PBP: P/I/P: CONCACAF Champions League Quarterfinals- Game 2: LA Galaxy @ Club Tijuana; 03/18/14; 7:00pm

+1

 

Yeah, especially after watching the highlights again I have to agree. I was giving him a little slack on the first goal, but yeah it's hard to really excuse the others. Good rundown.

I wonder why Opare has fallen out of favor?

 

You're right, can't forget that guy. He made fewer mistakes than Leo if memory serves me correct, at least DJL's mistakes weren't as costly even if it may have been by luck.

 

To be fair, if I remember correctly, I think a lot of us were fed up with our set piece defending early last season and were questioning AJ as a CB.

Kofi's hurt(right adductor strain) and I'm not sure Bruce would've trusted a youngster in a match like that...though Opare likely wouldn't have cost us 3 goals.

 

1) I don't know, that was a bang bang play. The ball dropped to the attacker's feet when he was expecting it to be cleared, and he got beat. But that's asking a lot for a big CB to cut that out.
2) Replay makes this one tough to tell. Looks like he wasn't expecting the early ball from midfield. But yeah, this one is probably on him.
4) I think he actually has this covered. In a situation like that Panedo has the near post covered, Omar has the cross covered. Something is going to be there when your other CB flies out to attack a ball he loses and the ball finds a guy all alone in the box...guy hit a great shot to the far corner.

 

Yep​

 

I don't think AJ started at CB much last year. He was starting at RB while Sean was playing right mid.

 

holy crap i thought we had it bad 5-1 SKC going down in flames

 

Was it late the year before? I swear I remember that...too much weed

Hey, cheer up it's actually 5-1, 5-2 on agg. even..

 

Oh my does football in our country look putrid right now, MLS clubs couldn't beat the USWNT playing this way! We pride ourselves as being a tough league with fairly good pace but I have seen not any decent technical ability from anyone and I'm including our beloved club too! Damn shame getting beatdown this way! I guess there is alot to learn from losing.

 

yeah i spoke too soon

 

Goal #1 - What Leo did on the play is completely irrelevant to what Omar did.
Goal #2 - Leo and Riley had the Xolos player in an offside position. Omar kept them on. You can argue that trying to do offside traps is a bad tactic, but teams do it all the time, and on the 2nd goal, Omar was culpable.
Goal #3 - agreed
Goal #4 - All I will add is that if a defender pulled that lazy routine in the EPL, he would not see the field for a long time.

Call his performance decent if you want, but I'd say he was exposed against tough competition, and was a big part of our poor defensive performance. He was not up to task.

 

Every MLS team plays well, stop judging us by the Scoreboard it's the coaches in Bruce and vermes who failed MLS and the scheduling is not on our side, our Men's National team are steps ahead of Mexicos and soon will MLS .....

 

#1 - uh, what Leo did on the play is absolutely relevant to what Omar does. Because Leo impacts the play negatively. If you are going to blame Omar as well in plays that Leo contributed to, then you have to recognize both in every single play.
#2 - alright. Doesn't excuse the gaping hole between Leo and Riley.
#4 - whatever. Omar was caught between a rock and a hard place when Leo made his dumb dive. Sorry, but the majority of that play started from Leo's retarded mistake.

After all this, you also chose to ignore the stats I posted. So, focus completely on the negative without recognizing he was the glue that held our backline together.

He was part of our defensive performance. A BIG part? I'm sorry, but no. And the stats show it.

 

Well I watched the San Jose game today and their rookie defender starting his first game played a much better game then Leonardo as did Ty Harden (playing his first game back from knee injury). As a whole San Jose's defense did a much better job in all facets of the game their our defense did.

 

I'm judging Omar on his own individual performance on each goal against. I'm not judging him against Leo or anyone else, or giving Omar excuses for his own play. He performed rather poorly on 3 of the 4, regardless of what Leo did. Leo's or Riley's performance is an entirely different matter.

Bottom line for me is Omar is good enough for MLS and will help the Galaxy in league play, but he's not up to task against international competition. The WC in Brazil could get ugly. Also, I don't think he's worth the DP slot.

 

you don't understand how a 4-2-3-1 works...

 

well at least we weren't utterly embarrassed like KC...

