Simply a less than average team. They do this, they need to win and they falter. Three straight games they probably should have won, they win none of them.
United and Atlanta had the same number of shots on goal, 4. United had 19 shots. Atlanta had 6. Fajardo's shots were incredibly unbelievable for that level.
It sounded like they yelled three times. How better to show respect for the nation than making the anthem all about a fan cheer
From where we were sitting, it seemed pretty clear to me that the first goal where the ball was turned over looked like a shove down to get it that was massively egregious. It’s not like the right call there would’ve automatically changed the final result, but when it seems that obvious, it gets annoying.
Just embarrassing finishing. Fajardo ... I mean, he's helping create chances, but we're talking Conteh wasteful. Curtis wasteful. ... Pajoy wasteful? At least we did seem like the better team for long stretches tonight, but if we finish out of the playoffs by a point, this is one of those matches you rue. I hope we keep Pirani. I don't think you build around him, but he seems like the type who has a lot to show when he's surrounded by better players.
It's a bad/problematic poem set to an old foreign drinking tune. It might be okay to play with it a bit.
My son isn’t a real big sports fan, but to the extent he likes any sport, soccer is his favorite. But like I said, he doesn’t watch a lot of sports. But he’s smart and can read body language, and late in the first half he told me that whenever DC attacked, it looked like they knew it wasn’t going to work. If he were an English football announcer he would have said they lack self belief. It was an insightful comment. It’s only one game, but Fajardo was unspeakably bad. Is he a loan?
There's a club option for Fajardo next year. Their body language all season is horrible. They don't do well with adversity in general. Just look after a goal, before kickoff, they all stand with their heads down, hands on their hips, it's almost 100% of them all the time. Like everyone knows they're not going to get the goal back, which is likely more often than not. The only guy with any backbone that this team has had recently was Palisson who we either sat or played out of position, even if he played RB with Iceland. I'll bet he was thrilled to hop a flight to Liege, even if they're in the bottom half of the table, it has to be a better spot than here. BTW, yet another scoreless first half.
Eh, not so much ... and somehow, you know we'll keep Asad. Even at $100k, he's over priced and taking minutes from a kid who will try. Ruan too probably. KDP definitely and he's the only option I'd like to see exercised. BHI is too injury prone at his price tag. 2024 Under Contract Benteke - DP Klich - DP Jeheze - DP Miller Bono Zamundio Dajome Hopkins Akinmboni Sargis Birnbaum Santos 2024 Club Option Najar Asad Robertha Ruan Davis Fajardo Samkae KDP BHI Ravel He could be. We've got an option to buy him before 12/31, but you know we'll go back and try to renegotiate the fee like we always do in these situations ad screw the deal up.
I was at the game last night. My main takeaways are that DCU gives the ball away so cheaply with errant passes and by getting dispossessed, and that our finishers can't finish worth a damn. So many shots way high, wide, or straight at the keeper. Was painful to watch. Ugh.
I’ll say it again..,they should convert Ruan into a Nagbeesque carrier of the ball from the back third to the final third. I think that fits his skill set…speedy, aggressive, and is good at settling passes. And it gets him away from his weakness, namely, that final ball. (Although his crosses last night were good.)
I didn't watch last night but I'll have to say, someone has been helping Ruan get better control on his crosses. They are at least into the box in the vicinity of our players. Not that we have people attacking the box other than Benteke or Ku-Dipietro...
Every team has an off-season purge and refresh. It is the MLS way. There are several players on the under contract list that I could see traded, sent to USL, or transfered abroad. Plus the new manager will have some players they want...
Fajardo is a tough one because I can see he’s a lot to handle and he’s kind of beasting out there but his shot is so wayward I’m not sure he’s benefitting the team.
If you have a boxcar full of $100 bills and you're in a Thai whorehouse, I think we can say the problem is decision making rather than technique.
I haven't seen anything to suggest that Pirani is any better than Yamil Asad. Yamil Asad isn't good enough to be on DC's bench. DC's bench is the worst in the league. Ruan has been the only player on the team that's gotten better as the season went on. He'd be a MLS Best XI candidate at his position if he was playing for a good team. Having said that, his shot into the upper deck tonight was criminal. Don't even get me started on Fajardo. VAR sucks. It's made MLS nearly unwatchable. I wasn't completely unhappy when the penalty was disallowed because if that had happened to DC, I'd have been irate. The defender is falling to the ground and the ball hit his arm; what is he supposed to do exactly? There's nothing that any defender could reasonably do to avoid that. On the other hand, the Apple TV crew seemed to think the penalty was overturned because of someone somewhere being offside. As far as I could tell, the only clearly offside player was Benteke who wasn't involved in the play in any meaningful way. Mystifying. Yet another example of VAR making the game worse. I'll just assume that some shadowy group of conspirators at MLS HQ wants unfashionable DC United outside of the playoffs and that they used VAR to further their aims because, hey, that makes as much sense as anything else.