That's the second Pacific Northwest away game that Vanney has played an aggressively offensive line-up. He must be feeling that he can put pressure on the Seattle or Portland defense, particularly as Portland has a relatively untested goalkeeper. But it has backfired both times. Live and learn? Try, try again? I agree with you that another d-mid should have started. Depressing game that we all agree was ruined by a split second bad decision. Williams is a good defender, but he's going to need to stay on his feet a bit more, especially for awhile. A long suspension will really hurt us, and I'm going to hope for mercy. Maybe Paulson could be punished for his idiocy with no additional suspension? Seem fair? Onward.
I think Lletget had the best takeaway from this game -- you'd rather have a match like this at this point in the season. It's hard for me to take too much from this one. One of the Galaxy Guy Podcast guys predicted a 0-0 result, which was probably pretty credible up until the red card. I think it was a fairly tight match until then. I don't have too many problems with Greg's line-up. Portland made it tough for Efrain to find space in dangerous areas often, but I like the look of him as a 2nd striker. I would've liked to have seen how Greg would've adjusted at the half, otherwise. Quick thoughts: Cabral: Didn't show much decisiveness in the final 3rd. I do wonder if he was tentative about the turf? Imagine the ball falling to Pavon or Romain in the same areas Cabral picked them up and had his man 1 v 1. He also needs to build some strength. You see it in his highlights, when he gets on a run, he goes down a little easily. Even the FK he won, I've seen that type of foul not called many times in MLS. Still, his movement with the ball is pretty nuts, and he can almost glide past guys, easily. Not an easy game to put your stamp on, obviously, I thought this was one of Jonathan's better games, actually. Or at least, I feel like classic Jona showed up a couple times, turning the ball out of danger etc. Bond kept it from being a lot uglier, even before the card. Though the scoreline doesn't reflect it, Araujo had another strong game. The turf definitely made a difference. Two of our most dangerous plays just broke down from players slipping on the turf (Sebastian's FK from right outside the box, and Grandsir slipped on a cross, rolling his ankle). Still, it is what it is.
It's worth saying, our track record in the Pacific NW in the last few years is !@#$ing dismal. Last 7 3-0 loss to Portland 3-0 loss to Seattle 5-2 loss to Portland 3-2 win over Portland 4-3 loss to Seattle 4-0 loss to Portland 5-0 loss to Seattle
Time to bring Robbie, LD, Gyasi, Becks, AJ, Juni, Magic Mike, and Marcelo back to turn things around.
Even when we were really good, the games up in portland and Seattle would be wild. One game we'd win 5-0, then we'd lose the next 3-0. I really hate turf. It's pretty sad that the MLS is meant to be developing these players and challenging for talent, but then have to go play on AstroTurf.
Portland's turf seems downright grass-like compared to Seattle. The Sounders play on a green parking lot- even worse if it rains.
I wonder what Garber would do if Neymar, Messi, and Ronaldo said they would come to MLS on the condition that all astroturf is replaced with grass. EDIT: This is especially if one of them would be going to teams who play on turf.
Not a surprise. It's a horrible surface to play soccer on. Got to be an advantage to Seattle and Portland who are accustomed to playing on it.
To me Alvarez looked overwhelmed as 2nd striker. It’s a lot for a young player to deal with - facing challenges from all sides and getting less time than on the wing. His struggles were reflected in him getting only 26 touches - 1 touch every 2 minutes in his 49 minutes of play. (For comparison Lletget and JDS had 60 and 88 touches respectively in 79 minutes of play.) However Efrain had 1 key pass and 2 accurate long balls (which is more than we got from our wingers) so he wasn’t completely ineffective there. Alvarez may become an AM. I just don’t think this was the right game to experiment with it. Give him a home game on grass and see how it goes. You are right about Cabral. He is a featherweight at 140lbs and has a puny shot. So far the only positive he’s shown is speed. (At least the speed and lack of strength will get him foul calls and get us free kicks!) Also at this point he isn’t nearly active enough - hopefully that will improve as he settles in. We are going to need to see a lot more from him to justify our big investment.
Will we be happy if Cabral turns out to be Uriel v2? Don't remember seeing too many plays where the Gs passed into space to let Cabral run it down, though maybe just don't remember.
