Maren Meinert's two goals, sandwiched in between Devvyn Hawkins' first tally of the year, sent the Nickerson Field home opener crowd toward the exit happy with a 3-1 thrashing of the Charge. Final stats: Shots: 10-6, PHL SOG: 6-5, PHL Fouls: 13 each Offsides: 4-1, BOS Corners: 3-1, BOS Saves: 5-2, BOS The Charge's scoring famine of nearly 400 minutes (including injury time) going back to the next to last regular season game of 2002 at Atlanta came to a merciful end when Melanie Hoffman scored in injury time on a penalty kick. Since the beginning of a result thread should be just the facts, I'll leave the opinions for later on... Paul
Less than ideal conditions at Nickerson left the 3,823 fans and XXX staff and volunteers feeling the joys of April weather in New England... but not without brilliant plays. I missed 2 of the goals- Maren's, but was told that the first was a BRILLIANT cross that Maren just nailed. 2nd Boston- Hawkins finished a nifty series of passes during which Boston possessed the ball fabulously- and her head was in the right place! It really was sweet... 1st goal, 1st time in Boston Blue at home.. way to go Dev! She worked her tail off ALL night... offensively and defensively- truly defensively, and it was a stellar performance- with a bang up (tweak of a knee?) ending.. 3rd- Meinert- again, I was busy..missed it. 4th- Philly's PK with about 60 seconds left in stoppage time. Interesting.. Arrington (??) was coming forward (maybe it was Hoffman).. clearly a breakway... and Karina and Gonzo go back.... Gonzo's on KK's right..and KK comes out..but didn't look too decisive on her decision. Ref was right there. Called the penalty immediately. PK. Boom. Pinchon went off in the 55th-60th minute- left knee. Scasna (?) left, too- Fair came in. When Fair came in the game seemed to pick up. I'm hesitant to say Boston was offsides 4 times. Okay, I may be biased, but one was clearly VERY close- and I was near enough to question it. Another time..ahh... speedy Dagny.. sigh.. would have had Moore 1:1 and Moore likely had no chance........................ Really a shame. Mugneret-Beghe was on fire... speedy, crafty, wow!!!!!! Just all over the field..... McDowell was loosing possession quite a bit... With the amount of new faces in Philly's line up, it was difficult to keep track of them... hence my Boston-loaded notes. Let alone the rain... which let up CONSIDERABLY from the hours before the game. It was slow and steady, but the wind played a BIG factor... some of the goal kicks were iffy .... Moore was playing them down low... and that really made a difference. Boston's crosses were well done..and they were spreading the field nicely... really well done So who would have thunk it.. Boston 3-1 at the start of the season.
Ugh. We'll have to rely on the Breakers forum for on-site reports as to how ugh-ish it was for us tonight. The sole silver lining was that the scoring drought is ancient history. But without Iverson and Lihong, the Charge are just not the same team they were last year. Unfortunately, Melissa may have played herself onto the bench next weekend. How long will the McVeigh experiment continue before a decision is made to put Tullock in the back? It seems like a 4-4-2 was in place last night, so if confirmed, that's a positive step. Two of the next three games are against the Power, who dismantled the Courage tonight. The bleeding has to stop, and with the doom and gloom on the BS WOOSA boards that this may be the final season, Saturday's as good a time as any. I'm not going to say it's a must-win, you should decide for yourselves, those who still post here, whether or not it is. The Charge, at this stage of the game, are simply not a playoff team. Paul
Paul, Should I have posted that in the Breakers forum?? I'm sorry... Really, it was an on-site account. Hmm... Pinchon was walking after the game.. Players were taking knocks all 2nd half.. Slick conditions.. (monsoon rains before the game) left the field........... yeah. It was steady slow rain with bad winds... the corner flags touched the ground a few times, and the side boards were blown in and out a few times... eek! I overhead a comment about Philly possessing the ball well in the 1st half..... hmm... not so sure I can comment on that. 2nd half.. last 30 minutes or so Philly was attacking like a hungry wolf pack.... Boston rarely retained possession..and was lucky to have clearances by McCann and Hawkins... Gonzalez, too... McCann's head came up big for Boston a few times... Philly beat McDowell a number of times by a step or two....
Well, I just got back from the match,played in brutal conditions.The game was closer than the score showed.Maren Meinert's first goal was off an incredible through ball from Stephanie Mugneret-Beghe. It did seem that Philly went into a bit of a funk after the early score. Marinette didn't make herself known out there.Did she have a shot on goal? I didn't see it. Boston plays a much more direct game than they did last year and Hawkins is a great addition in the middle. Weymouth Dave
No, no BS has been slow for me tonight, so I thought there would be something in the Boston forum first. your description is most appreciated. Hopefully we can fix what needs to be fixed in short order. We couldn't coax out of you how you thought McVeigh did, could we?? Paul
McVeigh..hmm.. no. Again- with so many new faces, I was trying to remember all of Boston's numbers and names- let alone Philly's. And from a distance Makinen and Scasna and Hoffmann are all easily mixed up. I do recall Tullock doing well..very well.. to the point where I mentally asked, "Hey..who's that no. 15?" Just general defensive work that was steady..and there.. and constant.. I'm sure Krik and the team will be at work in the next day or two... figuring it all out. Benny was a fiend out there... left, right, fast, up, down... I think if she could have taken the game under her own feet, she would have. Tietjen-Prozzo- doing her best.. again, really cr**y conditions...but not as steady as I've seen her in the past....... Took a knock in the 2nd half I believe- I know Scasna went down (and later came out), and another Philly-ian.. but perhaps it wasn't her. Long night..cold..tough to see... fierce wind...rain... ugh.... to make it out alive is a gift!
