Tonight for Atlanta at NYCFC, poor Brooks Lennon made a nice play to take a ball from an attacker otherwise in on goal, dribbled a bit out to the right, and then turned and passed the ball right to the attacker he just beat. Quick goal for the Pigeons.
Damir follows up his longest appearance of the season - 20 minutes! - with an injured achilles. He's out for the time being.
I think he played for 5 minutes for us? I’m sure he has improved, but it seems like a huge whiff from a few years ago, where our FO made a lot of poor decisions.
He was an Academy kid who went to college, our preferred way. He was let go before the 2022 started. He was too good for the Monarchs but wasn't ready for MLS.
Didn’t he play in that random SJ game a few years back when it was like nearly all teenagers at the end? At least in the attacking positions
The random youth game I think of is San Jose too, with Jose Hernandez scoring for us in stoppage. He went Academy -> Monarchs -> UCLA -> RSL with loans to the Monarchs with a few appearances for us. But that was 2017. He played in the USL through last season but is without club now.
In a kind of off topic not really official conversation with RSL folks and other media, Iloski, and I think some other young players around that time, may have had some off field "issues" that helped RSL make some roster decisions. Didn't sound extremely serious but sounded like continued poor choices, by admittedly, young players, kept happening enough that they ended up getting released or not offered contracts. That's me reading between the lines a bit.
I’ve heard stories of some of the classes having borderline hazing type behavior while living on campus. It’s both sad and unsurprising of a bunch of 15-18 year old boys
Guatemala up 1-0 on Jamaica at the half in Gold Cup game 1, deservedly so. Herrera started, Rubin on the bench.
Good for Jefferson. I am glad he's in the "I really care for this team" phase of his contract with them, and bringing it in games like this.
Illoski with 4 ********ing goals against Vancouver tonight. Sure would be nice if he was still on the team instead of some of players we’ve kept for 4 years but haven’t played once.
@goobx1 Did DJ indirectly reference this move at all in your opinion? He talked in a general way about some locker room things and some non starters not giving their all in training without mentioning names.
I heard some stuff from Trey about some off field shenanigans with a number of of young players no longer here and if memory serves Iloski was in that group. I think it was less about what happened and more about a continued lack of maturity. Nothing Chicho-esque but enough that he found himself on the outs
Man, I was really hoping it was a problem with the Academy/Monarchs, so it can fit my narrative of complaining about that. Hard to argue with letting him go after that. I'm glad he's figuring it though. Just would have been nice to see it in an RSL kit.
Watching Savarino today vs Palmeiras. The one time I sat on Row 1 at the midfield stripe the main thing I took from the match was how tough and competitive Savarino was. For one half he played on our side of the field and we were close to him a lot. He took no s*** from anyone. Today a Palmeiras player wiped out one of his teammates. Leg sweep that came nowhere close to the ball. The ref let play continue. 4 passes later Savarino gets the ball about 35 yards out. A Palmeiras player was between him and the goal about 5 yards away. Savarino lined it up and sent a rocket right into his midsection and the guy dropped like a sack of potatoes. The referee pulls out a yellow card and runs to show it to the Palmeiras player who committed the original foul. I had to chuckle.
Sounds like a cool experience, and super jealous you could go. on sava: the guy is a lot like Rusnak. He always gave a bit of arrogance that suggested he thought he was bigger than rsl. I loathe that. It was one of the most redeeming qualities of chicho.
LOL. STH’s since Year 1 and we did it one time. Also got to see the Center Ref do a VAR review 5 yards away. I never played organized soccer except for some intramural stuff in college because 2 of my friends played and talked me into it. “Organized” overstates it tbh. It wasn’t physical at all. Except maybe the time a guy did a face plant after a failed header and I accidentally stepped on his head. So that Row 1 experience was an eye opener. It made me stop the “Damnation…why didn’t he pass the ball to X who was making a great run 30 yards away” type of fandom. Which leads to the second thing I took away from the match, which was “how in the world do these guys spot an open guy to pass to with the quickness?” As far as Sava’s attitude, he wasn’t like that the first go round. The second go round was different for some reason. I’m not sure it was all on him but he definitely shoulders his share of the blame.
I'd have to see what the off field shenanigans were to fully judge. These are kids so depending on what it was, I'd judge accordingly