08/20: Results May Vary: RSL vs FCD [R]

Our damn MLS Direct Kick didn't record the game. I'm looking forward to your color commentary on what transpired.

 

We played a pretty even game, and I think had the better chances on goal. In the last 15 minutes or so, the lack of oxygen combined with the travel clearly got to our guys and RSL just outplayed us all over the field. Urruti still can't finish, though. And I'm not really seeing the expected development from Akindele that we'd like to. He has great athletic ability, but just makes poor decisions.

Not sure if Diaz was just marked out of the game, or if he had an off night. He wasn't bad, but he was mostly a non-entity. A lack of any production out of the #10 spot on the field really put a damper on our attack tonight. OP tried to give more attacking options by putting in Akindele, but that didn't seem to make much difference. Ulloa had been playing better up to that point, but hadn't had much to do in the defensive end. A better move might have been to push Ulloa into the attack instead of bringing on Akindele.

Urruti had several chances he failed to finish, but when Getterson came in Barrios did almost nothing up top and Getterson did nothing on the wing. Barrios on the wing was pretty effective prior to that move; I'd have liked to see Getterson in the forward role to see if he could finish some of the chances Urruti had been getting. Or even Akindele and Getterson paired up top.

Aubrey David played well at right back most of the night. Joao Plata was giving him fits, but he'll do that to anybody. What was more telling, I think, was that nothing at all was coming down RSL's right side. Figueroa was holding it down back there.

I'm not sure how much Acosta gives us in the attacking third. He's a versatile player, but his strength seems to be athleticism and defense. I think I prefer Hollingshead on the wing; he's no Castillo, but I feel like he's a bigger threat to opposing defenders.

 

and this is where the loss of Castillo reveals itself the most.

 

Akindele is picking a bad time to stink. Castillo's departure is an opportunity for him. He doesn't seem to be stepping up to it.

 

Fabian's parting gift to the team seems to be his bad decision making. That 3 on 2 late in the game where Tesho and Mauro couldn't connect - Jeeez!

Mauro seems to have games where (mostly at home) where he's really active and dribbles a lot to create space and havoc for the opponents. Then he has games where he almost never dribbles and prefers to stand and wait for others to make runs for him to pass to. No idea what causes him to have one type of game or the other.

We were under siege for about 2 minutes before the goal, so it wasn't a surprise, but it was surprising how asleep four of our guys were on marking that corner. I guess Zim was so mad after the goal because his alarm didn't go off. Probably the AM / PM thing.

 

No doubt the kid can score goals with proper service. His physical ability is not where my worry lies. The incident Felipe mentioned was the prime example last night. Tesho had about four choices, all of which would have put FCD into a clear goal-scoring opportunity. He could have kept the ball himself and taken on the defender, he could have passed directly to Diaz, he could have played Diaz into space towards the corner, or he could have held up play and waited to see what the defender was doing. There were probably more viable alternatives that I didn't consider. However, he instead just gave the ball away cheaply on a half-pass half-cut/dribble. Diaz looked like he was ready to cleat Tesho in the back of the head for that one.

 

Tesho needs playing time. You'd think he'd be getting that in spades these days.. the rest of this week will be interesting to see how it goes.

 

How did Tesho snag rookie of the year in 2014? What changed in these past 2 years for him? We were attending games as we could then, but not yet STH so my depth of knowledge is lacking. Thanks for explaining to a newb.

 

He's inconsistent which i attribute largely to lack of pt. He does a great job of getting in dangerous spots, but that makes it all the more glaring when he makes the wrong choice as the correct one would likely result in a goal.

 

I like Tesho, but I don't know where to play him. He's built like a target man or a knockdown guy, but I've never seen him do well at holding up the ball and laying it off or being a knockdown guy. I think we were all hoping he'd be Blas 2.0 - rugged penalty area battler / garbageman, but that doesn't seem to be happening. He's often played at one of the wing midfield spots, but he's not really fast enough to make things happen out there. He works to get back to help on D, but doesn't seem to have much defensive ability.
The guy has skill and seems to have a good attitude and willingness to learn. I think he could do well (as he did his rookie season) if only we could figure out where he should play.

 

I believe Tesho is best deployed with another forward but we usually only play with one. In his rookie year he played with Blas a lot because Mauro was injured a lot. To be fair if we played with two forwards you'd need to take off a midfielder so either Diaz would have to play much more defensively or one of Acosta, Gruezo or Ulloa wouldn't be out there together behind Diaz. It basically comes down to whether you want two forwards or one forward and Diaz and that's an easy call. Tesho himself plays mostly the same - hard working accurate shots, good passing but not great at taking defenders on on the wing to get in like Barrios and Castillo do.

 

I think Tesho can learn to play the hybrid SS/Wing role that Castillo was getting pretty good at - not just staying wide for 1v1 and service into box but rather drifting inside and pushing up closer to the CF when we have possession. Again, I feel like this could come with more PT. Honestly, the coverage provided by Gruezo and Acosta behind Diaz make this makeshift 4-3-3 a plausible formation and one in which I think Tesho could excel.

 

Either Tesho, Getterson or Hollingshead could and should pull that off. Any time Barrios goes line Urruti should go to one post and the winger on the other should go to the other while one of the defensive mids (Acosta is best at this) should crash and be open at the top of the box. I think OP and crew will make adjustments as the season goes on. It's just early in the PC (post Castillo) era and they weren't prepared for his AWOL trick. One bonus is as the weather gets colder and the games grittier FCD may win some games they didn't before. Playoffs kind of revert to defensive slugfests and footing for fast tricky wingers gets worse the colder and rainier it gets. Free kicks and goal scrambles become increasingly important.