Flores is a bad match with this side. He’s clearly a quality player - two goals in the last CONMEBOL window, but those two goals equal his entire DCU output from 30 games across 2+ seasons. I don’t dislike him as a player, but it ain’t working here.
Liadi (from Loudon United for today's game) now on for Yow. Yow has played very well. But great chance for Liadi. Ideal opportunity for him to get game experience.
Two positives on the night for me. Djeffal already looks a better option than Skundrich. And the second half saw the press ramp up and really wear down Charlotte. If they can keep games close, they can make hay at the end of games.
So, definitely not feeling confident. Fortunately, Cincy is next and they were manhandled by Austin. Have to win that one.
I thought Yow, Nyeman, and Djeffal all looked good. I'm still concerned that Nyeman gets ridden off the ball too easily.
Back from the match. Two general observations: 1. Absent VAR and Bill Hamid, this is a 3-3 tie to a team that is hot garbage. 2. My wife was standing in line for coffee and a guy behind her said, "they got $10 million in the offseason and bought this team?" BHI and Birnbaum were fine (even if Bill two handed punched Steve in the face). Najar was very uneven and got a stupid yellow. Gressel and Smith were fine. Smith is no Paredes, but he's a competent player. Yow was OK, Estrada got a brace -- which is his job. Now for the really bad. Nyeman and Skundrich were beyond poor. Out of position, didn't cover for one another and often either left the back 3 exposed or both were so deep there was 20 yards between them and the forwards. Look, Skundrich is what he is == a journeyman who should be coming off the bench to help lock games down and playing USOC games. I keep hearing about Nyeman's vision and how he reads the game. Problem is that he is 5 foot zero and weighs 80 pounds. The guy might get away with using his skill playing with kids, but he just gets knocked off the ball far too easily. What leads to is him not keeping his head up, and every time he feels any pressure, he's making a back pass to one of the 3 defenders. Maybe he bulks up, but right now, he really can't play in this league. In comparison Djeffal looked more confident, not afraid of contact and made a really nice cross field pass to Yow because he kept his head up and turned away from pressure. Flores is the highest paid player for DCU, if he was paid Skundrich's salary, I would say he had a decent game. But he's not -- this guy is a bust. When Estrada went down near the end of the first half grabbing his leg, I originally thought it must be Flores having his annual leg injury that requires 3 plus months of rehab. Long story short, after watching this game, I can see why the pundits pick DCU for 10th or 11th in the East. They will struggle against Cincy and get shredded by competent teams. P.S. I saw Mora leave the field after being subbed out, I felt for the guy, he played through years of Bennyball and now he's plying his trade on the hot garbage scow.
Should have been 2-0 not 3-0. That PK United got was a garbage call by another clueless MLS ref. Based upon the highlight package I saw FC Char got way too many good chances they could not put away.
I thought the penalty was on whatever caused a United player to be down on the penalty spot. If it was actually called as the "handball" then Charlotte got screwed.
If we're as bad as everyone is saying, then I'm just going to enjoy tonight's game as it was. Vamos United!
I mean, it's hard to say being the first game and all. I watched some extended highlights from all the other games on MLS.com and the passing was pretty rough league wide. Still, some areas are definitely looking weak and the injury bug is already creeping in. I'm not as worried about our passing as I am the acres of space given all over the field. A good team would have beaten us soundly today. However, it's just the beginning, plenty of time to get better organized.
OK, so I get it--we've got a roster of middling-at-best talent; Charlotte are a bad team and beating them is not any kind of meaningful benchmark; our manager favors a high-pressing style which we really didn't maintain convincingly in our home opener; we came out of the gate looking quite underwhelming and allowed Charlotte to look not-terrible for the first twenty-odd minutes of the game. But I enjoyed it anyway, and I'm happy my team won, scored multiple goals, and got a shutout. More to the point--I've already accepted this team's limits, so the way I looked at it is this--Losada's preferred style squeezes every bit of sweat and effort out of the players on the field. I accept that this year's squad has a ceiling that's below "win MLS Cup" but the optimist in me thinks that the ceiling COULD be dominating at Audi Field and playing respectably in the first or second round of the playoffs. And if we're going to pull that off with this roster and this manager, the bench players are going to have to buy in and be capable of stepping up when the usual starters can't. And the fact is, most of us seemed to assume that it was all over but the shouting for Griffin Yow after last season, yet Losada gave him the start and Yow played pretty well. The optimist in me thinks that sends a message to the whole squad--you're never out of out loop with this manager. Knowing that hard work at training and a professional attitude in the locker room will not be ignored is vital for a modestly-talented squad committed to an aggressive style of play. Bottom line, in terms of talent and ability, this season will likely be more of the same from last season. So the difference will come down to getting points for the taking, while spreading out the minutes among the roster as widely as reasonably possible. Last night checked both boxes for me.
