Oh no, that's not fair. They showed up. That's just how fragile DC is and shallow the bench is, I think.
This is what i was expecting in KC quite honestly but was pleasantly surprised with that result. What a terrible performance tonight. However, with the schedule crush, a performance like this was expected although I think United played right into the Galaxatives hands by giving up possession so easily in the first half. It's obvious United is only about 14-15 players deep and just like in the RSL match, this team can't play below par and expect to get a result. Pretty much everyone was poor tonight, with the exception being Jeffrey. I was kind of wishing that United would channel their 2012 late-season efforts and grind out a 0-0 draw but that cluster******** in the first minute set a bad tone that they could not recover from. All that and Robbie Keane didn't even play..
Boswell and Birnbaum had nightmares and it was too much to overcome, especially that early in the match. When Husidic and Delagarza are bip bopping and skit skatting all over your left side, it's going to be a long night. Neal central? It doesn't work. Silva played his worst match in three months. It all adds up to a proper hiding.
Eh I am already moved on, being a big picture guy. With how NY is playing and coming off a loss, I can't help but feel like this next game is going to be the hardest of the season. If we draw or win, we're set for the rest of the season, but if we lose maybe we go into the trap game in Vancouver against a team struggling to stay above the red line in a competitive Western Conference.
Seems to me Olsen thinks they didn't show up ... A telling quote from Ben Olsen after tonight's loss: #DCU pic.twitter.com/r6jQ0iOaWq— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) August 28, 2014
The early goal blew up the game plan. It was always going to be tough to come back from that with the guys on the field. Ben knew that and decided to do for it. It would be interesting to know if he had planned to make those subs all along or was forced into it by the score. Now if we don't get s result Sunday he is ripe for crucifying. 3-1 would have been just. I wasn't really scared by what I saw from them. 2-1 might have been reasonable if we just played average. And either of those are respectable under the circumstances. In not too bummed about this.
How exactly is NY playing? Whooping up on Montreal after two weeks off isn't shit. Did you see those goals? Evan Bush might be the worst goalie in the league. It'll be a tough game b/c United isn't that much better than anyone, but NY's form isn't anything to be threatened by. BWP and Henry are good, but so are lots of forwards that United has had success against. Win at home, but I'd take a draw.
********ing Kevin Stott. There's one more present for Landy ********. PK my ass! United were playing bad enough, the Galaxatives didn't need the gift of two goals, one from the AR, and the other from the Center Ref. DC would have still lost by 2-1, but that's just adding insult to injury to have such shit referees negatively influencing the outcomes of games!
3/4 wins recently, they tied RSL, won their first ever CL match and beat Arsenal in a friendly. Plus this is a rivalry where they won last year's Atlantic Cup and they want to be a playoff contender so anything can happen.
One of the under-appreciated facets of those '90s championship teams was definitely the depth. Which year was it where we took a skeleton crew to LA and won 3-0? I think Antonio f'ing Otero started at center mid? This team, at its very best, very top, in terms of talent and form and rest and everything, can compete with the top teams in the league. Falter in one of those categories, though, and, well, 7-1 aggregate @ RSL and @ LAG. For one year removed from one of the worst teams in MLS history? That's AMAZING. But we're still missing depth at nearly every position on the field. Tonight showed that. Who's our backup for Rolfe? Estrada is no DeLeon, as inconsistent as NDL has been (and he has). And Vishnu help us if our central defenders have an off night - Parke's injury will be a killer if either of those two go into a slide. As for tonight: Shake it off. Get three points against RBNY this weekend, and all will be forgotten. This may be a bad omen for an eventual MLS Cup run, but we've got more pressing, more immediate concerns - like throwing the Metros down the ********ing well.
