Results from other games if not posted in this thread already D.C. United 2-1 Harbour View Olimpia 1-1 Pumas Kansas City 0-0 Saprissa Monterrey 1-0 Municipal so no blowouts and no away wins and still confusion on if away goals count (btw, Fox Soccer Channel article lists your attendance as 3,825)
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I had the perfect album to listen to on the home - Uprising, by Bob Marley & The Wailers. The opening song? Coming In From The Cold, which sure did seem appropriate. It was friggin' FREEZING in Germantown.
Gee, thanks. I guess I can turn off FSC where I'm currently watching the tape delayed broadcast of the KC v Saprissa match.
Some people have lost all perspective on Stokes. I swear, he could have a brilliant game and someone would still come on here and claim he was the worst player ever to suit up for DC United. I'm tired of the knee-jerk, lynch mob mentality that some people have about the guy. Really, he may have been the worst player on the field for DC today, but some others certainly gave him a run for his money. Even Moreno - who is sometimes something of a sacred cow in these parts - had a terrible game. I just wish people would be fair to Stokes. And if they can't be fair I wish they'd be classy enough to keep it to themselves.
Right--I was utterly astonished when the card was on Gomez and not the HVFC defender who could have been red-carded for his offense.
Stokes is nowhere near as bad as people make him out to be. He played as well as Petke did tonight. In fact, I think he might've had a better game than Petke had.
I am in agreement with Knave and tmas here. I think Stokes looked pretty good in a number of spots. In others not so good. Some of his passing was painful. Some of his decisions were questionable. In short, he played about as poorly as Petke. But unlike Petke, he also had some really nice plays at times, and some really clutch defensive stops, and some excellent turns with the ball. He was smooth at times and looks like he might develop into a strong, confident defender. He even adds a slight bit of offensive potential, whereas Brandon Prideaux is quite the liability because of his complete lack of any offensive skills (to go along with his limited defensive skills). I thought Brian Carrol looked very much in control tonight. Man, was it cold.
I'm still thawing out... We looked pretty poor out there. Honestly, after about 10 minutes, HV seemed more at home in the cold than we did. HV Goal: Nicky's fault from where I could see. He didn't call Stokes off as he came off his line and it looked like HE ran into Stokes. Speaking of... Stokey looked up and down, like a rookie in mid-season form. He had a sweet wrap around tackle that used his entire lanky frame. Must've learned that from EZ. A couple of good passes, but some pretty boneheaded stuff too, like the Agoos-esque back pass. But one play summed it up perfectly in about the 65th or so minute. HV is attacking and he is near the top of the arc. He literally does a 360 looking for a man to mark when the man he should be marking is near the far post. No MOTM tonight to be fair. It was a team win. No one really stood out IMHO. Gomez, Carroll and Namoff played the best on the team, but hardly enough to warrant an above average rating. Sachin
I've never been on one side or the other of the Stokes debate, but tonight was one of the poorest preformances I've seen out of a pro. To give him proper credit, for about 10 minutes in the second half, he made some nice runs up the wing. But accept for that, he was extremely poor. I won't start going into it since we have a thread for him, but if he sees significant time this year (without VAST improvement), DC is going to hurting this year.
Agreed, though Jaime did provide a very sweet pass in the box to Gomez, who wheeled around to knock it to Gross for his header on goal #2. He deserves credit for that.
I have to echo the sentiments that some people have just completely lost perspective w/ regard to Stokes. He had an average game, given that it was the first competitive match the team had played in a while. He plays the same type of game mid-season, then fine, go ahead and b*tch about it. I'd say the bulk of the blame for the gaffe that led to HV's goal lies w/ Rimando.
My bad to the person that didn't want the scores. I wasn't thinking about that. At least you saw most of the K.C.-Saprissa game without knowing the score.
First off I'll second everyone who was there tonight. It was frickin' FREEZING out there tonight. I was more impressed with the Jamaica boys who hung right in there. Tough conditions all around. That being said, I'll say Knave is WAY of on this rant. Ever since I saw Stokes get burned at Denver last year, I've been worried. Going down to Bradenton this spring did nothing to allay those fears. Not to bust on you Knave, but seeing him in flashes or clips on TV is not the same as seeing him get torched live and in person. I've given him the benefit of the doubt for the last time. The man does not belong on a MLS field (not for United anyway) and if that's tough to swallow, well then......tough. Jaime on his worst day is 100 notches above Stokes on his best. And if you think I'm classless for asking Stokes off my team, so be it.
Of course there wasnt a Best for todays game, decent performance for first serious game. My Worst though, besides Stokes of course, goes to Moreno. I just got the feeling he didn't care much for the game, and it looked like he was out for a light Sunday practice. Not once did I see him run fast to try and make something happen. I hope he hasn't reached a stage with DC where he feels he is a step above the rest and is surprised he hasn't gotten a call to go overseas yet. I hope my thoughts on this are very much off and we see the real Moreno next Wednsday.
