It was an honest question- Mike didn't play last night BTW- he'd be on the Blast roster still if it wasn't about $$- he is still a top defender!
Its not only the sketchy distributions, but he struggles with just clearing the ball. When it is on his foot and he can't pick it up... wacky adventures ensue. I do disagree, however, that Vorberg would have won the game for the Wave. They were completely out of sorts the second half. The Mustangs came out much more physical after halftime, and the refs let them play. The Wave never adjusted. It seemed that on any 50/50 ball, if it was a little high or long, the Mustangs would hold the Wave player down just a touch; enough that he couldn't get a well timed header. On good 50/50 balls, the Mustangs would give the Wave player a shove out of position and gain control. Not blaming the refs... they decided not to call it too tightly and the Wave never adjusted to it. The Mustangs also played stellar defense, doing an amazing job of parking the bus once the Wave went with the 6th attacker with about 5 minutes or so to play. The Mustangs hustled to loose balls, dove to block shots, and had Viega in position when Flores came off his line. Twice Viega cleared the ball off the line and responded with some resounding fist pumps. So the Wave couldn't gain/maintain posession the second half, and couldn't penetrate the area when they did. Nothing Vorberg could have done. Oliviero has some work to do the next week and a half.
I would shocked if Vorberg doesn't play in Milwaukee. He took warmups and looked good. I thought Milwaukee got a lot of the calls in the second half. I have to mention that Tony Walls is a hack, he pushes and grabs constantly and dives on any contact he receives. I am not saying this is a bad thing but he is a guy that is easy to hate as an opposing fan.
I agree with that assesment, although Flores is not very stellar with his distribution skills either (I've got spoiled watching Danny Waltman). I thought Viega in the 4th Quarter was amazing with his two clearances off the line. Go Mustangs!
It was an incredibly fun game, compared to other games I've been to at the Sears Centre Arena though I thought last night's crowd was pretty weak. In the past the side with the player's benches was pretty full, last night it was very sparse all around. The Mustangs played a hell of a game, and much like the Wave's other loss in Chicago this season Flores was outstanding in goal for them. When he's on his game like he was last night they're tough to beat. I thought it was kinda funny that at one point in the 4th quarter it was Wave 3 - Former Wave 3 (all 3 goals coming from Stewie and Hevo). I don't agree with the ripping on Matty Ice, his distributions do need work, but you need to find a way to score more than 3 goals no matter what. You look at the first game Matty played in, they lost 10-9 with 5 goals conceded on power plays and restarts (both of which the ball was fired through the wall). Last night though he made some incredible saves, especially on the power play at the end of the 3rd quarter where the goal was just getting peppered over and over again. The Wave had their chances tough, there were countless times balls rolled through the box with nobody home to put them away. Passing was bad last night, there was no urgency to it and many times 10-15' passes were intercepted because there was no pace on it. Up close it just looked like Chicago wanted it more, I don't think the same thing will happen in Milwaukee. The thing with Chicago is they're 4-6 on the road this season and have yet to beat a winning team on the road (2 wins over Detroit, 1 over Tulsa and 1 over St Louis). They've looked significantly different on the road and I expect the Wave will win in front of their home crowd. Either way, I'm expecting a hell of a couple of games on the 7th!!!
The wave scored one of their goals on a set piece from the top of the box. I thought the Wave goalkeeper made a lot of great saves last night.
And that's actually 3-6 because one of the wins was a forfeit (although let's face it, Chicago probably would have beaten Tulsa 13-2).
Flores was absolutely ridiculous last night. The Wave had several sure goals stopped by him. Chicago's offense looked pretty anemic last night in the first half, the Wave dominated until the second, they just were unable to capitalize. How does the second game work? Is it aggregate?
No, it's a more traditional best of 3 series. If Chicago wins, series over. If Milwaukee wins, there's a mini game. No aggregate.
More like a best of 2.25 series. The mini-game is a whopping 15 minutes. Terrible way to decide a series, aggregate would have been a more sensible and fairer method.
Aggregate would be the worst way to decide an indoor series. The mini-game is at least better than that. What's your next suggestion? Use away goals as a tiebreaker?
I think tie breakers should be players lost to season ending injuries....Wave would be pretty darn solid in that category. Weber, Feenstra, Suprise, Richey and possibly Vorberg unless he's able to play on the 7th which is a good possibility.
I agree that goalkeeping was not the main reason that the Wave lost. Chicago passed the ball much more effectively, and the Wave were losing the physical battles to the Mustangs, particularly in the 2nd half. The Wave lost a lot of the 50/50 balls and could not corral many of GK Eisold's sometimes-errant distributions. The Wave players need to be much more physical & quit waiting on the refs to buy their flops. The Wave looked flustered & disorganized for much of the 2nd half. Give credit to the Mustangs for having a well organized defense, especially at the end of the game. If the Wave get Vorberg back in goal and can match the physical play of the Mustangs, & get their offense on track, they have a chance to ride their home crowd into the mini-game.
Poor in their set pieces? My goodness..... Isolation? What is this, NBA basketball? How does ONE player create/"do" isolation (never mind that there's no such concept in soccer)? Isolation, in a basketball context, is a TEAM maneuver.
I don't see a lot of telecasts, but seems today's game went fairly well. Solid match for indoor soccer. Certainly something the league can build on.
There have been plenty of awesome indoor soccer games in past years that the "league could build on". Unfortunately, there is never any building done. It was a great day of indoor soccer- very entertaining and worth the price of admission- but it probably has no bearing on the future of the sport.
There were two amazing overtime championship series games on ESPN in May 2005. How was that built on, again?
Oops, I forgot you can't accidentally say something that could be portrayed as positive around these here parts. I was referring to the telecasts. Wave had a solid presentation for a minor league product. Hopefully the league can build on that. The others I saw were kinda crappy. I honestly couldn't tell you who won in 2005, 2006, or 2014. It's minor league indoor soccer. Who cares. Its a product that is meant to entertain local youth groups. I'm amazed that any of you think that it deserves to be better than this. Its a silly fun enjoyable product. Let it be a silly fun enjoyable product.
Yes, they are. The Wave's, actually, haven't gotten any better or more innovative or anything in at least 10 years. They only outshine most of the rest of the league because most of the rest of the league couldn't find their asses with a flashlight and a map. [ a ] Not all of us do [ b ] So why are you worried if the league builds on anything or not? Here's the point: There is no up from here. There hasn't been an "up from here" in years. There's no upside to this sport. It'll keep plugging along because it has pretty much shown it's impossible to kill, but whether there are 14 or 18 or 22 teams next year, they won't be the same 14 or 18 or 22 from this year or the year after that and there still won't be actual television and there will still be hack players or overweight players or 44 year old players playing for kids and diehards and at some point there will be another league with another name and another commissioner and Ed Hale will still be trying to run things and Soccer-Man will still be telling everyone what great progress is being made and how this league is going to return the sport to the glory days of the 80s. Only there's no going back to the 80s. The rebirth of outdoor killed indoor's player pool. There are - maybe - a half dozen players playing indoor who could have made a living playing it then, based on their skill sets. Investors of any consequence won't touch it. Every time - and I mean every time - in the last 10-15 years that someone has said, "This, now THIS is going to be the thing that makes indoor take off again and we're going to build from here," it hasn't happened. Not only hasn't it happened, but within a year or three, we're right back where we were. And we'll be right back where we were again when the Sacramentos and Brownsvilles and Waza Flos of the world disappear again, as they always do.