Yeah there's still this glorified friendly... With SPR in the USL final I assume we won't see any of them brought in.
Embarrassment may be a bit of a stretch, considering A) pretty much no one will see the game on tv anyway and B) other than the die hards who already joke about the moniker no one really cares about the CCL.
I disagree. Two years ago turnout was pretty good for the two home games. It wasn't league good but it was really respectable. Would love to see what it would like if we could successfully navigate out of group again and make a run. Unfortunately I don't think we'll be in this again for the forseeable future.
Those games meant something. This game is meaningless for SKC, not sure what it means to Central FC. If SKC was still in contention I think there would be a crowd. I'm not really sure what to expect for this game.
Oh yeah I agree with that. When they are meaningful, people care. But I think in general people are sourpuss on CCL because every year it shows how far the league has to go when it sometimes struggles against Central American and teams like "Central FC". And drawing another MLS team in our group was bad luck. Starting group play when the team was already stricken in panic mode didn't help either.
Embarrassing for who? No one watches the CCL since it's on a freakin' Facebook stream. This competition is a joke.
It was a just a tongue in cheek remark about the goofy "soccer capital of America" moniker thrown out by the SKC PR people.
So, anyone with in-depth knowledge of the Rangers want to make a stab at an 11 for tomorrow? FWIW, if Mapp is ambulatory, I'm starting him as a traffic cone on the wing.
Assuming we can't use any SPR players, we're not going to be able to rest all of our starters. Appiah and Alvarado are on loan to SPR. Not sure if they get recalled for this one or not. Salloi, Palmer-Brown, and Anor are on loan to other clubs. (Anor was on loan to Minnesota United FC, whose season is now over. I have no idea whether his loan is now concluded and he could play for us or not, though.) Davis, Mapp, Rubio, Myers, and Olum are injured. That leaves: F: Dwyer, Zusi, Peterson, Porter, Hallisey M: Feilhaber, Espinoza, Mustivar, Nagamura, Joya D: Besler, Opara, Nuno, Ellis, Abdul-Salaam, Medranda, Sinovic G: Melia, Kempin, Kann So the least-starter-heavy line-up we could throw out there is: Porter - Peterson - Hallisey Joya - Nagamura - Mustivar Sinovic - Opara - Nuno - Abdul-Salaam Kann And the bench would be 7 of {Dwyer, Zusi, Feilhaber, Espinoza, Besler, Ellis, Medranda, Kempin} You could possibly swap out Sinovic for Medranda or Ellis for Opara/Nuno. But yeah, that still gives Mustivar and Abdul-Salaam a start, and a very, very, very starter-heavy bench. I'd love to be a fly on the wall listening to Vermes' pre-game for this one.
Well, despite my frustration with having just typed all that up, six players coming in gives us a ton more breathing room. Probably don't need to worry about starters seeing any minutes anymore.
It took a 90th minute penalty kick, but Hallisey finally has his first career goal ( in quite possibly his final game for SKC). KC win 3-1. I thought Selbol looked good. Opara looked extremely poor on the Central goal, was 3 yards behind the rest of the defense, held Trinidad player onside.
For a game that did not matter to anyone, that was fun. As for Hallisey scoring a goal, let me turn to Mr. Paul Simon for comment: Days of miracle and wonder, indeed.
For anyone that cared about us winning - you are welcome. I brought my parents to their first Sporting match and my young kids came too. By halftime, and after going down a goal, everyone but me had had enough, so we left and missed the comeback. So barring a playoff win, I won't see the team win this season. The 7.5 matches I attended have been a highly disappointing show of Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday performances. Short of a playoff story, I'm signing off until next year. Have a great winter. n.b. I'm really hoping the squad will have some legitimate new talent next year and will play more than 2 Saturday matches after the second day of April.
A pity PK for an obviously pitiful player. He needed to go a year ago. It's not his fault for sucking but it is Vermes' fault for sticking with him for so long.