Good game (lets face it, any game where we come off the field as winners is at least somewhat good).. Frickin' cold, not used to shivering like that (and there I was wearin a winter jacket, long pants. Hats off to the players who were out there wearing shorts and their jerseys). Hopefully DC will use this to help get the kinks out of the system before the season begins. Of course, from a personal note, the highpoint of the game was hearing my name on the PA and being able to pick up the game ball...
a little juice, with a lotta stoli, and things are much warmer now... "Scarlett is a girl's name..." - my favorite moment of the night. What was up with that ref? Adu impressed me greatly...a lot of ball winning on 50/50 balls, some very neat play in the midfield, and a couple efforts at breaking down the defense on the dribble...the young man has to figure out what's possible. Wouldn't be surprised if he pulls of some crazy stuff this year. Definitely rusty as a team. My MOTM goes to Olsen. He's been watching Reyna and has vatly improved in his ability to hold the ball in tigh quarters. Stokes...oh, Stokes. Put it this way, he could benefit more than any other player in MLS from the reserve league. Potentially a dominant physical force, good at tackling and ball-winning, but once he has it the man just does not look like a professional with the ball. He had some moves, but if he passed the ball out of play once he did it 10 times, under no pressure at all, just passing it out of bounds and turning it over. I think he can be good, but he needs to play midfield in the reserves for a season. DCU were clearly a superior side...let's see if they can make up for the lack of in-season form and get a result in Jamaica, mon.
Observations: Gomez was missing in action in the first half; did better in the second, but clearly was not performing the A-Mid role. Simms looked fine as a sub, but I was surprised Q2 didn't take Christian's place. Ben and Brian C. were the go-to guys. To me, the MOTM was Brian Carroll. He had one bad pass I remember, but was solid the rest of the time and was trying to get the attack going (as was Benny). Freddy was better than OK, but was holding the ball too much and putting on dribbling exhibitions when a quick pass was the better play. Gros picked up where he left off last season. Moreno concerns me. He concerned me last season because he plays forward with the instincts of a midfielder. He looks for the killer pass first, last, and always. Sometimes you just have to let it rip and hope for a goal or a rebound that a pest like Esky can drive home. Namoff was in midseason form. He is clearly the class of the back line. Petke was up and down. He took some risks that I'm not sure I would take with a three-man back line. Stokes had poor plays and some surprisingly good ones. I had a clear view of the HV goal and it seemed to be Nicky's fault rather than David's. Also, I thought I heard a whistle from the stands during the play which froze some players and could have led, in part, to the sloppy play which gave HV their goal. I expected more BC posters thawing out at Glory Days afterwards. The few of us there enjoyed some great draft beer and the Sarprissa-KC match on that horrible pointy-ball pitch called Arrowhead.
My impressions: DCU looked very good. Don't look like they're really in pre-season form at all. Fluid with the ball, good one touches. The thing that impressed me the most was that they had good first touches on the ball. They didn't let balls get away from them when taking them off a pass. They kept the pace up and the passing up. It's great to see them taking there time and using the space they had. The mid-field looks like it's probably going to be the best in MLS this season. The back line however is the most obvious weak spot. I thought it was interesting that Stokes was given the opportunity to bring it up the left side so much. Things that scared me: Stokes and Rimando. Stokes obviously has some skill. There's no question that he's athletic and knows how to dribble. The bad thing is that he's not at all smart with the ball and makes so many bone-head plays it's nauseating. Rimando was once again indecisive in the box. Three times he came out for the ball and three times it turned out poorly. He decides way too late to punch the ball and it makes very little solid contact when he finally does. I still prefer Perkins in net, but that's just me and I know many will disagree. After seeing this game and then watching KC play theirs, I think that with the form DCU is in, they'll come out of the gate in a hurry to the MLS season and pick up a lot of wins before other teams can get into form and gel. In the end, no matter what, I thought the game was fun to watch. DCU played fast, mostly controlled on the attack and had great possesion. Though they didn't score 3 or 4 I still enjoyed watching. The same can't be said of the KC/Saprissa.
What are you on about? Did I not say he might have been the worst player on the field? I just think people should be fair, and it's pretty obvious to me that they aren't always fair about Stokes. I'm rewatching the game right now, and just saw the HV goal. You know who's fault it was? It was Petke's fault. His weak and mindless pass gave the ball away. That was the error that led to the goal. As for Stokes - Watching the first half again I still maintain he didn't play that badly. His passing sucked, but I was pretty hard pressed to find anyone on DC United today who's passing didn't suck. Stokes probably was the weak link, but the whole team was pretty damned weak today. And the defense - aside from Namoff ... nothing to brag about there. I hadn't noticed it so much on the first watch, but Petke too was stinking things up pretty badly. So I just don't see any reason to single Stokes out. If you single him out based on tonights game it indicates to me that you've lost perspective. That, I think, is unfair. Ugh ... Freddy. You know I had a little rant a while back about his showboating after I saw him in a U-20 match ... some of that going on again today. You're not going to get away with that crap against MLS team, and you're not going to get away with it against Harbor View. He should know better.
