Wow, what a game Was not a fan of the Arena hire but I have to admit I was wrong a. His teams come to play. Underdog on the road? The Revs have attacked from the start. No bunker for them b. He had a reputation for relying on veterans but Buchanon has gone from bench to stud and Jones is now a regular starter, apparently c. I don't love his constant whinging about the refs, but it is nothing compared to the lack of respect Orlando showed. Gil is so key for this team. Hard to overstate how much better they are with him. Bou is like a different player Dike is only 20 and looks like he will really be a stud in the future. I agree with whoever tweeted that if Nani put as much intensity into the game as he did to complaining about the ref, Orlando might have scored 5 goals Sorta hope Nashville wins just because 2 play-in teams making the conference finals would be a great story
Revs seriously overachieving at the moment. Buchanan, Buksa, Bou and Gil have been dominant, even if Bunbury has been invisible. Caldwell has also been quietly excellent these playoffs. I'm also kind of rooting for Nashville tonight. It's the year of the underdog!
Turner is amazing on that PK... Major save !!!! The one Gil got was not well taken. Straight up the middle and had the goalie not dived, an easy save. The one questionable Arena move IMO was putting in Rowe. OMG he looked soo slow and totally ineffective. I have to think he's mostly done at this point. I thought Orlando was mostly a bunch of punks. Head punk is Nani. Ref should have kicked him out too. I did not agree with their PK call either. Orlando player jumped in front of kessler, initiating the contact, then basically dove. The ref bought it I believe Columbus have a bunch of people testing positive with Covid (4). I dont know who and if theyre starters or not. Could well end up being Nashville
Revs are a much better team with Gil in the mix. Doesn't matter if they're controlling possession or playing off the counter, over 90 minutes he can crack open any opponent in MLS.
Quite honestly, I think this is the better matchup for the Revs. Nashville was so tough defensively, and so dangerous on corners, which has been a particular frailty of the Revs.
Nani was exceptionally lucky. Ask Jermaine Jones or Dempsey what happens when you put your hands on a ref normally. Chilowicz got most of the big calls right (as TNT pointed out), but I have two major issues with his job today. 1) He gave zero sense of confidence in his calls (which made it feel like his calls were worse than they were), and 2) for much of the match, if you fell down, you got the foul call, and if you fell down and grabbed your head or chin, it was a yellow. Classy move by Bou, to honor Maradona in his goal scoring schtick.
I've been one of the chief Caldwell antagonist on this board, but he deserves some serious kudos for his play in this game. If he has a few more like this he'll have won me back. I thought Bruce's subs were excellent at exactly the right time. POlster starting to look shakey? Bring on an experienced vet to calm things down in Lee. Tajon 's legs are done? Bring on Bye who is a better defender. Only change I might have done differently is taking off Buksa instead of Teal. Not because Buksa played poorly, I thought he was very good, but because Teal is a better fit to the tactics Bruce was asking of his CF down the stretch.
Wow, 2 well-played games in a row. It's amazing how well the band plays when the band leader is back and fully fit. Only 2 games left and both are on the road! I see Orlando has taken on Nani's personality....hot head!! The ref should have bounced Nani for bumping and grabbing him. The coach needs to get control of that team or else they are going to finish most games with fewer players than when they started.
Honestly, if Orlando went down to 7 men last night, I wouldn't have been surprised. It was deserved. Bunch of DBs. Anyway, a phenomenal win, but man I'm so damn disappointed that outside of about 2 minutes, you couldn't even tell we were up a man. That was the chance to put the game away, but we couldn't even get possession. Outside of that little frustration ... man, what a win. They came to play, and it showed. Tajon is sneakily becoming a MVP contender for this club, because without him, I don't think this offense works quite that well. Turner was ... well, Turner. Consistently solid, but we did see a chink in the armor on that goal. That's on you as the keep. Speak up, and step up. That goal was disgusting to allow at that point. But we live on.
Yes! I was going to say that Tajon earns the Unsung Hero award for 2020. He just makes things happen. Drew the PK in this one, then had a great cross that led to Bou's first goal. Neither shows up on the score sheet, but wouldn't have scored without his efforts.
