I tend to agree. Findley - for all I rag on him about his first touch - still averaged north of 7 goals/season during his first stint with RSL. Plata may nab you 3 or 4 this year. Who knows what Striker X can do, but I think he's got the tools to be very successful in MLS. In my mind, Findley + Striker X + Plata should score more goals than Espindola + Paulo + Braun + Bonfigli did last year. One thing I'm surprised there's not more discussion on is Sabo. He had a huge year last year and I get the feeling everybody assumes he's going to be just as good this year. In reality, his performance last season will be very difficult thing to replicate. He could have a phenomenal year and not score 17. A lot of things have to go right to score that many goals. And if Sabo has a dropoff or (heaven forbid) gets injured, that's a lot of goals someone's going to have to cover. If I were the RSL fanbase, I would worry far more about Sabo keeping it up than Findley's touch, Plata's size, or Striker X's identity. The issue with Olave comes down to how many times you're going to see him on the field this year. I still maintain that he's the best CB in MLS when he's healthy. The question is how often is he going to be healthy?
Whenever I read the phrase "Striker X", the jingle from Arrested Development plays in my head. Makes me laugh every time.
Don't forget the exact opposite reaction from those who feel compelled to either defend or explain their own endless wisdom of the game or the FO's "official" position with their own knee-jerk responses. It's a two-way street around here. It's just conversation, after all. Speaking of defending with a knee-jerk reaction, that's how I scored my first OG.
Re: Sabo. I don't see why he'd decline. He's kept a pretty steady goals per game average since he's been with us. While at some point he's going to decline, I don't really see it happening this year. In some ways I could see this being a better year for him. We'll have two, possibly three speedy forwards to keep teams from holding a high line and double marking him. Even helping in one of those areas should help his production, if we can do both, it should help produce that much more. Even if he's not scoring, if he's grabbing more assists by holding up play and laying off to the other forward, I'm 100% fine with that as well.
Well...last year was an above-average year for him, so you'd have to have a good reason to expect him to have another above-average year. I'd be fine if he didn't score as many goals, if he scores in as many games (I count 11 -- including two CCL games -- from 2012).
The last two RSL seasons were both a little similar and a little disappointing. Not as many goals as we'd like, lots of injuries, competitive but whimpering out in the playoffs. At the very least 2013 will have a TON of change and surprises, good or bad. Another year to wear the colors, take it in, enjoy it. I hope Olave has an MVP year, not to spite RSL but simply because I like him.
Honestly, I'm ok if his goal count goes down if a few others are making up for it. Then again...I'm in love with TTITS
RSL made it to the WCF in 2011, and then lost to LA. I don't think that's whimpering out in the playoffs. But I get what you are saying.
Re: Sabo & Findley I think we will see a decrease in Sabo's production this year. I honestly believe that being paired with Espindola made him that much better. However, I do believe that pairing Sabo with Findley will be more beneficial to the team as a whole. The 17 goals were nice, but when he went cold (which is very rare that a striker doesn't get cold sometime during the season), the whole team went cold. I'm very excited to have Findley on RSL again because with him up top we stretch out the opposing defense where as when we had Espindola, he would often drop back and clog up the midfield which I feel would lead to our meaningless possession.
I'm curious why you think Espindola made him better, but Findley/Plata won't? When Espindola went wide, and with our generally slow attack, Sabo was often marked by two defenders, making things that much harder on him. With someone faster like Findley or Plata, I can see where the defensive attention will go towards them more, and not Sabo. Sabo doesn't have the speed or ability to consistenty beat two defenders. I feel that the speed of Findley or Plata will make it so Sabo gets a lot more 1v1 opportunities, and it should increase his ability to score.
True. I just don't think that Sabo will get the same service he got with Espindola. Just take a look at the Chivas game at the end of the year to see how easy some of his goals were because of Espy. I think that Sabo will be just as dangerous, but his production will be lower this year. I also think that we will see a higher output from our midfield.
