The approach should be to win every match until the SS (and its accompanying CCC berth) is locked up. No reason to change how we are doing things.
Just keep on going with what is working. The only change to the pattern I could see is a little more time off for Olsen and other players carrying an injury that won't be better until the offseason. Maybe limit them to a start a week or the like.
Keep rotating, and keep winning. We automatically are going to have some rotation between the regular season and Sudamericana due to the 3 starters who are out for the Chicago game who will now be fresh as daisies for the game 3 days later against Chivas at home. Rotation is good, when all of the players being rotated are seemingly able to continue the winning ways. With all that being said, if I could only pick a full starting team for one of either a Sudamericana game or regular season game AT THIS MOMENT with the way the standings look, I would take all guns to Sudamericana. But that could change depending on several other factors.
That's your answer to everything, Conan. 15 for our nearest competitor, Chivas. (16 to beat them, but we hold the tiebreaker, so 15 would do it) It varies for the other teams still in the hunt, but if we win all our remaining games, it's ours.
Yup - Thats pretty much it - I voted for keeping as we have been - However, if (and thats a mighty big IF) we get past Chivas (Round of 16), then I'd seriously think about going all out to advance from the Quarter Finals into the Semis of the Copa Sudamericana - Winning the whole thing is not very realistic - Doing well and advancing is And the prestige of an MLS team getting to the Semis of this tournament would be huge - Huge in attracting young talent from South America - Huge in getting sponsorships from an International company - Huge in keeping our current talent Yeah - The primary goal is still something like SS (if its within our grasp), and the MLS Cup - But advancing the Copa ranks up there with them even without any hardware
I want all focus on the playoffs and the MLS Cup. I want to watch my team in my stadium take back the Cup. Everything else is extra. If the Cup was not in DC I might answer a little differently.
I'm not really a fan of any kind of rotation system, in general, but whatever Soehn is doing, he seems to be making it work, so there's no reason to change it. And with the suspensions for the game coming up with Chicago, his hand is kind of forced anyway.
Now that we've clinched the playoffs, what should the supporters do? If it involves whipped cream, I'm in.
The bracket for CopaSudamericana is up here: CopaSud If we get past Chivas, we'll play either Arsenal or Goias.
Don't fix it!! (nobody) I think we need to do the same thing that has been working for us. Take us all the way to the cup. Can't wait to see that place filled with 50K black jerseys!
1. Keep Rotating players for MLS games and throw in the big guns if we need to win a particular game to clinch the SS 2. Throw everything at Chivas and advance into the Sudamericana 3. Playoffs should be on the far far back of everybodys mind, look at it as starting a whole new season
The choice I would make isn't on there - de-emphasize the Sudamericana and go all out for the SS and the playoffs. As many have mentioned, it's a bit moot because cards are forcing Soehn's hand.
See this thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=594716&page=2 It's currently 16 against Chivas USA.
talking to will chang the other night, he says they all are pushing for the SS hard.....which is the right thing to do, gives us the spot in the CC. if chivas usa loses tonight and we win in chicago i say rest everyone for the remaing mls matches and focus on superliga and playoffs.
Yes, the Copa Sudamericana is very important. If we beat Chivas this time, they can't whine about them being in preseason, nor can we whine about us being in preseason if we lose. Finally we get to play each other on equal footing, plus Olsen, Fred and Gomez will be on two weeks rest. I've also heard that the lower bowl is already sold out, so we know that the atmosphere will be great! Plus we should get more DCU fans than the last time against Chivas, since we're playing them during the regular season now...hopefully it won't rain! Oh, I also heard that the ol' baseball diamond will finally be gone forever. I'm so pumped for this match! Vamos United!!!
if we get some good rotation during the next few mls games, and still win, we can use our big guns for all the sudamericana and playoffs the only rotation i'm solid on for now is our wingers: olsen/fred/gros/moose/mediate and our forwards: kpene/addlery/emilio/moreno d-mid is alrite, but it'd probably be best to experiment with a 3rd d-mid: simms/carroll/mctavish?burch?namoff? but with a 4 man backline, we can't have only 5 solid defenders, there's gotta be one other player with can put in and not worry about giving up a goal or 2, dammit needham, why couldn't you take the paycut! (although watching the last coupla pr games, i'm kinda glad he's not here) dyachenko has done well in 1 game for gomez, i'd like to see more of him give perkins a solid one game break plus lets not forget with a full week to reload for chicago, we're at an advantage
He's a keeper. Unless he has a niggling injury of some kind, there's no need to rest him like there is with field players. Personally, I'd rather not see Jay Nolly on the field for a first team match again, unless that first team is that of DC's opponent.
Aaahhhhh, but there is the rub John. That's the scenario that is really going to put to the test which competition is really being striven for. With 5 weeks left, DC has 7 games on the schedule, including the 2 CS games and 5 REGULAR SEASON games. But what happens IF DC gets past Chivas (a big "if" as someone said earlier). Well, let's look at the CS quarterfinal schedule. According to Conmebols website, http://img.conmebol.com/csf/pub/articulo/2007/Prog_Fases_2-3-4-5_Sudamericana_07.pdf, the quarterfinal round games will be between October 9 and November 1. The MLS playoffs start on October 27. So DC would almost assuredly looking at playing a 2nd leg CS match on either the tuesday or wednesday directly prior to the opening of the playoffs or playing it between the 2 legs of the first round of the playoffs. Actually GETTING to the semifinals would be even crazier if DC were fortunate to make the semis of CS and advance out of the opening playoff round in MLS, simply because the semifinal weeks are set in stone ....... middle of the week around the 8th and middle of the week around the 15 of November. There are no other weeks allocated for the round. That would coincide to 3 days before the conference finals and 3 days before the MLS Cup finals. Folks ........ that's ugly. Of course this is all pure speculation as we may all be mourning another tournament loss to Chivas within the next month.
Fellas, the only silverware we have won so far is the Atlantic Cup... and that has kind of always been ours so... it doesn't really count... Don't take the foot off the pedal... Push hard for the remaining three competitions....