 

Let's see the few good aspects of this game :

- Samuel seems to be the real deal. I was diasppointed to see him gone at halftime because he was certainly our best player in the first half. His first three games in a G uniform are very encouraging.

- Friend and Ishizaki are good additions. Looking forward to see Ishi in the starting XI.

- Keane has scored! Twice! He's got the scoring boots back and it may be the best news possible ahead of the clash with RSL.

 

Your impression of Riley with Seattle sounds about right and I think we are seeing it in with LA now. I thought that in this game he frequently ignored his defensive responsibilities or made several defensive mistakes. He would let his mark lurk behind him so that he had zero chance of catching him if a through pass was made. I think he may be another incarnation of Roy Miller - a somewhat talented defender who likes to go forward but not that committed to doing his primary job and so will cost you a few points per season. Our defense stabilized significantly when Duni came in.

And AJ is definitely a better cb than outside back. His strength is reading plays and quickness over short distances, when he is there he cleans up mistakes by Omar and others like a vacuum cleaner. Neither Omar or Leo are quick to loose balls in the box so that tends to be a problem especially when we play a team capable of repeatedly getting into our penalty area with the ball.

Since we have more height as a team this year (Samuel, Friend, Ishizaki vs Jiminez, Villarreal, Robbie) it would be a good time to move AJ back to cb at least until Opare is healthy. But we can't because Bruce and his minions failed to get us any right back depth during the off-season.

 

I'm not one of the guys who said years after years "we must get rid of the 4-4-2, we have no playmaker, it doesn't work, go with a 4-3-3" (I'm looking at you Phoenix ).

I agree with the fact that Sarvas and Juni are too similar and are not playmakers. They need help, they always needed.

In 2011 Beckham, Donovan and Magee were our "playmakers". At the time we went with Donovan - Beckham - Juninho - Magee in the middle with Keane and Barrett/Cristman up top, and after the 60th minute Birchall replaced the big guy and we saw the first glimpses of the Keanovan combo who made so many damages during the playoffs. We had the championship back four, we conceded a a very few goals and we scored some. We were a "solid" team.

At the end of 2012 it was almost the same : same midfield, Keane and Buddle up top, Whilhelmsson in, Buddle off, Keanovan up top and a lot of goals on counters. We had a decent defense and played a very offensive football and scored a lot of goals.

In 2013, there was no more Becks (and no more Magee later). We began the season with Franklin - Juni - Sarvas - Magee with Keane and Zardes at forward. We had no playmaker, the only one was Keane who fed Zardes a lot but the kid can't finish. Then we went back with the Keanovan combo. When the two were on we scored a lot of goals with no playmaker. Why ? Because Donovan or Keane (more often Donovan than Keane) droped back to the midfield and made some quality passes to the other. One of the reason we got eliminated was we were to reliant on this guys to score (if we had Magee...) and they underperformed in the playoffs.

Now, we are in 2014. We got Samuel who is starting caliber. But play Donovan on the left is a waste (and has always been as other pointed a few weeks ago), he must be closer to the game and closer to Keane. Where was Donovan on his only assist of the season ? It was the second goal against Tijuana and he was leading a play in the center.

That's why I'm finally rooting for a 4-2-3-1 :

Samuel
Keane -- Donovan -- Ishizaki
Sarvas - Juninho
​

With Donovan as our playmaker. In this formation Keane will not be a true winger, he will play more in the center. He's still our goal scorer.

We must try this formation. But we can have some problems like :

- Keane is not a real winger, who's gonna attack on the left ? Dunivant for sure, maybe Sarvas or Juni can help. And who's gonna defend ? I don't see Keane do a hard working defense. Maybe Donovan can take the LW position when the other team has the ball.

- we may be in trouble when Donovan can not play. Who's gonna replace him ? Ishi ? Keane ? Husidic ? Mendiola ?

Anyway, the fact a MLS team can't win the CCL (or it's almost impossible) obviously has a link with the salary cap, the CONCACAF refs and the "preseason forms" of the MLS teams. But they are still searching what are their best starting XI and have something like ten games already played help. But have a head coach who years after years, at every beginning of every season, trys to play a CB who cost us a lot of points in the past doesn't help.

Sorry for the long post and sorry for my horrible English.