2019 Regular Season Thread

Yeah, I'll take a point on the road with 2nd teamers. I think it is testament to the system that rookies, newbies and 3 guys recovering from injury were able to step on the field and start so brightly. Things fell off a bit and the inexperience showed. Armas was able to use some careful substitution to preserve the point and ensure rotation of non-goalie starters, ahead of Tuesday's game vs. Santos.

 

Yep, just about sums it up. I’ll add that the playing time the back ups and youngsters will help down the line.

 

http://www.mls.show/podcast/s2e5 says we are the betting favorites to win MLS Cup. One of the two men who does the podcast is an Orlando City fan who is mad that the odds thinks Orlando City is worse than San Jose.

 

Based on Tuesday's performance, that sure seems like a long shot.

 

Agreed. Atlanta is still talented but may be self-destructing this year (I expect Martinez to depart by summer), United are on the rise, but there are a lot of dregs in the East this year. NYRB should be able to reach the top echelon again this year, I'm not convinced they are well tooled to win anything, but they are solid and well balanced. BWP is beginning to show his age (particularly in the mobility department). Kaku is the real wild card, as the winter drama may provide a backdrop for future outbursts. There are many reasons to be optimistic, but definitely some red flags, too.

 

Until MLS removes territorial rights, it will be hard for NYRB to sign youth players in the quantity of which you're talking. It is my understanding that their Academy is already a pretty tough place for a young player to get established.

One big problem is that local management is hamstrung by having to coordinate with RB AG for all significant decisions, e.g. DP signings. That said, finding enough minutes to develop all the players to which you're referring is difficult. Youth players can play up with RB2, but RB2 level players cannot play down, i.e. if you're signed to a professional contract, you can't play academy games. That said, RB2 look to be also pretty talented this year. Given how much more limited 1st team time will be this season, Woly has a chance to keep most of the group together, and that doesn't include sending down the likes of Brian White and Derrick Etienne (Omir Fernandez may have just stolen most of his minutes). Both Reece Buckmaster and Alex Yannes appear to be legit prospects, and both Epps and Koffi look like they are good depth signings at need positions.

I agree that the club needs to go back to shopping around Concacaf for some more prospects, Pantoja looked like they had at least a CB worth bringing in for a look. It is one thing to bring a lot of players in on trial, and I think they do some of that throughout the season, but no more CCL is going to put a further bottleneck on minutes, and without quality minutes, it is difficult to properly develop players.

 

Well there are roster restrictions, not sure on the total number, or salaries. But RB2 carrying even a few 18-20 year olds at I'm going to say $100K a pop is quite a bit of money on a roster that is probably paid less than the total of those handful combined. If they are that talented, with MLS potential, then their current club will want some money to part with them, further driving up the cost. There's a pretty long list of players who fit this category, and most of them are gone, the latest of whom include Cristian Casseres (who I've cooled on) and Alex Yannes. Yannes played well against Swope Park last weekend. Management has seemed to have cooled on such signings, but exploited MLS contacts to pick up Koffi and Epps.

I just think you're going to have difficulty properly developing 4 players at one position, the most even good clubs can manage is usually 2 at 1 or even 3 at 2. For me it's just a numbers game. With the parent club carrying 28 players only 14 of whom get to actually play games, plus another three who ride the pine, this means 9-12 players in search of PT. At most they have room for a couple more players. That doesn't include the, by my count, 13/28 players listed for RB2 who are not also MLS rostered. With the players on the verge of MLS quality getting the bulk of the minutes, the club is lucky if they have 3-4 players TOTAL who fall into the category of developing for the pro level. Now if you double that, maybe it pushes out the rest of the college/free-agent signees. I would also add that there are already players like Etienne, who may be busts, but at a minimum could get sent down for minutes as a 2nd chance. Him and Kyle Duncan were slumming it in the crowd at the RB2 match on Saturday, but Derrick better starting upping his game, or he's going to get cut loose. Bezecort and Valot both saw some time, too, as they are still coming back from injury.

Last year the club had three season ending injuries among key role players. While that is bad news, and yes, signing at least one replacement for those players would have been helpful (although, I would have said Valot was the biggest loss), it can also be said that having that happen every year is unlikely. Even if true (oh, so Metro), signing three replacement players every year also isn't practical as it overloads the club.

 

Second half we seemed to have finally broken the finishing problem. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Attendance was awful as well as certain sections tarped off. Shows you won’t even try to increase attendance. I was embarrassed being there for a home opener so sparsely attended.
Finally, my goodness, can Kenmar please hurry up and get well lol

 

1. Definitely positioning, or even concentration. He did better in the 2nd half, but Long also gave him more help. FWIW, this was a deliberate tactic by San Jose, as Murillo had similar issues. Evidently, the scouting report mentioned our backs get up into attack quite a bit and the Quakes kept exploiting that weakness, all game long.

2. Valot was out for about 2/3 of last year with a knee injury, not sure if it's the same one. I would hate to speculate as to what's wrong, but have to feel a great deal of sympathy for the guy as he had just been getting back to full fitness. This is one are where the NY press does not seem to do a very good job, it's probably going to be a few days before we know exactly what's wrong, hope it's just a sprain.

 

There's an opportunity cost problem that the club needs to solve. Clearly the club is trying to be family friendly, but this time of year, playing a match in mid-afternoon on sunny, but windy and chilly day just doesn't add up. I'd bet that on average the afternoon games just don't draw as well. But so don't the weeknight games that start at 7pm. And still the club continues to schedule those games. I'm sure part of it is TV scheduling. OTOH, people with families have too many other things to do for those games schedule in the off times. Scheduling against basketball tournament games doesn't help, especially when that's an option inside where it's warm.

I would add in that the gameday operations have been revised in a particularly unhelpful way. I went through two different vendor lines and both were difficult, unpleasant experiences. They are understaffed and poorly organized. And that was on a day with low attendance. I can only imagine the mess that will be created when City fans show up for their match and overwhelm the beer line. It's going to be nightmare.

 

They need to bring in new leadership for media, marketing and operations. Sadly, I think the concessions stuff is a self-inflicted wound. They seem to have revised things to make them more streamlined, but putting in kiosks and dropping staff are not a solution when it's clear that the system is insufficient to handle even a moderate crowd.

The club just doesn't have much of a footprint in the New York media, and it's hard to generate much fan interest without being able to get a decent helping of that airspace. The product on the field is of high quality, and gameday experience is generally good, but the organization seems to be run by amateurs.

 

The fact is our fan base is too small and a bunch of pu$$!es to not show up in this weather.
Obviously they need to market way better and way more. I’ve also felt they should do a heavy marketing strategy for the immediate local area of Newark Kearney and Elizabeth and see if they can develop a sort of “our neighborhood team” vibe you see all around the world. Eg: Boca Juniors base is the Boca section of BA, West Ham is east London. It probably goes against the idea that we’re called NY but I think it could improve the atmosphere In RBA. Sort of this really is my home team and your club and fans are not winning here. Still market everywhere of course.

 

My wife and I get to attend the game this weekend, but with the PATH station closed at WTC we aren't familiar how to get to Exchange Place from Manhattan (or any way to get on PATH and get to Harrison). Advice is welcome!

(We're staying around 53rd/7th, in case that makes a difference.)

 

BigSoccer is on the internet too.

I thought PATH was only the red line and the others were part of some other system. I've been to games before but obviously given my inquiry from WTC to Harrison and not some better route.