Can't wait to hear "we take the USOC seriously" next year even though it's now an established tradition to one and done this shiz. I'm sure Pablo/Fall will say we fielded a roster capable of winning and what they mean is we had more talent on the field than the other team. And man for man talentwise that is probably true but the difference is they had their first team guys who had played together before. We had a mixed bag of professionals that looked like they had never played a competitive match together before, because they hadn't. And boy did it show. You know they were just hoping we would take care of business anyway so that maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to play our top guys at all. Instead the Monarchs produced no offense, went down a goal, so then we had to put in our first team subs who had to chase the game and over exert themselves. The RSL masochist in me wants us to lose in Portland as well, just to hear the excuses. Side note, as much as I love watching RSL at the Riot the majority of the fanbase there is making it increasingly difficult. The Utah mantra of "boo the bad guy" is just so juvenile. Boo the ref, boo the away team because they are time wasting! RSL is the VICTIM! Ugh... wake up people. I'm not saying boo the home team but at least understand that they are the ones letting you down. Instead of being frustrated that the other team is wasting time maybe be frustrated at the team that constantly puts itself in that position in the first place. Also, whoever is in charge of the goal steam-technic celebration needs to practice some trigger discipline. Put a cover on that button because it's not going to be needed that often.
Because it’s the open cup against a third division side If our depth players can’t get a win (let alone a goal) then we have a problem also Ochoa, glad, Schmitt, and Rubin are/were all starters. Let’s not pretend the lineup was filled with nobody’s it also had players like loeffelsend and luiz who have contributed a lot to this team. The only real “inexperienced” players were Garcia (who you were ecstatic about playing), Davis, reedy and Pierre. That ratio should balance out well and give rsl a win it didn’t That falls on Pablo for preparation The players for extremely poor execution Overall the game being boring as shit
Trey put out a podcast today Well it appears last night It was recorded hours before the USOC game If you enjoy some serious cringe worthy moments then listen to it. Trey was convinced we were not only going to set an attendance record last night (if we did, it didn’t show on tv) but that we were about to go on a massive open cup run It’s hilarious
They gave STH's 4 free tickets in addition to their regular seats. I have 2 season tickets but I got 6 tickets to this game for free. I used 3 and sold 3 on AXS. So this game cost me negative $13.50. That feels about right. I'm sure there were a lot of seats that were "purchased" but not used.
My point was if the club really thought it was a priority, they would have played a couple more starters. Not the best XI, just a couple more than what they did. They could use the subs for the inexperienced players to hold the lead. The players plus tactics/formation was a really bad combo. Pablo definitely deserves criticism. I agree that maybe some of the guys should be worried about their roster spot. If they aren't good enough against 3rd division teams, they aren't good enough to be MLS backups. Schmitt at LB doesn't work, at any level; I wanted to see Brody. I thought Jasper should be at RB, Davis at RM, Chang at LM. (4-4-2) I liked the combo of Besler and Luiz, I don't know why Everton was on a minutes restriction but Besler wasn't., but I liked the flexibility Besler afforded at the end of the game. I did expect more from Rubin and Garcia, but the formation and personnel didn't lend themselves to getting the ball to them in good spots. Cordova was hyped to be a game changer. He wasn't much different from Reedy out there. I remain hopeful that the roster will be good enough for the USOC next year.
The Pollyanna stuff from RSL Show isn't much better. Having a hard time with one of the hosts commentating when he admits he doesn't watch the whole game.
So I went and watched the 2nd half of the RSL v Hailstorm game. Why? Soccer sadism I guess. Anyway, we went to the game and watched the first half. My wife went even though she wasn't feeling 100%. I was going to go alone but she was a trooper and decided to join me when I mentioned the gluten free pizza. She was like, yea, that sounds good. Get to the game no pizza so it was street tacos for her. Delicious. Me, I went with the J Dawg. Damn good dog. First time that I tried one. At the end of half time we went up to the team shop as they started playing. They had a good sale on with all clearance items another 50% off so why not? I was watching the equivalent of a going out of business sale anyway. The Store was relatively packed and as we were waiting in line RSL goes down a goal. I let my wife know that if she wanted to head home, considering it was a week night and etc. etc. and she said sure. If I was ok with it. I was definitely ok with it. I saw nothing in the first half or in the second watching on the monitors in the store that would have lead me to believe that RSL was going to put anything together to get back in the game. I also didn't want to go back and sit down and then have RSL score only once and then have to sit through extra time and possible PK's on a Wednesday night. Not gonna happen when I know the game is on ESPN+ and not blacked out so bonus. We left. If you're curious, $92 later, we left with a new 2022 RSL red jersey and one of the t shirts with the RSL lion on the front big with a bunch of little lions all over the shirt and some RSL earrings all for my wife. So all in all it was a good night.
The contrast from the rsl show and soapbox in terms of analysis is stark. One curious thing from the rsl show was a consistent talk of “this team started so strong and has only really had a bad run of 2 games”. That’s not true. The team hasn’t won in a month. That “amazing start” was 4 league games. RSL has played 4 league games since and just got 2 points. Granted, 3 of those games were on the road, but let’s not just forget the team lost to skc (which was somehow characterized as a “good loss” here but i specifically remember them taking a scythe to Everton and the way the team finished that game) and miraculously drew with the crapids It also was hilarious to hear Andy “too busy to watch games but not afraid to make sweeping statements” Munoz say that we can’t really analyze this team until 8 games in. um Who wants to tell him?
That seems like a very RSL thing to do I definitely would've either not posted the podcast, or cut out all the USOC stuff.
Anyone know when and if Northern Colorado plays their next open cup match? I cannot see anything past them beating us?
They lost in the next round to Union Omaha. In the list of results, they are just called "Hailstorm." Union Omaha is still alive in the round of eight (Sacramento Republic is the other lower division club still active). The MLS teams are LA Galaxy, New York and New York (who play each other), Orlando and Nashville, and SKC.