Maybe Borisjuk is the answer in the back; that way you leave Tullock at midfield. Paul (wondering where all the Charge fans are.... )
Feeling not connected to this group of players at all. Those coaches who keep a bigger core of players are having more success and keeping their fan base. I miss McDowell, I miss Martin, I even miss Kerry Connors. Mc Veigh seems a mistake, Makinen is weak and Smith and Pichon need to pick it up.
"I'm not overly thrilled..." From http://www.philadelphiacharge.com/356421.html Coach K: "I'm not overly thrilled with our group tonight. We didn't go out and compete tonight. The effort that we expect just was not there tonight for us. I don't think the effort was there from us tonight, and I think Boston took advantage of it." The 2-minute goal by Meinert: "We really dug ourselves an early hole tonight [with Meinert's early goal], and it's a tough one to come back from. We didn't help ourselves at all.... I think it's the effort. It simply wasn't good enough. The first goal, we didn't pressure the ball, and the cross [from McDowell] was good." On the D: "The second goal shouldn't have happened. Hawkins just sort of slipped inside. We had good numbers back. Mellgren put in a nice cross, but we have to be able to get that ball out....Meinert found an awful lot of space out there. We made it pretty easy for her, but give her full credit. She's one of the best in the league, even in the world, at finding the space between the midfield and the defense. She had a great game for them tonight.” Kelly Smith: "[Our effort] wasn't good enough for this level." Coach K on Pichon's injury: "Her knee bruised up during halftime. To her credit, she wanted to give it a go in the second half. We saw that she wasn’t going to be able to give it a go, so we substituted her. We’ll have to wait and see how she’s feeling next week." So, what next? "We have to go back to the drawing board. There are all sorts of excuses that we can use with the weather and what not, but we have to look past this game and prepare for next week." Paul
Don't know why. Someone who was at the game suggested the team picked up when Fair did come in for Smith. No Monroe, either, but maybe she's not ready for full action as well-she did have a second ankle *reconstruction* last fall. I would tweak the roster in this way - move Kruze to the developmental squad, and have Maso de Moya and Borisjuk as reserves. Then start Borisjuk in the back Saturday and have McVeigh come off the bench, if need be. Paul
Well, I went to the Boston game but I didn't get to the game until the 67th minute. Apparently, people in CT never had rain before and it was a soft drizzle. Besides that the GW Bridge was slow and the turnpike was atrocious. It took about five hours on the way back and I stopped for about 20 minutes total so Mapquest was technically right. Anyway, I left at 1:00 and I didn't get there to about 8:20. From what I could tell the field wasn't the best. People told me that it slowed down the ball considerably. The wind was tough. The penalty was rather cheap in that had it had happened anywhere else on the field it probably would not have been a foul. But you can't be too agrressive in the box. Arrington looked quite fast out there in such conditions. Anyway, I wouldn't take this defeat too hard. Next week will be easier.
monroe's ankle is fine. She played in the scrimmage against the college players. WIth the addition of Fair, monroe didn't even dress. Don't know why he's not playing her, but if you look at the games last year, all ones she started or played at least half they won. They lost the ones she wasn't in. Lets see if history repeats itself.
There had to be changing of personnel, but only time will determine if these changes are the right ones. What I was more concerned about are the injuries; three of the first four picks we chose all had varying injury of one sort or another. Paul
I spoke briefly with Coach K before the pre-game "warm-ups" (or was that "wet-downs"). He did not specifically address the Fair issue, but the gist of what he said leads me to believe that he went with the team that had practiced together all week. Fair added nothing to the Charge game when she came in for Pichon. After 36 minutes on the pitch she still had all noughts on the stat sheet.
Myself and Erica enjoyed ourselves tremendously, along with 150 of our Spring campers. Mark's arrogance is so blatant. perhaps he'll soon realize that he is only as good as his players. Poor Melissa was left without any kind of cover at least a dozen times and the whole team effort was shocking. Anyway, EI is doing well and loving life on CCod. Topsy
It's good to hear about you and Erica; needless to say, she is sorely missed, and we do wish you the best - are youse married already, cause I had heard this *coming* September. right? Or not? At any rate, it's just the second game, and the Beat and Freedom this go-round look a lot like us last year - the jury is still out on if they'll peak too soon as we did then. Paul
I watched the Courage v Power game about 3 to 4 times already and I tell you what...they are an improved team than the Power team we all saw in week one. I watched the Freedom v Power game about the same number of tiems as well. Raveia and Boxx are forces in the air. Those two are straight up studs. I know Charge! brought up several weeks ago about the Power's supposed dominant size but I only saw it with Raveia and Boxx. They seemed to be playing with alot more energy than the Courage on Saturday night. I wonder if that will transfer over this upcoming Saturday. As always Millie will be a handful. And Welsh was finally able to notch a goal on a very nice individual effort. It was probably nice of her to get that monkey off her back. Janss may be giving your defense fits as well. In the past couple of matches I have seen she had some near goals inside the 18.