Here's the injury report as of tonight. PHILADELPHIA CHARGE: DOUBTFUL - M Pavlina Scasna (L foot tendonitis). WASHINGTON FREEDOM: QUESTIONABLE - F Jacqui Little (R ankle sprain); PRBOBABLE - D Lindsay Stoecker (concussion); D Emmy Barr (R knee bruise); D Steffi Jones (R ankle sprain). Only doubtful? Maybe it wasn's as bad as we thought.
Is this some sort of Philadelphia Charge forum cost-cutting move in sympathy with the WUSA's cost cuts? Or are people just conceding something? *runs for cover*
Doubtful is still one step below 'out', so don't plan on seeing her Saturday, I suspect. Truth is, it won't matter if Melissa, Hope or Oliver (Kahn, not Tse ) is in net at RFK, if the middle and back don't get their act together, it will be a very long day for us. I believe the clock should be ticking on how long Coach K is going to stick with Makinen and McVeigh before he ultimately has to go to his bench to replace them in the starting lineup. You want to see McVeigh against Wambach, especially after Abigail made the 'Nova field her own personal demolition derby last August 17? After thinking about it, I would give Melissa one more game to turn things around. If you bench her here, you torpedo whatever confidence she has left after Saturday's fiasco. Let her get one more chance to play the game she's capable of playing, for when she's on, she's as good as the anointed trinity of the Church of Heinrichs (Beene, Mullinix and Scurry). Moore Tietjen-Prozzo, Mitts, Borisjuk, Benson Monroe, Tullock, Fair Smith Arrington, Maso de Moya would be my lineup. Fred Shero, the late great Flyers coach once said if you don't use your bench, it will ultimately kill you. Saturday would be a good time to start using that bench. It's not circle-the-wagons time yet, but each setback will hasten that day quicker than the showdown between Buffy and the Potentials vs. The First on BtVS' final episode. A tie here would be a win, but that will be difficult sans Pichon. Paul
*whistles "here, Freedom fan, Freedom fan", whistles again* *whack* ;=D Paul (just kidding there, before anybody goes and reports this...)
yeah well if you call thomas hobbes and john stuart mill levity... if it weren't for the fact that i get about three emails per minute from bigsoccer i'd be burrowed away who knows where right now cramming...
Solo should only start when she's 100% healthy. I like Mitts & benson as wing-backs, with a 3-back set of Fair-Tietjen-Borisjuk. yikes! PHL need to win. Otherwise, it's zero out of a possible 12 points.
I tend to interpret the statuses of "out", "doubtful", "questionable", and "probable" as "won't play", "probably won't play", "may or may not play", and "probably will play", respectively. I don't know if you can say much more than that.
Id start moore, as adam noted that most of those goals she had nothing to do about, the bad pass back to the attacker really was the only BAD goal and that was questioned. I dont think anyone really would have stopped the other 4 goals, most of that was horrible defensive execution especally at the end with all the corners after the dive. Lest we forget she also had some very good saves. Id use solo at mitchell in 2 weeks, low pressure very little crowd a real good atomsphere to break in a rookie goalie. Id either bench McVeigh and wing fair and play Mitts at CD or play McVeigh at Dmid and go 3-5-2 although with no sacsna or pichon and smith hurting im not sure how that can be done. However you cant keep forcefeeding the same lineup you gotta make a change if only to get the team working and not sitting back on the dreaded moral victory, something that plagued the power last year. DCs a tough place to play but i did see a much better charge team than their first two efforts, need better continuity and team effort but thats something that can come, just ask the '01 crays who actually remind me alot of this year's charge, alot of talent, not alot of continuity early on, we all know what happened when that continuity was found. I dunno why i see this happening because it defies all logic but i see the charge earning their first point with a 3-3 tie, just do not see the team going 0-4 despite thier problems think they have too much character.
The Charge can't give DC the center of midfield, they'll kill the Charge... so Monroe comes on the chase Hamm into oblivion... I'd bet on that move... and get Tullock back into the middle... the problem is no pichon and scasna is questionable and smith knee, who knows what knock sends her out of the match.... all the signals say the charge have no chance at all... but there's been too many matches where the team with no chance beats a team who's looking past them... I suspect DC focus might not be as intense as it should be... and that's the chance the charge have, catching DC thinking they have the three points before the match starts.
