Really? Wow. We disagree almost completely on this. I thought Fred and Simms were our best players in that match.
Only the preliminaries of the Champions League come this fall. Then there's a break, and then comes the elimination period of the Champions League -- which will occur during the same time period as the CONCACAF Champions Cup games take place now. So out-of-season-form issues will not go away. Furthermore, the idea that when we said we were tooling up for CONCACAF play, we really meant the nascent CONCACAF Champions League, is revisionism. I certainly never got that impression from Kaspar's public statements. And it'd be a bit presumptuous, you know, since we're not guaranteed to even be playing in the CONCACAF Champions League. EDIT: Apparently I'm wrong about the next CCL, at least -- we're already in, which I didn't know.
Mexican teams at sea level do fine in FMF, because they play so many games at alltidude through out the year they are adapted to it. I always wondered why MLS sides, knowingthey will likely have to play a CCC match at altidude don't conduct extensive pre-season training at altitude. A month or so at altitude training definatly helps as it does take your body a few weeks to adjust the blood cell count back to sea level amounts.
Side note they did win SuperLiga last year, all games on the road. I agree DC still have a chance but they've made it very hard for them selfs.
There is no rest of the world calendar. Every domestic adapts to its climate conditions. The Scandinavian leagues and Russian League operate on a different schedule than the rest of the continent because of the weather. Germany takes a winter break, England doesn't, etc. The Australian A-League runs from August to March. Japan runs from March to December.
God, not this again. I agree that in a perfect world this would be best. But we don't live in a perfect world. Attendance for half the teams in the league would drop to zero as they played their January/February home games in the snow or in 30F or 20F temperatures. Who's going to want to go to Toyota Park in January? I wish it were possible; but it's never going to happen.
The score should have been 0-1, or 1-1, we only deserved at least one of those goals. Wells is completely to blame for the first goal, he is not as good as Perkins, Perkins has him outclassed in agility, reaction time, leadership and has more balls. Wells has slightly better distribution, but that is because Perkins was horrible at finding players. Burch is the weak side of our defense, teams know this and try to expose it. Pachuca kept attacking down the right because they knew this, it is probably gong to happen all season. Martinez is probably our best defender, he could take on guys and doesn't give up, him and Peralta are a good combo in the middle. Simms keeps getting better and better, you could see how he is incorporating his athleticism more and more into his game. With him Fred and Gallardo we managed to hold the ball decent, but they had NO TARGETS up top. Soehn needs to do something about Emilio, he's not into it. His pace was basically at a jog the entire game, he was playing in slow motion the entire game from his touches to his pases. I especially remember this when Gallardo sent a loss cross into the box, and Emilio was still trotting towards the goal, missing the chance to connect. If we had a better striker he would have sank one of the opportunities he had. Quaranta seemed as gassed as the rest of the team, but only played half the amount of time. Neil ran his ass off and threw himself, but didn't accomplish anything. I think if Soehn waited a little longer and put Jaime in at 60 we would have had a better chance.
BINGO they probably said it was a penalty 20 times. yea they are the same ones that said Wells made a mistake the last time DC United played Chivas.......(when it was Perkins), they mistaken Sims with Burch on a foul...They called Franco Niell FRANK NIEL, they said the new DC UNited stadium was going to cost us 650 mil..... They though Fred was american but then were corrected these guys need to stop. There was no mention of the altitude..... when if it would have beeen a mexican team playing against a Bolivian team they would have mentioned it like 100 times. I am glad I dont have to listen to these folks in the next game. I dont know if its just me but what really ticked me off was the time wasting by Wells. I hate it when teams do this. He should sit the next game. That really did bug me.
Actually, I thought you guys handled Pachuca better than we did We started bunkering from Minute 1 and...well And while Pachuca is in a good place, it's a tenuous spot. A couple more losses and they'll plummet. It's getting down to the final stretch for them and they have to stay consistent (a problem for them) and, especially, get points on the road (3 of their last 5 are on the road). And if they are better, they didn't show it last night. They've played better, certainly, even in this current season they've shown better but they had a hard time breaking down the bunker. The one thing they exploited was DC's Right Side of the field. That and all the FKs they were given rolleyes: to the ref). Still, I think you guys could win this 3-2 (agg) overall
Didn't both goals come from the side of McTavish and Namoff? I thought Namoff was the weak link. He looked like a muppet.
Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, i.e. winter there is summer here. MLS could take some winter break, closer to Germany for example. MLS could take some winter break, closer to Germany for example. Besides with global warming, winter in the states is not that bad anymore...
I'm not saying that the team said that the acquisitions were going to start to payoff during the CCL. That's just my opinion as to when I believe they could realistically start paying off.
Again, disagree, if a cros somes in, Well has time to slide back across the goal AND you have a bunch of guys on th eteam whose job it is to stop the header that may or may not come about. Not only was he towrd the center of the goal, he was a good two yards off the line. Didn't expect a shot? Clearly, but in not expecting the shot he invited it.
MLS can't afford to take a winter break. Even the "break" that's coming in July this year is full of SuperLiga and friendlies. The league doesn't have the power of being the number one sport and dictating interest in it. Germany can take a winter break, because soccer owns everyone's collective imaginations. MLS is a small league in a big sporting landscape.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. In general, it's easier to go forwards than backwards. That was just a very well-struck shot. And he still go a hand on it.
It was a bit too much of a home job for me, but it wasn't anything crazy. In fact, in the first half they were praising DC United left and right, at some point even said they were the best team on the field. What did annoy me was what they passed off as research. Apparently Fred is a naturalized citizen, we're either getting a free stadium from Maryland or an 80% free stadium from DC, DC United shares RFK with the Redskins, Wells gave up that goal in the rain against Chivas last year, etc.
