VSGame: FC Dallas vs Seattle Sounders FCDate: Sunday, September 2ndTime: 6:00 PM [CST]Location: FC Dallas Stadium, Frisco, Texas, United States of AmericaWeather Forecast: Clear; H 99, L 77Competition: Major League SoccerTV: Fox Sports Southwest+ [Local]; Direct Kick [Out of Market]Radio: KFLC 1270 La Voz del PuebloLast Result for Opponent: Beat Chivas USA 6-2 in Carson on Saturday.Record of Opponent: 12-7-6Last 5 for Opponent: W-W-L-W-WWell here we are on our home stretch with a must win game against a team we have problems beating. Good that we're competitive at this point in the season when it started so badly but we better hope SH pulls his head out with subs and that the heat helps us. Hopefully Ferreira and Perez will be up to their old tricks too.
Looking forward to finally seeing mostly the lineup that should have been there all year. Biggest dilemna is Jackson / Castillo if both are healthy. Does Jacobson feel heat from Jackson if Castillo is the other outside mid? Ferreira, Shea, Castillo, de Guzman and Jackson is a pretty skillful midfield with lots of interchangeability. Jacobson as a sub at several spots if ahead would be nice but Castillo or Jackson off the bench would be useful if behind.
I don't think AJ is on the hot seat this season only because we need a ball-winner in CM and he's the only one of those you mentioned who can consistently be that ball-winner. If JdG stays and once Warshaw and JM (if he sticks around) are ready/up-to-speed, I could see AJ having some serious competition for that spot. That is a lot of "if's" though and really more of a question for next season probably. I love AJ as a utility player who can play both non-CAM CM roles as well as CB, but not sure he is a lock starter on an MLS contender.
Castillo's not even on the injury report. This kid must be made of f'ing glass. He's hurt so bad he has to be subbed off TWO minutes before halftime, but he's not listed on the injury report 4 days later? I'd be happy to never see him wave to the bench again, but I'm sure he won't sack up anytime soon.
I'm beginning to think it's a Columbian thing... Have you ever witnessed Jair Benitez do the same thing after a tackle? What I mean is that both he and Castillo fall to the ground and BEFORE 5 FREAKING SECONDS HAVE PASSED they are spinning their arms in the sign for a subsitution. They are in a hurry to get off the pitch. What the hell is up with that? Makes me think they are gassed and are trying to find an easy way to get off the field. If that is the case, I want them gone. Both of them. When you've got guys like Ferreira playing with no gas in the tank and Blas coming off a serious injury, this kind of childishness should not be tolerated for a second. If I were Hyndman, I'd sit them both down and say "gentleman, if I ever F*cK*n% see you do that again before you have even made the effort to get up, you can pack your bags for Bogota."
I never put much stock in that. In that 5 seconds after getting chopped down I always assumed those kind of histrionics were all about getting the call from the ref. It's not the pinnacle of sportsmanship or anything, but I never had a big problem with it.
It may be that he has so little body fat that there's nothing to absorb any even small bumps he gets. Cory Gibbs was this way when he was here. It makes them quick and fast but not so tough when things get physical.
That's one thing i hate about this sport, is the flailing around like little girls, which happens in most leagues. If there's legit, serious contact, I understand, but otherwise guys start looking like little girls out there, and I agree, Benitez and Castillo take it to another level sometimes. Benitez bothers me even more since he struts around like h'es the toughest guy on the pitch and is always instigating, yet acts like a 5 yr old anytime it comes back to him. You don't see guys acting like little girls in the NBA or NFL. What happened to being men, shaking it off and getting on with it? Why would you want to look like a little girl? And this is by beef with the soccer world, internationally at large. I'd actually love a rule where a committee could review tape after the games, and if you clearly were acting and rolling around the ground like something serious happened, and there wasn't much contact, you get suspended. In the NBA and NFL when players are on the ground for more than 20 secs, it's usually serious and they don't return. Yet in soccer they usually always manage to pop up and get right back in the action, without the slightest limp. Disgusting.
