He's pretty quick in short bursts actually. But he was sucking wind hard at the end, I thought Dom might sub him off.
i agree with the landin idea to a point. he will never be quick/agile/fit but he will have moments when you think "hey, that dude has some quick feet for a guy with a spare tire". however, i will take him to task for lack of fitness. playing 30 mnts then holding your side? really? dude has a serious case of no hustle and the next time i see him jump will be the first time. he is a spoiled brat that was told he was great from the age of 13 (which he was) but stopped working/caring and now it shows. if he gets his work ethic right and finds a heart, he could be something to watch. until then, i light a candle for weaver and ching.
Help me out here. My recollection that was when we first saw him with Pachuca, he was fast. Was I just seeing things then or was he fast and has lost about five steps? No problem Pankfish. I knew what you meant.
Cochrane is a liability but what options do we have (seriuox)? he and Bos not a good partnership Mullen could be curtains for BM i love him as a player but he has lost a step Corey Ashe is lucky to have a job alone see the field of play thought Landin did Ok so too Oduro but he's so lightweight Palmer looks athletic but too little time to judge
Blown away by all the negativity on these boards. I expected to come here and read about how it was a team effort to pull out a gritty 3 points against the defending champs that were riding high after they put a beat down on their first opponent. Instead it's a bunch of bullkaka. It's like we watched 2 different games. Ah-mazin!!!!
I'm guessing the RSL fans who are happy for Ching's injury aren't USMNT supporters. Also guessing that they are a minority of the RSL fan base. I might be wrong, but those two assumptions help me keep faith in humanity.
Rey is right. I thought we suck the 1st half ..we did good on the 2nd half. Landin did a good job tonight..He has many good passes and intelligent pass..the penalty was a good call by the ref..there is no acting on his part, our defend was a terrible...like Rey say ..why all the negative tune..we beat the MLS last year champ we should be very proud of our team..
"blame it on the alco-ho-o-ol" ...just got home... had to drop my 2 pesos b4 passing out..... *burp* -ching- that sucks big nuka cola... hope he still goes on to SA. -oduro- great work rate!!! everything else everyone already knows. -mullan- second game that he is invisible.. needs to rotate with cam-(Central Attacking Midfielder)-eron and davis.. maybe that will get him going. -CAM- he will be amongst the best midfielders by years end... guaranteed!!! -davis- nomination for official 2010 dynamo pk taker, ACCEPTED!!! -mulrooney- almost 90mins i think he will have 1 last hoorah... he wants 2go out on top!! el quiere la copa!!! -hainault- decent game, got caught out of position several times because of pushing to far up. -boswell- when he has an error... he has an error!! otherwize ok game... finished strong. -cochrane- decent game, no major fups or cards.. -chabala- he will have a g-cameron09' kinda year at LB. -landin- like i said.. any goals or great work is welcomed, but this will be his final year as a dynamo. i thought that had he not heard the offsides, he would have scored. i also think he will put in full 90s by mid may. -ashe- for all the speed he has... why..why...why does he insist on taking on people... porque??? lets see some cruz or nava-c. -palmer- ???? 2 mins DomK..???? 2 mins??? *burp* i would have loved for DomK to sub El Predator #51 in as soon as boZw got mugged..... LOVED!!!! all in all.. great game IMO.. give them some time to gel and for CAM to get going. *falls on the keyborda*
I thought the team looked a little flat and slow in the first half, but really picked it up in the second. In the first they let RSL control the game too much and had most of the ball possession, or at least it seemed like it. The second half was fun to watch, the skill level seemed much higher as did the energy level. Another factor I think was important that nobody ever mentions, I don't think we do well with a strong wind at our backs. I think the wind takes away some of our skill on the ball or something, anyway it seems like we always do better facing the wind than playing with it. I agree that the offsides call on Landín was wrong and had it not happened we'd be talking about his first goal of 2010. That's all, I'm tired....
I sure had a great time. The RSL goal (pretty nice) and both pk's (legit) happened right in front of my new STH seat. I saw a lot of old friends and dug the gutty Orange comeback. Nice job by the SG's too. TA and EB both brought it as. And the pitch even looked nice. 4 out of 6 points so far. Yeah the sky is falling again.
only 56 points to go. we can do this!!! huge early game in the season next week against LA. points against conference rivals are even more important.