Yea i could understand why you say this about el piojo and davino, but america was crying for him back given their bad play as of late, at least the media was hinting towards it with those funny cartoons that are always great. lol Blanco still has it, the season before he came to MLS when he WOULD play, he was awsome, although not the same player as he was, he's still good. And lopez too, yea he was sort of a sub for Racing, but same thing goes. When he came on he wasnt bad, and deserved more chances. Sometimes these players all need just some form of rejuvination(sp.) and that was coming to MLS as a "star" player which im sure gave them more confidence in return to kick ass. Yes, DC had pretty high expectations with their off season transfers, and the purchase of gallardo, we all thought in our heads we might have the team to make history this game. Well sadly our fitness caught up to us and it happens. I cant wait to see this team in the superliga though! Ok i am guessing you are mexican? And can relate to their ass kissing of a mexican team? They were completely biased! Talking bad about our team, never mentioned how we could have been tired by the altitutde, or that we were still basically in preseason. All they knew what to do was take pachucas side on every foul, call us divers, and constantly call for PK's that really werent there. And then calling out the Ref saying how Concacaf has a problem with ref's because they are low quality and at best Semi-amateurs. I dont even know where to begin.... Yes they did, we did give them a scare though in the first 20-30 mins, we had them on their heels and they knew we could have been the first ones to put on in like against chivas last year. Sadly our fitness caught up to us, and the altitude and bunkered as they gained confidence over us by hitting that post having those 2 really close opp.s in the first half that should have been goals. We were done after that, it was basically the surviving game from that point. Yes I agree, he's a poacher, and he should know that by now. Why is he trying to come back? Yea i know what you mean though, he just needs to get on the same page as El Muneco. Just last night though he wasnt even hustling he looked like his lungs were hurting, and his effort just wasnt there. His sprint looked like most players hard jogs! I hope he'll get better through the season, cause he looked a little "fat" out there. Thats how it is sometimes though, look at America, they are doing TERRIBLE in their league right now, but in Copa Libertadores they are one of the most dangerous and most feared teams because of their recent play, they destroyed san martin which is really strong right now, and might do the same to River barely losing 2-1 in argentina. Yes, Burch was our weakest link even though the goals came from the right, they kept coming on burch's side from his weak defense, namoff was better in that sense, although he lacks alot to be desired in the technical side of the game, classic American defender. Yes!!! Finally someone that heard the spanish broadcast, or shall i say the mexican broadcast. I wish instead of having a Spanish To english button they had a spanish to another hispanic announcer button lol. Yes they messed up alot, thought gonzalo peralta was i think burch?? Or someone else, cause i guess his hair color and skin. They had no idea about our new additions, nor did research at least of finding out their last clubs like Martinez at Millionarios, or peralta at Almirante Brown. These guys were terrible, just like every year they love to step on american teams all day. No respect.
Good luck next week, guys. The good thing for yall is you'll have to come out fighting and can't bunker, that's not a good way to play Pachuca, it doesn't work. That's what we enjoyed about the Dynamo game there last year, we were already ahead by two going in but didn't try to sit back(well, obviously, if they were doing that they weren't very successful ). The funny thing is on the DC website it says something about the "tough crowd." Those of us watching in Houston weren't sympathetic with that... at least they didn't open the doors and let everyone in for free until the stadium was full, like last year. That was crazy. But it was fun to see the shock on the crowd when they were losing in the global score, that was great.
You keep complaining about those Mexican commentators, but it's thanks to that "Mexican run station" that you even got to watch the damned game. How come FSC didn't broadcast the match? I didn't watch the game, but even if they are then they wouldn't be any different than the ESPN announcers. Eric Wynalda was terrible and the new one kept saying "we" when referring to the US National team. For better or worse, It is thanks to the Mexicans here that we get to watch more soccer at all. Just my 2 cents
fsc did show it and they were respectfull to both teams, ive seen plenty of concacaf games on fse bolivian is exagerating
My wife, Mrs. big spaniel, a friend (Ipswich Town supporter) and I made it up to Pachuca last night. After enjoy the traditional Pachuca pasties on the road, we arrived at the stadium around 6:30, but the gates didn't open until 7. While waiting to get in we were joined by three of four Mexican guys from elsewhere in Hidalgo state who were coming to support United. The stadium has a designated section for away supporters in the corner opposite the Tuzos fan section, and we were escorted there. Eventually there were nine Mexican guys with us, a few of whom had DC United shirts and hats. I'm really not sure how they came to support Untied, but they were enthusiastic and had a lot of fun. There were twenty police lined up on one side to take care of us. They let me bring one of my banners, but didn't let me hang it up on the fence, and I don't think it got on TV. We nevertheless held it up at the beginning and end of each half, we waived other banners and flags, as well as chanting "D.C. Untied", which brought occasional hoots and whistled directed our way. Other than that, folks in Pachuca were quite nice, although we were apart from them. The Estadio Hidalgo is the nicest staidum in Mexico, we should steal the plans for ourselves. It was probablay half-full, maybe a bit more. The Pachuca supporters section were quite strong. Tickets were $100 pesos (about $10), half-price for kids, general seating. We were up front for both goals. The first goal was a brilliant shot from the left side that any goalie would have been hard pressed to save. The second was a rocket from a brillinat cross. We were all very impressed by how well Pachuca controlled play and moved the ball around. And it was clear that after an hour our boys were pretty winded; they weren't doubled-over of anything, but they were standing around a lot.
No, but it's probably never too early to start pestering ICE to come down and screen everyone at the gate who's not in black. I realize this is a post- not pre-game thread, but what's the prognosis on Olsen/Moreno coming back? I love living in PA, but the papers are a little light on the soccer coverage...