2022 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup [R]

Gonzalez? Really? Not Bell?

 

In the middle of a busy week for both teams, I expect they'll both be sprinkling in roster players - so we won't know till lineups are announced who looks stronger. I do think it's not going to be a typical home game for NYC - due to different surface and field dimensions. Given that the Revs are more experienced with field turf, it's a fairly neutral-ish site.

 

Fair enough.

 

Well, this is a phone-it-in lineup.

 

Well, that was absolutely pathetic. The Revs were horrible and gave the ball away constantly and were no threat at all on offense. Really disappointed that Arena didn't treat this game seriously and field a team that could compete. Worst Revs game I've watched in years.

 

I get why they took the second team approach, even if as a fan I wish they'd taken more of a "play your best lineup" approach. Another trophy opportunity lost.

 

Really was pleased with what I saw from Petrovic but I couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking when he saw the $hit show in front of him... Was he thinking, "What have I gotten into by signing here?"?

 

To be fair, he's played with Revs 2 already, so he's seen most of those guys before. If he was wondering anything, I bet it was whether anyone in the US cares about the Open Cup (given the lineup and the field they were playing on).

 

I didn't see the final number but at half it was something like 72% possession for NYCFC. Our 2nd team just couldn't hang with theirs. I expected more with Polster and Maciel in midfield.

Rennicks put in a good effort despite the lack of build up play to him. In the 1st or 2nd stoppage time he had a gut busting run with I think Gray from NYCFC and beat him to a through ball that I thought he had no business getting to. Good sign for his stamina.

Esmir looked pretty raw but I can see the talent there. Hopefully he gets up to speed with the decision making as he integrates in more with the 1st team.

 

The thing that bothers me is that Bruce went for it against Cincinnati with a pretty strong lineup and then put that lot out there last night. If he had done the reverse I would have understood. It makes sense using a stronger lineup as you progress in the tournament. This brought back memories of the Nichol days when he wanted nothing to do with the non-league matches. I kept thinking "Why am I watching this when the Celtics are on". I did record the Celtics and watched it afterwards.

Long clear
Take a quick breath
Scramble defending
Repeat...

Rennicks worked is butt off and so did Polster but between them I was surprised they finished with 11 on the field.
Maciel was invisible
Esmir shows promise. I wish he had taken that ball down instead of trying to head it in.

 

Yeah, I was thinking much the same last night too. Why not run out the second stringers last weekend or this weekend, and bring out Gil, Buksa, and the heavy hitters against NYC? We are able to overcome missing three points in the standings. We cannot overcome getting knocked out of a knockout competition.

 

Looked to me like both coaches colluded to use the same plan: use mainly backups to shorten the game to 25-30 minutes, then bring on a bunch of the main guys.

Clearly their backups were a lot better than ours - at least in critical areas regarding having some midfield control and minimal possession. But, I think Arena's gamble paid off in that it was still a scoreless game at the point when it was time to bring in some 1st teamers. And the, particularly when Bou came in, we started to get some reasonable chances.

But, we had 2 or 3 real chances to score and didn't finish them. Farrell turned it over in the extra time and we were playing from behind.

In the end, Arena used just about everyone except Turner (but Petrovic filled in just fine), Buksa and Gil, but Gil is the critical piece that we were missing all game.

 

I'll also add that, as usual, NYC relied on fouling to disrupt our attack any time we managed to go forward.

 

Normally I'd agree with this but since we got off to such a bad league start, we are still in the zone of us not being able to afford to go any games without points; at least until we steer the boat into safer waters.

 

I think the bad league start played into the decision to go with almost a full set of starters against CIN. My guess is Arena wanted to build some momentum coming off the 2-2 home tie with CLB.

 

I didn't mind having the kids play last night. I did mind how poorly they played. That wasn't an encouraging sight. The bright spot was the goalie, Petrovic played well.

I'm going to repeat myself, the Rev's shape is not good. They are easily pulled out of shape, then they aren't in a position to support their teammates. I think NYCFC does a very good job maintaining their shape. I believe that is one of the reasons that they were always intercepting the Revs passes. That and the fact that some of the Revs passes were to no one in particular.

 

I guess I don't feel as negatively as everyone else about how the Revs played. Given that they threw out a scratch lineup, including a guy who I had literally never heard of (Reveno), it counts as a success for that approach that they were able to keep the game scoreless into extra time.

And NYCFC fielded a much stronger lineup, one with four or five starters, not just one.

So in the end, a reasonably close game, away, to maybe the best team in the league? It was a loss, sure, but hardly a humiliation.

 

I thought he did a decent job in the back.