One of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios may be in play here. Espy liked to get wide because that's where most opponents are weakest, which ironically led to Sabo being left alone to contend with the stronger players by himself. Now we have Plata and Findley who both stay more central - which should ease pressure off Sabo - but now we're left to wonder where RSL's width will come from. RSL is already known for playing through the middle more than most other MLS teams, and I think that will only get worse without Espy. The mids and/or outside backs are really going to have to get outside if this team is going to avoid trying to play up the gut all night.
This is where I like the 4-3-3 because you have another striker type player at the #7 position - so regardless of the winger that takes the ball wide to provide service into the box you have 2 'strikers' in the box. The challenge is having a #11 (left wing) & #7 (right wing) who can do their work defensively. I often wondered how it would have worked if they'd played as follows: ------------------Sabo(9)------------------ Espy(11)--------------------------Paulo(7) -----------------Morales(10)--------------- -------Johnson(8)----Beckerman(6)------ Beltran(5)----------------------Wingert(2) ----------Borchers(4)---Olave(3)---------- Or even a Velasquez for Paulo - point is, someone with pace and/or who can really breakdown the defense from the wing... The challenge with the 4-4-2 is that wing play (service wide) ought to come from the midfielders or outside backs making long runs. OR you need to have some midfielders who are dangerous around the 18 or can make runs into the box. Unfortunately for RSL, we have Beckerman who is fairly dangerous but is often to far back in the holding mid spot and Morales wasn't getting/taking enough shots to cause problems. I love Morales but as the number 10 he was anemic in terms of goals/assists - here's to better production in 2013! We need playmaker AND goalscorer at the #10.
I'm not sure that you can definitively say this. It's true that 2010/2011 seasons were similar to his production at FC Sion - roughly a goal every 2.1 to 2.4 games. However, last seasons performance (a goal every 1.8 games) was trending closer to his days at Saprissa when he scored a whopping goal every 1.6 games. And if you think back, Saborio reportedly had conflicts with the manager at Sion, and played portions of the 2010 & 2011 while at less than 100% due to injury. So perhaps last season (and his time at Saprissa) were the average, and the few seasons prior were the abnormality. His average over his entire career is a goal every 1.9 games, which is only slightly worse than last season. By contrast, both Findley and Espindola have averaged approx. 1 goal every 3.5 games in MLS.
Looks like we tied RBNY with the first match down there with goals from Plata and Grossman: http://www.realsaltlake.com/news/2013/02/preseason-recap-rsl-2-2-new-york-red-bulls Did anyone attend that give a first person account?
Do you guys expect more for the weekend matches? Or without golden balls has the appeal dropped that much?
Good point. I wasn't going back that far, which probably wasn't fair. In fact, if you average his average goals per season -- that is, the average of the 12 averages -- and toss out the two outlier seasons at Sion and Bristol city, his average season average is 1.77 games per goal.
Thanks for the pics! The layout looks nice, and is much better than the layout the Wizards used at the minor league baseball stadium a few years back. Wikipedia shows the stadium having a capacity of 11,500. Did they bring in any additional seating, or just use the stadium seating? Also, any idea how long ago they laid the sod over the infield diamond? Any sod coming loose during play? Just curious.
Looks like it. There was a general preseason games thread, and then someone created a thread to talk about the DDC. Mods, should these be merged? With MLB spring training starting in AZ next weekend, I feel bad for any fans flying back from the DDC. I flew out of Phoenix last year during spring training, and the security lines were a nightmare. Plan on your security checkpoint times to be double what they normally are.
Another thing to point out too is that Sabo has definitely been one of the most consistent scoring threats in the league over the time period he has been here. Wondo is really about the only other active player who's been around for over a year that has a better goals/90min ratio. This is more the DeRo, Montero, Henry, Buddle, Conor Casey, etc... Throw in assists and he won't be as high, but all in all, he's very productive in this league despite whatever deficiencies.