Thing is, you don't see it in women's soccer very much at all, and I doubt (though I don't know for sure) that you get much of it at the youth level or in the college game. So I don't know exactly what little girls you've been watching, but you may want to choose a new group for your simile.
The NBA? Ha. You can't be serious, they dive often too. Look the diving and exaggerating in soccer is a Latin thing. This is a global sport so you have styles from around the world and there are good qualities that come with that, and obviously bad. It's just a tactic and yes, I agree, it's annoying.
Jerk, you just made me laugh out loud in the law library. EDIT: My comments are directed at the NBA comment.
I wouldn't be so quick to hate on Castillo. According to this article he didn't practice on Friday, and is likely to miss Sundays game. http://www.bigdsoccer.com/2012/8/31/3283178/fc-dallas-practice-rewind
So no Castillo, but Villar might be coming back in the next few weeks? And we will be down 3, maybe 4 in another couple of weeks due to int'l duty. I wonder what the locker room is like today... I'll go with a 2-0 win just to be cheekily optimistic...
The diving and exaggerating is really not a Latin thing. It's a high-level soccer thing. It so happens that many high level soccer players are Latin. I think Americans may do it a bit less due to the cultural baggage of trying to subconsciously prove to the luddites they grew up with that they're not playing a "sissy" sport, but even this is changing. The reason for it is simple: the game rewards it. It draws fouls. It draws yellow cards. It focuses the referees' attention on the guy who hit them. It slows the pace of the game when that's desired. It provides time for the temporary pain of a knock to fade. When you're ahead, the other team will never get a 1-for-1 stoppage-time return on the time you're down. The problem is that there's virtually no risk to hamming it up like that. You get all those benefits and assuming you were actually touched, there's absolutely no risk other than a couple of minutes on the sideline. There needs to be a tangible risk for players who go down. IFAB and FIFA could go a couple of directions with this. Sure, they could allow investigations after the game and provide for suspensions. I think it opens you up to additional accusations of bias, makes for an additional error point, and half the players probably aren't thinking beyond the current game anyway. I'd still welcome it as an improvement, though. What I'd rather see is a move that could be easily and fairly enforced and could be justified by concerns for player safety. If you require treatment on the field, you are out for ten minutes while they check you out and patch you up. We wouldn't want to endanger the health of our players, and if you're writhing around on the ground in pain, you DEFINITELY, CERTAINLY have something wrong with you and for your own safety you need to be checked out for ten minutes. Maybe just five minutes if you're already down a man so the truly injured don't make it worse when they should be getting some help. Maybe it would be harsh and would change the dynamics of the game, but soccer already makes a lot of compromises that prevent the game from going down 100% fairly. I enjoy watching people actually play soccer, not abuse loopholes in the rules with dishonest and (more importantly) BORING gamesmanship.
Yup, and I don't mind it nearly as much as purposeful fouls in the NBA to stop the clock and send him to the line, or even taking a knee to run out the clock in the NFL (this drives me nuts, and only the Cowboys should be allowed to do it).
I find it much more annoying than either of those. The NBA example still has negative consequences for the player who fouls and generally results in the team that's ahead getting MORE points, and both of your examples are the natural outflow of sports without running clocks. If they banned kneeling it, then teams would simply "fall" down until someone touched them. Also, both the NBA and NFL are purely clock management. There's no faking involved. Intentional fouls and kneeling it are just slightly boring phases of a decided game. Diving and embellishment are stains on soccer, and someone should try harder to clean them up, because it is absolutely NOT the players' responsibility to do so. They are supposed to win, and if writhing around helps with that, they're going to keep doing it until the rules change (as well they should).
A tie... I didn't get to see it, but when I checked the score at the grocery store and they were up 1-0, there was a bit of eye rolling and "not this again" going through my head.
I'm so pissed right now. If one of these assholes could finish we're looking at a win and only 2 points behind Vancouver with them coming to town next game. I know Jackson scored but man did he ******** up two of our best chances. And maybe we could have done a little better with a couple of those balls in the box if we would have had two forwards on the field. I know, I know, that's a little too risky when you pretty much have to win. Better keep four defenders and two defensive mids on the field.