, and the playoff race). 13K is a reasonable guess, imo. I can see it being higher or lower.
Morsink as DMid? I may have missed it (probably due to the horrible quality of MLSLive) but has he filled that role recently? Definitely agree with Carlos in AMid, esp. with his issues with coming back on defense, need him central so that Jose and Jack can get up without having to worry so much about getting back when Eloy and Sasha are helping out on the outside. I'd rather see Kerry back there instead of Morsink but mostly b/c I like Kerry.
I would rather see Kerry than Morsink as well. I am not sure why KM has been starting so many games lately (and Yura hasn't played AT ALL), but the only thing Morsink has proven he is really great at is getting stupid yellow cards. He is already in danger of a suspension. I can see Morsink someday taking over for Kerry as d-mid, but not yet.
Just an FYI for everyone: Cauldron Liaisons Group Formed Due to some recent confrontations between Cauldron members and Arrowheadsecurity, the Cauldron leadership in conjunction with the Wizards front office and Arrowhead Security has formed the Cauldron Liaisons group. These people will be scattered throughout the Cauldron to help keep situations from escalating to the point where security has to get involved. They will be wearing bright yellow Wizards goalie jerseys. If you approached by one of these people, please do as they ask knowing that the next step from there is getting a member of the security staff involved. These measures are being taken to try to defuse potentially dangerous situations and to ensure that everyone in the Cauldron can have a safe and enjoyable game day experience.
http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20070913&content_id=117060&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp Game preview is up. No major injuries for us....I expect Sasha to play (unless of course CO mixes up the lineup again). Since we are now back to a "normal" schedule of one game per week, fatigue should not be an issue. I will be curious to see who lines up at gametime. BTW, I like the look of our record with this ref! FWIW, I just saw in another thread that our magic number to clinch a playoff spot is 15. Let the countdown begin!