Just because it hasn't been mentioned yet, I will say that as I was roaming around at halftime, I heard a number of people mention/discuss how Rimando had called clearly for the ball. From my point of view, it seemed he had as well(although I couldn't hear it), so I think it likely he did call for that ball, just based on what I heard and my impressions. So, it's not like he's a total buffoon. I do think he was to blame for the goal as that ball was way too far out and being held up in the wind for him to go for it, but Stokes looking like he had just dropped into the Earth's space time continuum didn't help matters either. So as long as we're not being knee jerk here, let's take that into considreation too. Offensively, Gomez and Alecko looked exceedingly interested in doing well, and that is very promising. Jaime looked like he was just going through the motions. However, he was very good in playing defense, so who knows, maybe it was just an off night in the old decision making dept. ould have liked to have seen him beat someone off the dribble though and he seemed exceedingly shy about doing that. Olsen, Carroll, and Gros played very well, Adu played well when he wasn't trying to dribble straight into the defense, but that seemed like far too much of the time. Defensively, this team has problems. Petke, God bless him, didn't play well, Stokes is terrible and really just seems lost in terms of having a soccer brain. And even Namoff, while he had a good night per se, all of the dangerous attacks seemed to come down his side for whatever reason. As for their passing out of the back, overall it was pretty much atrocious all night. I do not think this HV team was that good, all they seemed to do was lob balls downfield, yet we seemed befuddled constantly by that. Granted, they didn't score off them, but we seemed to do way too much scrambling considereing the competition we were playing in my opinion. Hopefully, it was all pre-season foolishness and freezing conditions, and that they'll get going a lot better soon. The one truly great thing I noticed all night defensively was that right after Stokes had served up that pass for the Harbour View breakaway, Gomez was screaming at him for being an idiot (I presume), but Petke waved him off, and went to Stokes to buck him up. Then Petke waved at Gomez to lighten up, and Gomez immediately looked to Stokes and clapped at him to get him like to say, OK let's get going. I like to see that kind of support, and it's nice to see that Petke seems to be stepping up a bit in the leadership dept. Just some thoughts.
The rule looks clear enough, but away goals were indeed used as a tiebreaker in the preliminary stages...maybe UNCAF was allowed to impose their own procedures for the qualifying rounf.
Oh yeah, Carroll did look good And #10 for HVFC, Jermaine Hue...if I'm KP he might get an invitation for a tryout. Nifty little player AND he shares by birthday.
Oh yeah, I was going to mention too that I thought it odd that Nowak seemed to basically give up around the 75 minute mark. Subbing Prideaux for Adu? Then Simms for Gomez? Waiting until the 87th minute for Santino? Was that waving the white flag or what? Seems to me if He was quoted as saying that you send a message by going for goals and burying teams, or some such, that you should follow through on that claim. However, you're not going to run up any scorelines with that substitution pattern, that's for sure. I would rather have seen Prideaux in for Stokes, and Santino in a lot earleir. Obviously, that's hindsight, but even so, I think it would have sent a different message. Still, it was Brass Monkey cold out there, and that kind of conditions changes a lot of philosophies. I know I went from bravado, to desperately digging under my car seat for any type of winter protection after only a few minutes in that wind.
That "pass" was enough to single him out. That was one of the most fortunate unpunished mistakes I've ever seen. Stokes wasn't the only one in back to get toasted, but while Petke and even Namoff got victimized, we've seen them both play well in the past. When has anyone here seen Stokes have a good game? He's on his third season now. When is he going to play like he belongs in this league? To be fair, I thought he did pretty well bringing the ball forward in the second half and he seemed to be working well with Adu. Once Adu was subbed for Prideaux, however, things fell apart on that left hand side but that was more Prideaux's fault than Stokes's. I don't think that Jaime deserves a lot of the bashing he's getting tonight, either. Jaime always seemed to have three and four men on him and he wasn't getting much help when he was able to break in on goal. He probably should have done better with the two breakaway chances I recall him having, but he didn't have the greatest angles to work with and he had no one coming up in support. Harbour View were big and fast and DC's fast but not so big guys were having problems breaking them down. We easily could have had a couple more goals, but Harbour View's keeper made a couple of really nice saves. I was impressed with Adu coming back to actually play defense, but I was a little less impressed with Gros's hotheadedness. He very easily could have picked up a second yellow a couple of minutes after his booking. I also thought Jaime was lucky to have not gotten a yellow when he came in on that tackle from behind after he'd been dispossessed. I thought that the officiating was pretty good for about the first 35 minutes before it seemed to become quite erratic. I didn't get a good look at the alleged handball penalty but I was surprised that the studs up, two footed tackle on Adu near the corner flag in the second half didn't even warrant a yellow card.