Sacramento Republic FC (0-0-0 overall, 0-0-0 at home) at Seattle Sounders FC II (0-0-0 overall, 0-0-0 away) Kick-off at 7:30 p.m. Why wait? HATE THE SOUNDERS NOW!
This is why the USL is great. I don't just get to hate the MLS teams I hate. I also get to hate the infernal spawn of the MLS teams I hate!
Wasn't it the ESC folks who were getting pissy because the TBB sent people down to MLS Cup to represent? Saying it was "inappropriate" and stuff? Plastic team, plastic field, plastic fans. Eff 'em all. Only thing worse than one Flounders team is two Flounders teams.
Has anyone heard if Vukovic and Alvarez will be ready? I assume Stewart will still be out a couple of weeks.
So far, this is the entirety of S2's roster, so I guess we'll face a lot of reserves from the senior roster and perhaps some trialists. Aaron Long, D - played on loan to SRFC last year. Duncan McCormick, MF Andy Craven, F - product of Seattle's academy and supposedly has a lot of promise Amadou Sanyang, MF Sam Garza, F - former 2012 1st rd. pick for SJ and generation Adidas player. Scored first pro goal just last year for Az. Kick-off is in two days, a little excitement, maybe?
Yup, Starfire stadium is plastic, too. Not only that, Seattle signed a 10 year extension to play in Century Link field, so we get to watch play on the plastic pitch for another 15 years. You'd think the team with the best attendance in MLS could figure out a way to build their own stadium.
Bummer... Wow, according to @josh_beeman, Rodrigo Lopez will be unavailable for the Republic's @USL opener this Saturday at Sounders 2— Evan Ream (@EvanReam) March 19, 2015 Stewart and Vukovic are probably out. Haven't heard a thing about Alvarez.
I believe Alvarez is still hurt as well. Big big loss with RoRo. A lot of guys out right now...hopefully our depth shows well in these first few games while they heal up.
If you're not already reading the MLSN&A running gameday threads, you should ... because I'll be pimping these games there all season long, just like I did last year. Some of the regulars in those threads have even started watching SRFC games.
That hurt. I don't think we deserved to give up 4 goals. But we made mistakes and we did -- though that third one (was that the one) was just plain good. If we'd lost 2-1 I'd could write this off as missing guys. But a last minute salvaged 4-2 result? We looked pretty good in the first half. That just shouldn't have happened in the second. Seattle was just far sharper as the game wore on.
Yeah, first half was decent, just some good finishing away from leading going in to the break. Second half the team got sloppy and looked tired. Seattle was much fresher and cleaner in their play as the second half went on.
Am I the only one not high on McClain? Seems like we picked him up and everyone assumed he's going to be good. But he was terrible tonight, he should have given a better effort on some of those goals. It's not like he was some great keeper for OC Blues last year, they sucked. I realize our back line wasn't as good as it could have been (btw, why wasnt Duckett playing?), but does anyone else think GK will be a problem for us this season?
We didn't lose that game because of goalkeeping. The game was lost further up the field. I'm not going to single anyone out ... yet. But it is fair to ask who's really taking leadership and organizing the back. The reality is we probably faced one of the top USL sides tonight. S2 has a lot going for them. It's going to be really tough this year.
They were and they did a great job. Rough game for the Republic. As Knave mentioned previously, I didn't think the play justified the score. The game just seemed to get away from them once S2 got the second goal. Good luck on the remainder of your season.
I personally thought Estrada looked really good on the front line in the first half. Daly played the ball rather than keeping the attacker in front of him on the first goal, 9 times out of ten he clears but not this time.... Foran looked ok except for the second goal which looked offside - if not it was a perfectly timed run by Garza who then used and abused Foran but in fairness Foran was trying to recover from a trailing position. Third goal came from what looked a very soft free kick - cross was atrocious and Seattle player and Kiffe get tangled up when neither had a hope of getting the ball - personally think the officials should have let it go.Excellent free kick which McClain was unlucky it bounced off post back on to his head and into the net.. I missed last two goals because apparently pausing a live feed on youtube means you can watch with delay until the live feed ends...be warned...
Going into this season, I figured the quality of the league would improve with the addition of the MLS second teams. I think this game was an example of that improvement. I don't think SRFC, or any team looking to finish near the top, is going to have the luxury of missing 4 starters and still win games. Last year, you might have been able to win or tie with that handicap, but this year it will be more difficult to rack the win column without a healthy team.
I think that's exactly right. Some of that is probably just chance. But it's also a young team at the beginning of its season. And it's also the reality of lower division soccer. The experience isn't there, and it especially isn't there when you're missing so many starters. -- On a better note, it looks like the Bee hired a stringer to write a gamer for them. Republic FC struggles in second half, falls to Seattle in USL opener -- Sac Bee The good local media coverage continues.
When you're down four guys, the rest of the lads have to step up. And McClain...didn't - and neither did the remainder of the defense. First goal was a classic GK-defenseman miscommunication, compounded by a rug bounce. GK has to come out and play the ball before the bounce; on a rug field, as a GK you CANNOT let the ball bounce in front of you in the penalty area on a speculative feed like that. On the free kick goal, there was an element of bad luck there (even to the point of the S2 commenters wondering if he'd be charged an own goal in the scoring), but he also did not place the wall correctly, and was also out of position to cover the area he was concentrating upon. The post dug him out (briefly) before getting S2 a cheap goal off of his arse. The post giveth, the post taketh away. Overall, SRFC did not look in match shape; I would hope that this issue will be addressed with great vigor in the upcoming weeks. On a general note... I. Hate. Footy. On. Rug. You would think the one place on the West Coast that isn't bitching and moaning about the ZOMG DROUGHT could grow a decent grass field. Oh, well. I guess they have to prepare the S2 kids for playing on the fuzzy concrete at the Clink.
Maybe it's because of the ongoing drought. Maybe it's just because I see the writing on the wall. But in the last year or so I've made a big mental leap on this topic. I used to say, we can't get grass fields soon enough. Now I'm thinking advances in artificial turf technology can't come soon enough.
Without getting into a long turf vs grass argument, a brief explanation for why Starfire is turf.. That complex is basically THE soccer complex for the south Puget Sound area. There are other fields that are used, but the stadium field has games being played on the it all day on the weekends and most weekday evenings. Given the climate up here, it is cost prohibitive to maintain a grass field under that level of usage. If the usage were limited, you'd likely be correct that a grass field would be possible.. EDIT: I forgot to add.. Starfire is also built on top of a flood zone/wetland. There are grass fields there, but those are generally closed during the winter because they are little more than bogs that are turned into mud pits just by walking across..