Game: FC Dallas vs Nashville SC Date: Wednesday, August 11th Time: 7:30 pm [Local] | 8:30 pm [Nashville] | 00:30 [Universal] Location: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas, United States of America Weather Forecast: Sunny; H 98, L 80 Competition: Major League Soccer Live TV: KTXA-21 [DFW] | WUXP-30 [Nashville] | ESPN+ [USA] Radio: FCDallas.com/radio [English] | 1270 AM [Spanish] Fans have been confirmed to attend. First look at Jara. First game since early March. Let's roll.
I gotta be honest. I don't think having fans at the game is a terribly brilliant idea. That being said, I'll be shocked if more than a couple thousand people are there on a Wednesday night in the middle of a pandemic. Plenty of room for social distancing!
the social media and press reaction has been pretty brutal. I'm personally not one who's terribly worried about contracting the virus, but considering the circumstances of how this game came to be - having fans right off the bat is pretty tone deaf. It will be interesting to see how many of the 5K actually are filled. My guess is there will be <2K. I'm not going simply because they've made it almost impossible for media to cover the team of late. In fact, each outlet is only allowed one person and you have to sit in the press box area, which isn't huge to begin with and is pretty crap place to watch the game.
So less than 2K, kind of like a normal game? too easy. having fans while the MLS is back just finished, successfully, with no fans and you are one of the two teams that was kicked out for having too many positive cases is without a doubt tone deaf.
So... 2,912 people there. In other news, I don't know what Luchi is thinking with the 3-5-2, but whatever it is, he needs to stop thinking it.
yeah, for a team that was struggling to create not sure how pulling off an attacker for a 3rd CB was supposed to help this team.
...and in a way only FCD can do - they lose to an expansion team playing its THIRD EVER GAME, and all that being talked about is fans boo'ing the kneeling players. amazing.
That was my thought as well. When you look at the lineups from pre-shutdown, he essentially swapped out Fafa Picault for Bressan in the lineup chart. That's already a downgrade right there on the attacking end. But then, when you scratch the surface, it's an additional tactical fail because you go from having your wide play provided by Barrios and Picault, backed up by Cannon and Hollingshead, to having Cannon and Hollingshead provide almost all of your width, because Barrios was pushed forward. A 3-5-2 CAN work, and it's what Dave Dir used back in the day, but it just requires the right kind of wingbacks and I don't think that Cannon and Hollingshead are it. They're more suited to being the outside backs in a four-back system with occasional forays into the attack, instead of having do everything out wide. Like I said, I'm not sure what the point was in the first place, but it feels like something that Luchi is going to stubbornly try to make happen, irrespective of the fact that it looked horrible against an expansion team that had never won a game and had literally stepped off the plane that afternoon.
This is the reason why I didn't rank him in my Top 5 list for 3rd Degree, not that I necessarily think that he's bad or incompetent or whatever -- I mean, I had Schellas Hyndman in there more or less by default -- but because his body of work is so thin.
serious question: of all the other MLS clubs, how many would even consider hiring Luchi for their head coaching gig, even with a season under his belt?
/points at local team, who gave Óscar Pareja and Pablo Mastroeni their first MLS head coaching gigs ...which should sort of prove your point.
I like Luchi and do think he's made a case that other teams would hire him but totally blew it last night for all the reasons you two stated. I mean you're at home against an expansion team so naturally lets go extra defensive. Cannon and Hollingshead looked lost. I also don't particularly favor Bressan even as an emergency sub but to redo the formation so he can start? Please let this be a short lived experiment from nothing to do but watch soccer all over and thinking too much.
Welp. It was great to see that FCD responded to Wednesday's garbage performance by being even worse on Sunday night. Thank you, Jimmy Maurer, for rescuing the point.
Yeah, sorry, meant to make another thread. Was also planning on going to the game last night but then the storm happened and I can't just sit around for hours/not get sleep like I could 4-5 years ago. This whole being a parent thing is exhausting. Anyway, I only saw the first 10 minutes of the game on TV. 1 point from 2 games vs Nashville...at home....woof.
I commonly bring ideas about this club here first, just to test them and see how they look written out and what reaction they get. we can agree or disagree, but when I put something stupid, y'all let me know. I trust this audience because of the history and knowledge contained in this long forgotten forum. this is one of those times. it's just a couple of games, and when you add the whole COVID break both self-inflicted and mandated, it's probably a little unfair. But I think we need to talk about Luchi. In trying to figure out how, after all this time, this team has come out of the gates looking like hammered crap - against an expansion team playing their 3rd and 4th games in club history - I'm starting to wonder how much of this is coaching... This seems like a great time to remind everyone that the Hunts - either thru cheapness or pure self-bravado - picked a guy with zero experience to manage a top-flight American club. The risk/reward of that choice is off-the-charts insane. It was at the time, and still feels like that today. The complicated formations, the bizarre attachment to Jesus at the 10, the weird substitutions and this very, now predictable, level of malaise in the team's general game. Everything is so slow, so cautious, so -- meh. I appreciate that Luchi probably does have a top-notch soccer brain, but based on listening to him prattle on during interviews, his press conferences and even in the (edited down for brevity) locker room talks I do wonder if his lack of coaching experience at this level is exposing an inability to communicate these ideas in a manner that makes his players to want to execute on them. Not that I think he has a player relationship issue, I bet they all love him, but I'm not sure they respect Luchi in the way they did Oscar. I just think there's something to this is that is reflected in this team's game. Go back over the 1st full season and especially these four games and tell me how many time Luchi-ball has grabbed a game by the neck and thrashed it like an angry animal. Did you know of the entire coaching staff, GK'ing coach Drew Keshawn, afaik, is the only one w/ pro coaching experience? Maybe I'm wrong this is an issue, and like the other DFW teams who came back from their sport's breaks, started terribly and then blossomed - the same will be for FCD and we'll all nod smartly at the Hunts decision to hire him. But, question: If it doesn't - how long does Clark and Dan give Luchi before they pull the seat out from under him?
I think we are in a wait and see on Luchi. I thought his first season was good and a lot of it was his player choices. Now he seems to be settling into picking mostly veterans even when it's not working. I'm starting to get Schellas vibes with the too many defensive mids which I sure hope he extinguishes.
I wonder how much of it is down to the players just giving up. Not like Southlake where they lost faith in Jefferies, but after being sent home from Orlando, they don't have their heart into playing/struggling to find motivation.
I think the poor two games vs Nashville are down to... -Rust -New formation -New players -Naive/rookie coaching -Weather delay (for 1 of the 2) -Gary F'n Smith and his hoodoo against us Now, if we go on having a poor season and the players don't look like their hearts are in it, then yeah. Let's seriously question Luchi. These guys should be chomping at the bit to let the league know that they're not COVIDiots like they've been painted. We haven't really seen that in these first 2 games, have we?