I appreciate the comments of @bigredfutbol == but that is an overly optimistic take. Yow started because Robertha was injured and Perez wasn't 90 minutes fit after picking up a knock. He's third on the depth chart and maybe deeper than that if DCU actually picks up Rojas from Emelec (curiously, my spell checker changes "Emelec" to "emetic"). I strongly disagree with the conclusion that this is a playoff team as currently constructed. Given the lack of depth (talent), particularly at D-mid, this team is more likely to be fighting to avoid the Spoon than challenge to the last playoff place. Last night was my 23rd consecutive home opener, I've seen plenty of DCU teams, this one as currently constructed is not very good.
Fair points, but IMHO the reason why Yow was on the field was less important than the possible end result. He got 80 minutes of game play, acquitted himself reasonably well, and seemed to get genuine kudos from his manager when he came off. I'm determined to see how well they fill in the missing pieces Losada is still looking for before writing this year off. I will concede that I'm a ride-or-die-with-my-guys type fan, so I'm always going to err on the side of seeing the glass half-full. If we're still playing this flat against bad teams come July, I'll revisit my optimistic first-game-of-the-season perspective.
I agree that Yow looked fine. He was not part of the problem which was smack dab in the middle. I'll even give Flores a bit of a pass (a very small bit) because the midfield was making no connection at all with the forwards. Everything was down the flanks (when it occurred). However, because the middle was so poor, neither Gressel nor Smith could really make marauding runs down the flanks. I remember one sequence where Gressel had pushed up, ball changed hands. A long ball down the flanks made it to Reyna, Nyeman really didn't slide to cover on defense, Najar made a silly move to try to dispossess Reyna instead of just slowing him and forcing him out wide. Gressel just dropped his head and sprinted back even though he was completely out of position. Fortunately for DCU it was Reyna with the ball, against Philly, NE or NYCFC, that would have been a disaster.
I'm in the "that was as big of a disaster as a 3-0 win can be" camp. A couple of comments on players that caught my eye: Estrada: As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, he's a bit of a diver. I hope he recognizes he's not going to get those calls in this league and knocks it off. He also has a very awkward running style where he kind of prances around when not going at full speed. For a 2 goal scorer, I wasn't particularly impressed. But he wasn't a disaster by any stretch. We'll see where he goes. Nyeman: I thought looking at him at the beginning of the game that he looked a little bigger - not taller but that he had spent some time in the weight room. He had a good first 15 minutes or so and then it was straight downhill. Giveaway after giveaway and dispossessed just way too easily. Listen, I'd love for him to be our next breakout star, but I'm not seeing it. If we're counting on him to be a starter in central midfield for us this year, it's going to be a long year. Brad Smith: Made me a little nervous a couple of times. He didn't seem to be in sync with the other defenders and was caught up field several times. Hopefully that gets worked out. Djeffal: Tough to say too much from limited minutes, but he certainly didn't look like someone who didn't belong. Either "plays with a chip on his shoulder and isn't afraid to get stuck in" or is "a total hack" because he seemed to foul anyone near him who had the ball. Time will tell which he is. If he does pan out, kudos to the front office for finding quality in the draft. It feels like that hasn't happened for us for quite a while. Flores: Flores was literally the worst player on the field for either team. It's painful to watch. I don't know what more to say other than we can't get rid of him soon enough to open up the DP spot and the salary. Two tactics by Charlotte that caught my eye: New coach to the league so he watched some film from us last year I guess and tried to figure out how to attack us. 1. They went at Najar hard. Whether that was a function of thinking Najar was the weak link in the three man back line, that they could catch him out of position at some point from one of his forays upfield, whether forcing him to play defense and stay home would neuter our attack, or whether they thought Reyna was their best attacking option, they went up the left side all night. The number of long balls they sent to that side was insane. Like anytime they got the ball they immediately sent it long straight to the Najar vs Reyna match up. The goalie sent almost every punt in that direction, resulting in at least 1 and maybe more that ended up out of bounds. Will be interesting to see if other coaches see the disruption this seemed to cause us and do the same thing. 2. On defense, Charlotte set up a high line, let Birnbaum and Hines-Ike have the ball as much as they wanted and dared them to get the ball to the next level. We had no solution for this and after Birnbaum and Hines-Ike passed the ball back and forth to each other a couple of times, they kicked it long. This is where the lack of any quality in the central midfield is going to kill us. We have zero ability to build or hold the ball and good teams are going to run all over us.
I watched this penalty 10 times and I could not see the apparent handball at least from the angles shown. It's one of the softest penalty calls I've seen in a long time. I take it but wow if I were a CFC fan I would consider the team hard done.