DC had the weekend off, so they probably sat in the stands at 'nova & they came away with a few good ideas of how to beat the Charge. The excuse that the Charge need to gel is not a very good one. Consider that NY have as many, if not more, new faces, and they have 2 wins to show for it. Either certain players are playing in unfamiliar roles, or have no idea of what they're supposed to do, or just lack the character and the fight needed to play in this league. The team needs to play with more purpose and intensity. Skills & potential are good, but they have to make those attributes pay off in the field of play.
Arrington Smith Hoffmann Fair Tullock Monroe McVeigh Benson Titjen Mitts Moore I dunno i think McVeigh needs a game out of the CD spot so her mistakes dont wear on her, she plays strict DMID and can drop back into defense if needed, tullock plays holding mid with monroe hoffman and fair on the wing smith as a service forward with arrington as the finisher a bit of a diamond 3-5-2 that can morph into 4-5-1 if needed...and yes i know adam you are not big on 3 in the back but i think mcveigh needs a day off from being a strict DMid if she has any chance to delevop.
Does anyone know what position(s) McVeigh played in college? Being a rookie starter is hard enough, but starting a rookie at holding-mid if she hasn't played that position before is a daunting task. Besides learning and knowing individual players' tendencies. McVeigh playing in the middle of the defense is not as pressure-laden as the team's holding mid. Remember, the d-mid/holding-mid position is an island, where the player needs to have skills such as good vision, distribution, and organizing. Just from observing McVeigh contest/win balls (if she did) & how she distributed them afterwards was not very encouraging. The option of whacking balls upfield seem to outnumber the times she would distribute balls to the holding mid or outside backs.
It's the speed of play which is giving McVeigh all the trouble. If you watch her warm-up on the 5v5 drill, she looks perfectly fine. But in real time, at 100%, she's a step mentally slow, and her option is to whack the ball out of trouble. In the 2nd half, when the Charge were defensively right in front of me, she played better than she did in the first half. The key, to me, was the Charge had generally better possession, and McVeigh had time to breathe and think about what was happening. In the first half, NY had a dozen good penetrations into the box, and the overall lack of control of possession, I think hurt her. Krikorian has made a choice. It all depends on what McVeigh's learning curve is. My whole concern was giving away too much in the middle of midfield. If Monroe and Tullock were out there in front of McVeigh, I'd think McVeigh would be ok, sure she'd make some mistakes, but I think she has some ball skills and distribution to depend on. But a player needs confidence to exhibit those. And I doubt very much she's a confident player right now. A coach needs to put players in situations where their confidence can grow. That is NOT happening right now.
Yep we both agree that McVeigh is not yet ready for the speed of play at this level. It's actually a good idea that McVeigh is playing between experienced defenders. however, there's a big gaping hole in front of her because Makinen is clueless. Not the best situation for McVeigh to be in. Regardless, McVeigh needs to grow up fast.
"Doubtful is still one step below 'out', so don't plan on seeing her Saturday, I suspect." Right. Wasn't sure. Sometimes I get confused. But then again they said that Pichon was going to be out of Saturday's game at the beginning of last week. So who knows? Things may change. "If you watch her warm-up on the 5v5 drill, she looks perfectly fine. But in real time, at 100%, she's a step mentally slow, and her option is to whack the ball out of trouble." That sounds like a problem of experience. And having players of great ability like Mitts, Benson, and Tietjen surrounding her will be good. Now if you put a Tullock in front of her instead of a Makinen, things will be better. Smith as a laying back forward is the way to go. Having her in a position where she can pass or make the surprise shot is a very good idea.
But for how long do you want to wait on that before the button has to get pushed to find an alternative? On either Mak or McV? Paul
That's the Catch 22 of experience that I mentioned before. Anyway, I know this is the type of thing that bothers me but all of you should be a little concerned. Okay. On the Charge site as well as on the WUSA site, it says "On Tuesday, Pichon flew to Europe to report for national team duty as France prepares for a World Cup tune-up against Hungary on May 11 in Budapest. Due to the friendly, Pichon will miss the Charge’s match on Saturday against the Freedom, but it does give her a chance to catch up with her teammates on the French national team" Incorrect. It is not a tuneup nor is it a friendly. It is a European Qualifiction match. It counts. It is important. Also it is in Kecskemét which is a 45 minute drive from Budapest.
Cyber Soccer News' preview is up.... http://www.cybersoccernews.com/wusa/philadelphia/030507phl-wasadv.shtml Paul
Maybe there was no other major city they knew of which was closer, so they just fell back on Budapest, the RGB3 folks... And the Euro thing is in 2005, a full 2 years away. Paul