I'm honestly wondering if we've ever gone into a league game this big of an underdog as Sporting Kansas City. We had some pretty bad stretches from '14 to '16, but we rarely lost by more than a goal or two. The times we did lose big seemed completely out of the blue; no one expected us to lose 0-5 to San Jose in '15, for example. But this seems like a match where there wouldn't be a lot of head-turning if we lose 0-7. Rooney's having a season, and their midfield is going to have a field day with ours. If New England can score four, and Atlanta can score three unanswered... this has the potential to be very, very ugly.
At the same time, this is MLS so we're almost just as likely to see a 1-0 win.... That said I don't think anyone is coming back, Vermes even said after the game that he shouldn't have played Ilie at all against Atlanta. I think we see a similar lineup to what we saw against Atlanta. Bright side? Maybe it's not as much of a track meet with Rooney up top and we can stay in the game a bit?
Yeah, I have been following essentially since the rebrand.and I don't think my expectations have ever been lower than they are right now. So I will guess we win 2-1.
we looked better defensively, but still failed in the end. not good enough. oh, and the commentary was awful.
I had no problem with the announcers and wouldn’t mind seeing them on other KC national games on FS1.
My only issue was the continual mentioning of the fact we had so many players out injured and 2 players on international duty.
Really, losing 1-0 on the road isn't so terrible in a vacuum. We desperately need points right now, but this was not the likeliest game to get them. We absolutely must, must, must get all three points against Vancouver next week. No New England rehashing.
If you go by Audi, we won this one. 2325-3442. While this doesn't reflect reality, it does indicate that we played pretty well. This is a solid MLS outing, Audi-wise. We had six players in the "above average for an MLS starter" category." Six would be .5 better than average. maybe? Not really, subs put up good numbers fairly often and surpass starters, still, not at all bad. Among those six: Smith led the way, 595 (above 600 gets into elite performance level), Barath, 443 and Melia, 248, had good games. Smith deserves quite a bit of credit for a very solid match. He had six headed clearances (6! Jeebus), 5 aerial battles won, 2 shots, one on goal (head, there is a theme) and was 54-5 in passing accuracy and a regular old not headed clearance. It was a very solid outing. Look at this acitivity map and he blanketed the left half of the field. His activity was a really nice mirror of Barath's movement. Barath also added four headed clearances (that's 10 between them), three other clearances, So, well done to our CB tandem. Point: They cleared the ball 14 times, all from the zone above the six box to the 18. They added five blocks. I'm glad they did, but that is way, way too much activity the last line of defense. Ilie, btw, had another five clearances in that same zone. benny added three, and Felipe 1. That means we were not doing a great job of holding, winning the ball or shutting down the lanes of service before it gets to that zone. That's sad, because that has been our problem lately. So, what happened, it seems, was that our CBs were quite good and we were active and all pitching in once they were deep into the attack. So, a positive, but it comes with a negative. The negative might be seen in the fact that while six players were in the above Audi average category, they included Ilie, Nemeth and Russell in addition to the 3 central defenders. The wings, and the two other mids were below average. Benny is just back so I'm not sure it's fair to read anything into his rating, 171. Felipe was bad, -4. In 84 minutes, he only managed 26 successful passes, a bit above a third of his normal output, while missing on 9. The same thing with Hassler (99) and Sinovic (191). A final point: I'm not sure Croizet (173 in a sub role, with a take on, tackle and int, with 18-1 passing ratio in the midfield) doesn't deserve a bit more time at LB, but if the decision is that he doesn't, is it time to part ways? His numbers at LB aren't bad. Everywhere else, he's at best "meh." We could bring in a star level LB for his salary, and if PV doens't think he is it, he's quite an expensive hustle off the bench option.
Croizet may have started at LB yesterday but since we only had three field players on the bench, he had to be one of the bench players to give Vermes the flexibility to insert him into a number of positions depending on how the game went. I expect him to start at LB Saturday if we are healthier and can field a full 18.