1999 9/25 @ Los Angeles DCU 23-7-0 W 2-0 Presthus (Simpson 46) Peay [G 56] Talley Pope Sonora (Agoos 46) Moore [A 17] (Cooks 88) Aunger Maessner (Lassiter 46) Albright [A 56] Otero Wood [G 17]
Well, what's he supposed to say? "I played Caskey, son. Alex Caskey. What did you think was going to happen?" No, I'd agree that even DC's regular starters didn't look up to snuff either, but I just don't think there are too many interchangeable pieces in DC's starting line-up. Hamid's heroics aside, I think this year's team really functions as just that, a team - that whole "greater than the sum of it's parts" thing. When Olsen has to swap out players, that chemistry is often completely absent (and it looks a bit like 2013 - did you notice all the back-passing from advanced positions last night?), especially in one or two key positions in the center of the park. When Rolfe and Espindola leave the field, this team's soccer IQ plummets. I'd probably include Arnaud in there, too. I never really think he looks that great on the field, but when he isn't, I notice how disjointed the DC attack looks. Or when Kitchen was out and suddenly the defense couldn't defend. . . some hyperbolic example of something easily defended (shut up, it was a late night). I mean, every team has key players, but I think DC crumbles more than most when those pins are pulled. Wait, weren't we arguing the opposite positions in the PBP thread? You said a different line-up could have won this game and I said the starters looked too lackluster to think they would win, or something like that? And why am I seeing ads for T-shirts with insane religious slogans on this site? What exactly did I get up to last night?
As soon as I saw that Rolfe & Arnaud weren't playing I figured that the game might get ugly. The way the midfield was overrun gave me 2013 flashbacks. I do think Benny's decision to sit some starters was basically solid. I'm not sure that my decision to watch basically the whole game (up thru the PK) last night was solid.
Yep like I said in another thread, we are team of tandems. Go around the field and you can see pairs of players who seem to be working together really well, and those pairs function together with instructions as a team. When you break up those pairs, things fall apart. It seems like coaching could fix this, but the players you substitute into the pairs also have to be good enough, and I'm not sure they all are. It's becoming clearer over time that our first 11-13 players can beat anyone when playing well, but when you change our more than 2 or 3 of them, the weaker links get weaker and break. I suppose I sorta expected a really rough Rochester/CCL type of squad to go out there and be gritty and fight for a draw, and in my mind, Ben actually had higher aspirations than that. He still wanted play defensive, and using the starting 4 in the back was smart, I thought, and rotating the rest of the team gave us a shot at scoring. I think on paper, the strategy was correct, and even a little bit bold for Olsen. It was even bolder to bring in the subs he did and try to salvage something. I think he's feeling some confidence himself. But obviously something was wrong in the execution, either by the players, or the coaches evaluation of the players.
Agree with most/all of the above, but 1 kernel I'd like kept purely for review is tape of the first 15-20 minutes for an abject lesson in how NOT to start a match on the road. Don't care about the personnel issues, the focus should have been better KNOWING we were subbing out both midfield flanks. It wasn't, and we paid the price. Granted, going forward, hope we never have to see both flanks subbed out as well as breaking up the Kitchen/Arnaud team at DMid. But in case we do anything resembling last night, this game should serve as reminder what a lack of focus(and sharpness for that matter) on the road can do to you, especially so late in a season. One last thing might be worth examining- the difference in the offense 1st half to 2nd, and part of what we probably all feel should have been exorcised from season's past, and that's the tentative nature of our offense when Espindola and Rolfe aren't on the pitch to push us. When we stall going forward, insisting on a bigger build up, teams are filling the lanes, double teaming us into pressure. We need to maintain a better pace at the outset going forward, to make our possession game a lot less predictable. Bring on the Pink Cows, I'm confident Ben will iron this out a bit, and we'll be a better team with this match in our rear view window. Vamos United. Vamanos.
The issues are a) injuries have gutted most of DC's depth (Parke, Korb, Seaton, Doyle, Martin, Pontius, Rolfe last night...add Dykstra in there and that's quite a deep bench), and b) Olsen keeps playing people out of position (he learned quickly that Arnaud can't play wide, but he hasn't learned that Neal can't play central). Why Neal was in the middle instead of Jeffrey to start that game is beyond me.