1. LA cuz da got David Beckham and score a lot!! ZOMG 2. D.C cuz they got the bestest fans ever!!!!!!!!!!! 3. N.Y cuz they got more D.Ps! 4. Chivas cuz they have more "latin" players! 5. Houston-cuz they got more latin fans! 6. Chicago cuz they got Blanco (latin player)....better fans......and the best stadium!
One thing that really jumped out at me from this game was how much more movement there was in the Santos side. It seemed to me that while the Rev's were doing an excellent job maintaining possession and connecting the dots, our dots were a lot more static than theirs.. There seemed to be a lot more diagonal movement from the other side and it was much quicker when Santos broke. Did anyone else get this impression or am I way off base?
I agree to some extent. I think the fluidity of the game was back and forth and not dominated by the team up a man. That worried me, and I don't know if you contribute that to the 4-4-2, or to the inexperience of guys like Igwe, Nyassi, Dube, etc against high-level opposition.
the revs usually make it an "exciting game" around the 70th minute win their shape goes peared and the defense falls to shite.
I know many people noticed this during the DC game as well. The runs off the ball that Chivas and Santos were making aren't a) either done at all or b) aren't done well by most MLS teams.
Our guys are not THAT big, but there was a pretty significant overall size advantage - I noticed that when they did the intros. Joseph is 6'3" and Smith, who came on a sub, is 6'4" or 6'5". Larentowicz and Phelan are pretty big and solid guys, but Ralston, Heaps and Nyassi are all under 6'. A few others are 6' or close "on paper" (Dube, Parkhurst), but I'm somewhat dubious. A guy in front of me wore his Pat's jersey! It's a curious thing, for soccer events, most U.S. fans will wear almost any "soccer-related" shirt they have - relevant or not, so I don't see where we should be criticizing Mexican fans for wearing whatever they wanted. Absolutely - that's what made the game the most entertaining for me. Beautiful ball movement, great quick passing combinations (even deep in their own end), intelligent, controlled possession, etc. I thought the Revs really had to raise their defensive intensity to win back the ball - and fortunately they did. They had great confidence in their passing game and it's something that U.S. teams need to emulate IMO. Heaps, in particular, should watch the tape about 10X to learn all the things he could do instead of sending long, "hopeful" balls upfield.
I've always felt the revs play to the level of thier opponents. unfortunately that means they often play below their true skill level. I agree, I though they moved the ball nicely. They actually played some really pretty soccer. Heaps.... the guys is getting older and we are asking him to play on the opposite side he's always played on. I don't blame him as much as I blame the revs for bringing in albright who can't play in our system and isn't all that great at what he does. We downgraded our defense in a big way this year. I'd rather see us keep heaps on the right and let one of our youngings cut his teeth a bit on the left side. IMO albright brings us nothing. His specialty is going forward in a 4 man defense. He's not versatile enough to fit in our system, therefore, he's the wrong guy. and parkhurst is required to be everywhere to compensate for the other two. maybe I'm not being fair to albright, but all I can say is what we are doing currently is not working. Something has to give. We'd be in last if it wasn't for reis.
But what does that have to do with "long hopeful balls" to nowhere? The occasional long ball that doesn't connect is OK, however his tendency to do this repeatedly with little provocation is wearing. If he's losing a step, he should simplify his game rather than stretch it. The best case I can think of is that he has something specific in mind (sees an incipient run or open spot, whatever) but simply can't kick it accurately enough. Parkhurst is pretty good at it, and we saw Shalrie drop one on Ralston from 50 yards against Santos (although I don't think he is consistently that accurate). Albright is another matter; my current take is that he's a better 4-back defender than 3-back, but he may improve a bit as he gets used to the flow. My take on the Revs and movement is that I often see runs that begin just after a kick to a dangerous spot, rather than simultaneous with or before. People seem to see things at roughly the same time, but there's not quite enough anticipation on the runners' part -- or trust, not clear which.
