Did I hallucinate or did I just read Ben Olsen played for United? I just read on ESPN's soccer page that Ben Olsen played for United's loss from halftime on. It also went on to say that Eddie Pope played offence? Is something in my coffee? Who saw the game and can varify what the hell happened and if Ben and Eddie played well doing whatever they were doing?
Ben played about 30 minutes during hte 2nd half...had the best scoring chance of the game and blew it...and then he got subbed out for Eddie Pope at the end and pope played forward...
Re: Re: Did I hallucinate or did I just read Ben Olsen played for United? Yes, thanks a lot, you ruined the game for me! It wasn't on TV in the DC area, only on AM radio in Spanish. I recorded the broadcast on cassette and I was going to listen to it today, even though I don't understand Spanish. When will you people learn!? Just kidding ;-) Anyway, I was actually at the game. Ben Olsen came in as a 2nd half sub for the inept Roy Lassiter. Olsen had not played a match in 18 months. He was rusty but he added a spark. When Olsen tired in the 75th (?) minute, Eddie Pope came in. I noticed that he stayed up top and he didn't come back to his usual position in defense. At first I was confused, thinking that my one too many beer had caused me to mix up which direction United was going. But then I realized that Pope was indeed playing center forward. Amazing.
The clock has now started for Ben Olsen to get back into pre-injury form, where he the inside track to be the National Teams Right Midfielder. Probably his main compition right now is Santino Quaranta. Unless someone else can come up with another Right-sided midfielder? Remember, Landon will be either a forward or an a-,id, and Earnie stewart is pretty much done.
I thought he looked pretty dangerous. He had several opportunities. As to be expected, he was sucking wind before he came off.
Maybe they should try Rimando at forward. can't be much worse at finishing then the rest of the team. Rimando and Pope, what a site that would be.
It was amazing! A big home-town welcome for Ben. Now yes we're just waiting until he can get back to the starting line-up and maybe even the national team again, but he needs to work on his fitness. (He was winded about 10 minutes in)
What is Kovalenko's "cap" status? Has this been hashed out thoroughly? If so, sorry. He's fairly young and at times looks extremely talented and at others disappears. The sort of player that in four years might have put it all together. I don't think you can rule out Donovan at right-mid either. It might come down to a question of whether you want to take your five best attackers and find places to put them (A bit of what BA was up against in SoKo, looking for ways to get all of Mathis, Beasley, Donovan, Wolff and McBride on the field) or to instead try and pick the spots first and then pick the best for those spots.
I was surpised as hell to tune into the game and see Olsen running around during the game in uniform. It is good to see him back.
This is excellent news. I had thought he woudld be out until the last couple games of the season at the earliest. As for the Right Wing (conspiracy), the possible plotters are Ben Olson, John Thorrington, Claudio Reyna (I think he may move to the right in the next WC)...urggh, I had a couple more in my head, but now I've lost the plot.
I'm sure he felt out of place but he didn't look it. Eddie's been known to score a goal or two and I think RH was just looking for a spark and perhaps someone tall up front to look dangerous on crosses. I'm sure this was a one time deal and we won't see Eddie as a striker again. TS.
I thought Eddie made some surprisingly strong one-touch passes up there. It was starting to get very crowded at that end of the field by then.
It was a smart desperation move by Hudson to try Eddie up front -- first off, because when you haven't scored a goal in 300-some minutes trying anybody new at forward is a good idea. But also, we'd been getting lots of good crosses into the box, but Quintinilla and Olsen had both been too short to get to them dangerously, and Lassiter too crappy to connect with anything (my grandmother would have been more effective). Eddie had the hight to put something in if it came to him, but once he was in, the high balls stopped coming. Maybe we'll try Rimondo up top against Chicago, see if that works any better.