It's like we couldn't get anything working in the Midfield in the first half. But instead of changing the game plan we just decided to completely forget we even had a Midfield. It's been a long time since we blasted so many balls to nowhere. An away goal puts us in an okay spot coming home, but we better play a hell of a lot better than that.
Well, a draw with an away goal is better than a loss. That said, we did not look good. We should have bossed a 6 seed playing on short rest.
What the heck happens to SKC when they cross over the Utah state line? They get the Rio Tinto flu and can’t complete a decent pass. Thank goodness for the Rimando brain fart and Rubio’s heads up play.
Couldn't watch it, but as far as I can think, there is no game where Sporting looks consistently worse than away to RSL. Always gets brutal. Sounds like this was not an exception. Appreciate the scoreline, at least.
Survive and advance is the name of the game at this point of the season. We survived a road trip that usually sucks for us, now advance at home.
I got up this morning shaking my head and wondering how, with such a woeful performance, that SKC didin’t get their asses handed to them. When does SKC only have 33% possession? The answer is when they can’t string a couple of passes together for most of the night. Only a 67% successful passing rate overall, but even worse is in the attacking half 57% and a measly 49% in the final third. Kind of pathetic numbers for a number one seed. On the bright side,,,,the defense worked fairly well against a team with tired legs.
weird game.. thought we actually started out pretty well.. forced some mistakes with our press early on - so we.. stopped doing it!?.. pretty nicely passed around their press a couple of times which led to a chance or two.. - so we.. stopped doing it !? as already mentioned, the defense worked really well, only really giving up that one decent chance, and that one was just brilliantly done by rusnak. but completely giving up possession seems like a crazy adjustment to make for a team whose whole identity is possession. third time in four games that I wanted the first sub to be salloi because he was completely nonexistent - only this time he remained nonexistent for the entire game. especially if you play counterattack soccer, gerso seems more appropriate to the task. Shelton continues to perplex me - how can someone so tall and strong seemingly lose every aerial duel, but at the same time be that good if the ball is being passed to his feet? this was probably ilie's worst game in an skc dress, and the rest of the midfield did not do much better. a final marker on the plus column to me was toledo - granted the players made it relatively easy for him by not playing like skc and rsl usually play each other but I thought he did a pretty good job yesterday.
Lot of negative comments here, and I don't get it. It's the MLS playoffs. Teams generally don't "boss" anyone else at this point. Ignore the 1 v 6 designation. We were on the road, at altitude, in cold weather, against a team we have struggled against for years. Not only that, RSL is playing with house money, they didn't even expect to be here so this is all gravy to them. We are not going to dominate possession Every. Single. Game. And frankly, it's not even always necessary. There have been plenty of games in the past where SKC strung lots of pretty passes together and couldn't score goals, then fell victim to a timely counterattack against the run of play. Again, it's the playoffs. It's ok to be pragmatic. Results are all that matter, not how pretty it was. A 1-1 draw on the road with an away goal is a perfectly acceptable result and puts us in great position to advance. Rusnak is suspended, Sinovic will return (and Croizet played very well, I thought), and it's another week to recover and get everyone fully healthy.
Absolutely no MLS evidence to support this. This sentiment has previously been well-documented as flawed MLS playoffs logic.
Minus their first home game, RSL went 11 wins 1 loss and 4 draws in Sandy. (They were not outstanding away from Sandy - earning 12 points). Do we need to play better? Sure we do. But lets take this for what it was. We played a born-again cynical team with nothing to lose, who was riding a pretty hot GK. Beats the hell out of running around like madmen trying to get on the end of the ball, and going down two goals at Houston leg 1 in 2012.
Right, a team that played away on Thursday playing against a team with plenty of rest that has bee in excellent form.
Absolutely no MLS evidence to support this either. This sentiment has previously been well-documented as flawed MLS playoffs logic.