[/Braces himself to fight this pointless battle yet again] Where is your evidence of this? We are giving up less goals then last year, despite the fact that the league as a whole is scoring significantly more goals then last year. If it was just a handful of games into the season, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt, but we're halfway through the season, and the evidence continues to mount against everyone who says our defense is worse this year. And before you tell me it's because of Reis, let me point out that: 1. The goalkeeper is part of the defense. 2. Reis was our goalkeeper last year. 3. Reis is facing 15% less shots then last year. His save percentage is virtually identical. Perhaps the reason he is giving up less goals is because the team is conceding less shots? I know, I know....noone agrees with me. Everyone can plainly see our defense is much worse this year, nevermind such crazy statistics like "Goals Allowed". Lee
I guess I stand corrected. Are we just playing defense much uglier and more scattered? It just feels like heaps and alright are very scattered, caught off, parkhurst gets pulle dout of position and it just looks so ********ing messy back there. what gives?
not that I'm a pro, but I can tell you when I play weakside of the field, my placement is far worse. I'm a righty, I play the right side of the field much better than the left. When I play opposite, the quality of my placement goes way down.
I agree when you watch them game in and game out it looks a lot worse than the stats would say. I think part of it was last year if we had a 1 goal lead late we would try and keep possession more, this year it appears as if we have 10 guys in the box each one just telling themselves to get it clear. This may be the fact that TnT can hold up the ball a bit better then the group we have now
Well, we have to complain about something, and any offense troubles are too easily explained away as lack of Twellman. Nobody can really complain about the midfield with Red and Dread doing their thing and Nyassi lighting things up. Who could possibly complain about Reis? Therefore the only thing left to complain about is the defense. I think it comes down to the defense looking a little uglier than last year. It's getting the job done but at times there is a lack of decisiveness about it (at least from the stands).
A few observations I had on the match. I thought Parkhurst was the glue that held things together defensively, but that the other defenders played better than usual against at least one striker in Vuoso who's as good or better than their normal opponents. I hated Jay's three or four "boot it" plays in the last 15 minutes -- all you're doing is ceding possession, when keeping the ball could run 2 minutes off the clock. Allbright looked much better to me (maybe the 4 man back line, but I think it was more that he played up to his opponent's level), but he always seems to wander way too much to the middle when he's on the weak side during a build-up. It seemed that 8 miles of space were open on the Santos left side when they had the ball in our half. While Santos's players were almost all quick with great ball skills, none of them could shut down the speed of Nyassi and Dube (or to a lesser degree Khano) especially on the wings. Lots of the cheap shots (the first yellow and the red) were directly related to frustration at being burned by pace. I thought Red and Dread were real keys to our defending and possession in the first half. Shalrie seemed to consistently pick the right pass to the best open player through the half. Finally, a truly amazing note, Khano had about 8 opportunities to deal with change of field long passes and trapped EVERY ONE. Woo hoo! On a more serious note, this was actually a really good sign that someone's been working with him.
You're completely right. Albright isn't perfect, but he's more consistent/reliable than the Riley/John combination, Heaps has played about the same on the left as he did on the right (credit to him for that) and Parkhurst has been somewhat less than his high standard from last year. Igwe as a backup has been better than Riley, for the most part, and Hilgy was steady and unspectacular (compared to no real 5th defender last year). We got ripped up by Chicago twice (the road game I excuse because of the bogus red card and pk) and DC once - other than that, we've hardly had a bad performance defensively at all. We shut down high-scoring LA and I expect we'll do better vs. Chicago and DC when we face them again; we shall see in a few weeks. I agree completely. And Joseph is so much better at distribution than anyone else out there that I was wanting our backs/wings to give him the ball just about every time they had it. Just about everyone else is over-reliant on passing the ball backwards and conceding opportunities to attack. Along the same vein, what really bugs me about Heaps' giveaway long balls is that he could just as easily give it to Parkhurst, who is much better at placing long balls as well as decision-making. And a couple of good crosses to boot (one leading to a goal-area scramble).
see, I think John is a better defender than Albright and he's a true left side player, which puts heaps back on his strong side. Maybe we get rid of heaps and bring john back?