An absolutely unexpected Revs defensive level of play this game. Traustasen may have a one-way ticket back to Reykjavik. Jones, TommyMac, Knighton, yes and even Teal, and others just tough, tough, smart and brilliant.
Boneheaded by Traustason, but I will say, I really liked his corner kicks and free kicks. Makes me wonder why he hasn't been taking them in Gil's absence.
Great effing game. Not so much for its soccer quality, but for the way the Revs got under Phillie's skin. I agree with the announcers that this was the type of collective performance that very good teams produce. Then Charlie Davies gets excited at the prospects of a continued rivalry with the Bunions, and hope they meet each other in the playoffs. I'm thinking, "Charlie, did you watch this game? Philadelphia are thugs. Why do you want to risk enduring injuries to such a crap team during the playoffs?"
That game got pretty spicy at the end. It was nice to see Gil back in there and getting a little feisty at the end. I don't condone what Kessler did throwing the second ball away, but I appreciate the competitive fire that led him to do it. I love that as he was being walked off by one of the Revs coaches that he was raising his hands to egg on the Philly crowd that was booing him. DeJuan Jones had a nice game and I thought Teal was good in this one especially once the Revs were down a man. Nice to see Caicedo on the bench. He may even have been coming in as a sub if not for the red card.
It was ugly, but more importantly a WIN! I agree with most of the sentiment/comments before me. They fought hard and pulled out a great win. I was surprised by Kessler's actions at the end of the game. I always thought he was the quiet boy scout type, I was wrong, good for him. As for Traustason, I hate it when players get beat at midfield and they grab the player. It's an automatic yellow and if you are beat at midfield you should be covered by a defender. It is simply a lazy move. I'm going to give the ref credit for giving him the second yellow. That is the way the game should be called.
Yeah, Rennicks/Tico/Verfuth all played for R2 earlier this week and were therefor unavailable for last night's game. Bou being unavailable was a last second wrench in the pre-game planning. Kizza looked pretty bad against players that were mostly Phili's backups/academy players, whereas Teal actually had an overall pretty good game
i don't think this game had any significance in terms of which team is better. Both sides were missing all their best players. I think Philly has a really bright future if those kids don't all pack up and leave once they get their feet wet. Very impressed with little Aaronson. The other take-away was the instant effect that Gil had coming into the game. Astonishing in a quiet way. He is magic, and by far the best player ever to wear the shirt.
To be filed under "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics": Brad Knighton through six games has a better goals-against average and save percentage than Turner.
The advanced stats still hate him. Hes allowed more goals than his xG suggests, and his PSxG says hes still giving teams more goals than they should get. Then there is the good old eye test where Knighton seems to allow a rebound on 80% of his shots, and more than a few end up in dangerous areas
What Kessler did is beyond the standard time wasting; it was an embarrassment to the unwritten rules of gamesmanship and should not be encouraged or accepted. He shouldn't be suspended for his actions but a fine is more than appropriate. It is painful to watch the time wasting antics by the leading team during the final minutes of any game. But when you're leading the league table and your opponent is barely more than a youth team, it's truly embarrassing that you need to stoop to that level.
Be lucky if he doesn't get a suspension (almost certain to get a fine). I thought it was pretty funny, but if he were an opponent, I'd be pretty steamed. In retrospect, I think he'll conclude it was kind of dumb stunt. He'll be in the doghouse for a bit, but he'll be back. The 2nd yellow was pretty soft, though the call didn't surprise me a bit. He did grab jersey, but he didn't pull hard enough to bring the player down - clearly the guy was looking to draw the card. All that said, yeah, he's got to be smarter so that he isn't in danger. In general, I see too many unnecessary cards - especially in the first halves. On that note, Cristiano Ronaldo has to miss a WC qualifier because he just had to rip his shirt off for breaking an individual record. - Gil is thought of as an attacking player, but his role in this one was to protect the lead and he was so smart in going about it. Great sub by Arena, both because it gave Gil some conditioning time, but also helped kill off the game. - PHI really lost their composure and a lot of clock time by resorting to fouling late in the game. We managed to kill this one off and get out of town with the points, but I was very nervous watching the clock up to and through injury time. We were very good at last ditch defending, but not so great about letting them get near and into our box. And, totally wasted our free kicks. I know it's hard to get up and over the wall, but too many of our kicks are well over the bar and even rising - I'd like to see more attempts going around or even through the walls.
Yeah, the Revs don't have a great dead-ball specialist. The national team has the same problem, I noticed.
I would think Bou would be a good choice, since he has such a powerful, accurate shot. But, when he's taken them, he's gone for the up-and-down [not his strength IMO] - I think he should just power it to the unguarded side and force the keeper to have to deal with it