Tajon has gotten enough respect from defenders that they are backing off him - and that lets him get into the box, where we've seen, anything can happen. I was really surprised that Orlando let Gil play. If I were playing the Revs, I'd be doing the Belichick trick - taking the opponents best weapon away. Yes, Buchanon is pretty dangerous, but almost all of his best opportunities come from Gil playing him into space. At some point in this playoff odyssey, someone is going to shadow Gil and we're going to have to find another way (whether it's bringing in Nguyen as an alternate distributor or something else). Among Gil's best skills is changing fields. And it's an area whether the rest of the team is pretty weak - which is why we can be easy to pressure and forced to play the ball back. We got and earned the early goals again, but I think we didn't play nearly as well as we did against PHI. We were less confident with the ball, less willing to play the ball forward from midfield, less aggressive up top. I'm sure a lot had to do with the heat. Speaking of the heat, I think that's why Orlando wasn't killed off by the red-card. We worked hard early and I was worried it was going to take a toll in the 2nd half. Yes, people say it's the same for both teams - but the reality is that it strongly favors the team that trains and is acclimated to the conditions. And that's one reason why Columbus is a better option that Nashville next week. Polster was emulating Maradona's infamous mazy field length run past all of England in his WC spectacular when he inevitably started sputtering out of gas (I could almost hear him pleading for someone to step up and make him lay the ball off) - that's why Pereyra's foul was so inexplicable - Polster was already wobbly, all someone had to do was actually step in front of him. I'll always love the image of Nani lying face down on the turf while Buchanon is charging into the area to set up goal #2. That pretty much says it all. And the fact that he was so outraged when he was barely touched ... Some poor judgement by the Revs gave Orlando a few extra chances: Polster playing with fire sticking his leg in to allow Dike to draw a PK, Buksa being over-aggressive challenging the keeper while holding a card; Nguyen needlessly fouling in the waning minutes (causing Bruce to suffer a migraine) ... Speaking of the Buksa - Rowe tangle - Orlando was already thinking all calls must be matching after the penalties. The replay shows Rowe causing most of the pileup, when he scissors Buksa with his follow-through. I think that's why Buksa got off, even though he probably fouled Rowe first. Orlando's biggest refereeing gripe probably could have been on the big train wreck that plowed Turner over on that high ball. I'd have to look at it again, but if it was Teal doing the shoving that knocked someone into Polster who knocked Dike into Turner (or whatever actually happened), that really could have been a PK. I was very happy that one didn't go to VAR.
This was my biggest disappointment of the game. Which on balance, I was quite happy with. I liked that they stayed disciplined on defense and kept 'the line of confrontation' at midfield rather than just pressuring all over the place. Keep you legs and your discipline and make it a crowded field when the opposition have the ball. However, our inability to keep the ball while a man up - that to me seemed the issue. I was hoping that when Lee came on that would change, but it didn't really seem to. Other nit - our inability this game to build out of the back. We seemed to have reverted for a bit to the back-pass, back-pass, back pass to the keeper kick it long form that I hate. One area we need to get better at. Nani can be a force, but he can be one whiny little boy sometimes. Wow! His histrionics about the red card were beyond the pale. Turner - just amazing save on the PK. I recall when we started our run last season and Turner was saving shots all over the place, there were some that said the law of averages was against him and he would revert to the mean. I haven't seen that yet - and what a HUGE save on that PK. And yes, Gil is the straw that stirs this team. Kudos to the team and kudos to Bruce -- great job all around. And we are back to the future - playing the Crew in the playoffs once again!!
while watching the game I see a FB post from my brother, who hates soccer, pop up on my phone. WOW what a save by the Revs keeper! have to love seeing that
Carles Gil shines again, how the Columbus Crew broke down Nashville SC and more takeaways November 30, 2020 12:43AM EST Steve Zakuani
It could have and should have worked with Lee however.... they mostly passed around him instead of letting him do what he was put on the field to do. The fault lies with those that continued to try and attack when all they needed to do was spread the field out and let Orlando chase.