When Sigi coached Columbus he ran a 4-4-2 with Alejandro Moreno as the #9 who would hold up play and occupy defenders and Schelotto! as the second forward, and a #8 and a #6 behind him. I've always liked this formation and thought that Alvarez would be great in it as the second forward. The problem is that Chicharito doesn't occupy space in the same way and everything gets constricted in the middle leaving Efrain in a crowd and with no one to make an attacking pass to. We've been saying it all along and it's true, we need to play Chich with a true forward. Having him as a single forward just hasn't worked and we need to stop trying to make fetch happen. I'm in favor of putting Cabral up on top. Let him line up with the last defender, pull our midfield back a bit to pull their defenders out and pass into the space. Right now, Cabral seems to be starting from so far back that the defense can keep him in front of them which leads to the problem @hav77 just mentioned above. We've lost Williams for at least a game which means four in the back, so ------------------Cabral--Chicharito--------------- Dunbar-------------JDS----------------Grandsir ------------------------Saldana----------------------- Assuming Lletget is gone with the Nats. This is a step back in terms of possession soccer, but our possession doesn't seem that dangerous so let's set up a system that maximizes the effectiveness of our two attackers.
MLS had a video talking about the red card, kinda.diaappointing no one is talking about Williams head injury and how it likely led to the lapse in judgement in that absolutely horrible tackle. The player that had that amazing tackle/assist on Chicharito's goal against LAFC then pulled off this weird body thrown in bowlover and a head injury wasn't a factor?
You make a great point about the way Chich plays and how it can lead to constriction in the middle. And I agree he needs a true forward to work with. I guess Cabral's speed might work but I have trouble seeing it. He isn't going to win many balls and standing around up top hoping for an over the top pass isn't likely to be very effective. I think Chich needs a more physical Zubak type partner - someone who can go up and knock down balls, or who can win 50-50 balls and hold onto them while the offense moves forward. I would have Cabral hugging the sideline, pushing up when he could. That will open up attacking spaces in the middle or give him room to use his speed when he does get a chance at the ball. And no way Grandsir should be starting ahead of Alvarez. Here are just a few stats comparing the two. Grandsir vs Alvarez: starts: 6 vs 3 minutes: 393 vs 196, ~2:1 pass completion rate: 78% vs 86%, 16th vs 7th (rank out of 18) goals and assists : 0 vs 0 # of passes/90m: 36 vs 59, 15th vs 2nd! key passes/90m: 0 vs 2.3, tied 13th vs 2nd! [1st Seb w 2.9] crosses/90m: 0.3 vs 0.9, 7th vs 4th [1st: Araujo w 1.4] long balls/90m: 1.1 vs 5.1, 16th vs 1st! through balls/90m: 0 vs 0.5, tied for 2nd vs 1st (wth team? ) Now those are just offensive stats. Someone else can figure out their per 90 defensive stats if they want. But they show that on a per minute basis Alvarez is a far superior player. He is twice as active, a much better passer, creates many more dangerous chances, sends long balls to switch our point of attack a full 5 times as often. Those are very big differences. Alvarez has also delivered our single through ball - sadly that says a lot more about our team than Alvarez. As I've said previously Grandsir appears to be slightly better than Alvarez on defense. But neither is getting on the field for their D. And I'm not sure what Grandsir is getting on the field for, since he's good at neither end. Maybe he will improve - but until he does Greg should stop giving him automatic starts. And I'm not saying Alvarez is an automatic start. At all. He has plenty of flaws and Greg needs to demand better defense. But he, unlike Grandsir, helps our attack in several ways. In the long run those key passes will pay off.
The league needs villains, and they just got one in Williams. It’s going to be the narrative we see from here on out. I’m appalled by the arguments on twitter regarding the tackle. Can’t wait until Williams is suspended and we can move on.
What?! Leave off Magic Mike? What is this blasphemy? @TrickHog, you need to insta-ban @7E23 immediately.
Reading Twitter is hazardous to your mental health. Sadly the guy was really injured - thats terrible for him and Im guessing will likely result in a 3 game suspension for Williams.
Many in Twitterverse are asking for season long and have also seen some ask for lifetime ban or suspension for as long as Polo is out injured. Others have compared it to the Mullan tackle on Zakuani. I think the Mullan tackle is different because he did it with intent and some malice because he didn't get a call go his way earlier and was pissed off and took it out on Zakuani.
Also it was pretty reckless. My first views were from Williams pov angle and it didn’t look as bad. Watching it from the side - it was pretty crazy. Just the speed at which both goys were coming together and Williams did miss the ball pretty bad. Don’t think it was intentional - not Dema level. But I could understand 3 games. Hope he doesn’t get 5. If he does then he’s getting punished for the injury more than the foul, imo.
Ignore those trolls. People love to outrage on twitter. They would call for execution if it wouldn’t get them banned.
No doubt it was reckless and I don't think anyone here would be upset with a 3 game ban. However, while it was reckless, I don't think it warrants a Mullan type suspension because I don't think the intent was there. There is also the concussion aspect of it too and whether the concussion protocol missed something.