Well I don't think its fair to say that the RSL supporters were happy to see Ching get injured. Most of us feel the same as you and don't like to see any player get injured for any reason. Also, I think if you go read the RSL boards you'll find that most of us feel that Espindola is a hothead who had a terrible game and deserves a suspension for that tackle. I think we can all agree that this wasn't the game we hoped to see. It was uninspired and sluggish from both sides. Neither side really showed their style of football or what they are all about. Yeah, we are pissed that we lost due to what we feel were soft PK's. If RSL had won by two PK's I would be happy for the win, but not proud of it. I don't like to see players praised for embellishing (or flopping) to get a PK. But if you must praise Landin for something, I guess that would be it. Let's hope the next meeting is a better game of football because this one was just crap. And yes, Jason Kries has stated openly on many occasions that he models RSL after Houston... so yeah, we are kind of Houston wannabes - at least as far as back-to-back MLS cups go.
the embellishment does not remove the fact that it was pk. Landin crosses over to his other foot and forces Olave into a bad decision. everywhere outside of the Premiership & the Scottish Premiership that's a pk. take your pick: a penalty is awarded blah, blah if a player commits any of the following in a manner considered by the ref to be careless, reckless or using excessive force - kicks or attempts to kick an opponent, trips or attempts to trip an opponent, blah, blah holds an opponent, tackles an opponent to gain possession making contact with the opponent before making contact with the ball. if anything the Geoff Cameron pk is the one that he could of not whistled with the explanation that the ball was not playable. The Landin is a clear swipe. does anyone find it strange/ironic that fans of a team that includes Espindola on its roster are outrage at the Landin pk?
I'm not outraged. I didn't say it wasn't a PK. I think both PKs were soft, but I could see both being given. I just don't think that embellishment to get a call is something to be proud of. Some people think that's what a striker is for, to flop in the box and get a PK. World class strikers don't look to flop they look to score. It bothers me when I see it from Morales and Espindola and it bothers me when I see it from Landin. You guys won the game fair and square. Congrats. But I don't have to like it.
Hey Dynamo fans. Many of us Sounders fans feel your pain for having to put up with the lame claims of "diving," "flopping" or "embellishment." It seems like the easiest thing for supporters of losing teams to do these days is blame the refs. It's a complete cop out. As an outsider watching the game tonight, both PK calls were legit and I thought the ref did an outstanding job. I don't think your team played great. But there was nothing cheating or unsportsmanlike in any of your play. Anyone who tells you any differently is a sore loser or has sniffed too much of the Peter Nowak "I'm a little guy so I have to pretend to be macho" cologne.
I think you're wrong about "most world class strikers don't flop" I think it's, disappointingly the other way around. They're both PKs, he clearly catches Landin who moved to the other food and got the defender to take the bait, no one to blame but himself, stays on his feet and he makes Landin look like an idiot. The first one, there's a push there, he could have avoided it, I don't think it was a goal scoring chance, but he made the foul and cost his team. I think the yellow was for persistent infringement more than anything as the Landin foul was only careless it wasn't reckless (the criteria for a yellow, being in the box means nothing). I agree they're probably soft penalties, but they're both penalties and should have been given, the Cameron one is the more questionable of the two but it was a penalty.
Really? So the two PK's weren't soft (but Espindola getting tossed over someone's shoulder on the other end of the field wasn't PK-worth), nobody fouled Morales, Espindola only deserved a yellow for headlocking a dude (who also deserved a yellow for being pissed about it), Landin was offside (not that it would have mattered, since Rimando saved the hell out of his shot, but he didn't look offside to me), and the referee shouldn't have noticed where the hell he was instead of deflecting the ball, resulting in a turnover? Clearly, you and I have different definitions of "outstanding." As for the game itself, I will say that RSL could have won it regardless of the PK situation--we had some wasted opportunities to at least salvage a point, and we didn't convert them, and that's nobody else's fault. But the people who are saying "okay, the PKs were soft, but I don't care because we got the points" are missing the wider issue. There's a reason that FIFA won't let MLS referees officiate the World Cup. Some complaining about referees after a loss is normal, no matter where in the world you are. And everyone remembers the bad calls that go against them and rationalize the ones in their favor. But officiating in MLS is consistently awful. It's happened in our favor a couple of times too, even in this game as mentioned above--although I can't remember anything quite as dramatic as two questionable PK's in three minutes, one of which would be the equalizer and the other the game-winner--but that doesn't make it any better. Bottom line, MLS needs officials that are worth a damn. The league has been steadily improving over the years, in every way except for this one. Is it so hard to have a review process? Is it so hard to hold referees accountable for poor officiating? My performance at work is reviewed, and if it's found wanting I'm warned or perhaps retrained. If it continues to suck I get fired. Why should officials be any different?
