This year was a Covid infused mess, last season they set all kinds of league records. I HATE LAFC, but its way too soon to make final judgements... If anything that “success” is their biggest enemy as they keep getting raided for their talent.. thats not a Bob issue..(cant explain the Zimmerman mistake)
Zimmerman was traded for $1 million in allocation money and an international slot but it also saved them from the best part of $2.4 million in salary payments. I can only think that they had someone in mind to replace him. It will be ironic if NSC win the MLS Cup.
I think any MLS team takes the offer from Nashville at the amounts they offered. Only an expansion team with all the extra Garberbucks could even hope to make that offer.
Due to watching this US match against the Netherlands, I just realized the yellow teams are playing each other on Sunday.
I never thought of Nashville as a forgettable place. When it comes to sports, it is. I thought it would be much easier to forget Columbus, but I'm surprised by Nashville existing every time I see them.
********. In a panic, I could not remember if they were a team. I actually looked it up. I remembered they opened a stadium this season.
Being in the Western Conference while being physically closer to every team in the East is challenging.
They've been in the USL Championship final the last 3 times its been played. But its sort of halfway between Columbus and Nashville.
Just noticed that the conference finals is on the 6th.. that’s not much time for a reschedule... they could push it back to the 2nd maybe..
Yes and no. As I said in my earlier post, I think a significant part of the problem is roster construction, in that they used all three DP spots on attacking players. You can get away with a mediocre defense in the regular season in MLS, because you play a lot of other mediocre teams. But you can't in the playoffs against teams like the Sounders, who are good in attack AND very sound defensively.
News conference scheduled for a tad after 2 pm today. Scuttlebutt is Nashville is planning to travel to Columbus today and that no new positives came up with Friday's tests. Testing complete for today, awaiting results.
From the news conference: 1) Porter says virus is contained, according to experts. Game On. 2) All 6 who tested + are asymptomatic, safe, & feeling good. 3) Did not say if starting XI was impacted. Santos & Artur at presser. Worst case scenario for Crew: Zelarayan, Zardes, Mensah, Nagbe, Room, Josh Williams. Best case: Kempin, Lampson, Lillard, Adi, Berry, Hamilton. Or no starters.
Well, our local intrepid Crew reporter tweeted out a list of 7 players who are "not medically cleared to play" tomorrow. I guess we had an additional positive test today, but the club said it was an "expected positive" and the player had already isolated. The list: 1) Starting GK Eloy Room 2) Starting RM Derrick Etienne Jr 3) Backup LB Waylon Francis (on bench last match) 4) Reserve CM Sebastian Berhalter (not on bench last match) 5) Reserve GK Jon Kempin (not on bench last match) 6) Reserve F Miguel Berry (not on bench last match) 7) Starting CB Vito Wormgoor (already on DL) Almost a perfect cross section of the roster: 2 starters, 1 player who makes the gameday roster, 1 guy who might make the bench but has not recently, 2 who definitely would not, and a guy already on the DL. Losing Room and Etienne sucks, but it could have been a LOT worse. Tarbell has been pretty good in his starts this year (though not as good as Room). Etienne had a beautiful assist on the game winning goal last week. Will be interesting to see what Porter does at RM. Diaz probably. Could be Boatang or Mokhtar. Maybe even Cadden or Nemeth. Or Jimenez. Heck, or Afful could move up from FB. Or Santos could play inverted on the right and one of those guys could play on the left.
It’s a damn nice stadium, too. I think I remember they were the first game I saw post-lockdown that had fans, which was a bit of a shock.
It is nice. 11,600 seats and total capacity over 15k. They even updated their crest and logo to go with the new stadium. Lou City is probably the standard bearer for 2nd division soccer in the US right now.