This is where Americans fail. Our mentality is to fight till there is nothing left. The rest of the world understands that when there is no chance for a goal and there is contact, YOU GO DOWN. It isn't diving. Diving is when there is no contact and you go to the ground. Both times there was contact inside the box. The certain scoring chance was gone. You take the advantage that the defender gives you when they make contact that is a foul. That is how you win highly contested games. We did it tonight and I am sure that everyone is ecstatic about the 3 points. Its a fine line but we Americans need to learn how to toe that line. Soccer is not about an American football fullback smashing his way across the goal line. This is a physical finesse game that requires skill and smarts. American soccer focuses too much on the physical and not enough on the mental. When we learn that we will be able to compete against the other club teams in our region. Call me a diver lover, but staying on your feet is not always the best decision.
The were both PKs, end of story (because I said so). The thing that surprised me is that we got the calls, especially the second one so soon after the first. The Dynamo so rarely get favorable calls like that. You could see they should be penalties, but we've all seen even clearer ones that haven't been called for us in the past. And the people that think RSL deserved penalties on their end, that's just bs, they kept falling thinking they would get a call but there was never a foul... I was afraid, though, the ref would call it to balance out the two for Houston. They weren't PKs, though. The ref missed a lot though, like Beckerman repeatedly kicking Landin in his stomach while he lay on the ground. And the offsides call on Landín who clearly was on. But he got some things right, for once. And I hate RSL and always have. I was glad they beat LA but that's just the lesser of two evils. At least they didn't need a water break last night.
3 points are Ok. I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. Therefore, I continue... The forwards hustled and did the best with what they got. Which was not much. The two PKs were borderline but that's why you don't put attackers on the ground in the box. It could have been two no-calls, but PKs were fair. Be thankful, because our offense looked awful. Mulrooney played awful. Repeatedly turned over the ball, didn't contain Moreno on the goal, and was generally getting tooled around. Teams should not be able to combo pass their way through our midfield like that. You can keep auditioning Cameron if you must, be Mulrooney needs to hit the bench. Mullan was very quiet and Ashe was not an improvement off the bench (I don't understand repeatedly bringing him in off the bench on the wrong side to watch him lose the ball.....does Dom see no other choice? Is Cruz that distrusted?) because he was not possessing the ball. If we want right wing production we should also be looking at our options there. Cameron was pretty sloppy but I see the bigger problem as being his inability to get the wingers consistently involved deep. Whether it's him or the rest of the midfield, the attack seems to stop about 35 yards out with an aimless corner flag-type ball that often rolls out of bounds for a goal kick (or Ching chases it and gets hurt in a collision). Totally inefficient soccer. And before people start saying Robertson is too small for pretty soccer, RSL was fully capable of stringing one- and two-touch through our midfield at the same Robertson we were at. It's merely a question of personnel. They had a better midfield, they just didn't have the frontline firepower to get the job done. To the extent the wing mids are getting the ball, it's way up the field from a fullback, and we are thus not getting tons of crosses in, which is our bread and butter. Thus we have two dead ball goals and a goal from a defender going forward. I'm not a fan of the Cameron midfield but he is not the worst offender of the lot, so my suggestion would actually be to leave him in place while we audition Mulrooney replacements, then shift him to Mullan's spot and audition his replacement at a-mid. I'm that underwhelmed by Mulrooney (and Mullan and Ashe) so far. Three points are nice, but if we want to succeed over a season I think we need to start making some changes, even if one at a time. Two PK goals are pretty lucky and random (thanks, Olave), and the offense looked pretty punchless most of the game. If we sit idly by and do nothing, the holes in our game will catch up to us.
Hey, I agree with juve (shh, don't tell anybody ) I like Mulrooney but I think he had a terrible night last night, he made mistake after mistake. He's a great guy, he was our dining companion at the kickoff luncheon, but he's had two bad games in a row and I'm not sure how much he has left for the team. Is there another coaching position open? I thought we played really well in the second half but still, no sog in either half. That has to change. Our midfield,obviously, was very weak last night. The defense was good and the forwards did what they could with what they were given, but the midfield looked pretty bad. Watching the game on the new dvr, I got to complain about the big white sheets they put over the State Farm ads. I think maybe there are other ads under the Dynamo banners in the lower section, but I'm not sure. I wish they could have used more Dynamo signs, at least orange plastic over the big State Farm ads between the 100s and the 200s. It looks very minor league. Maybe they will sell ads to put there later in the year.