Hmm, did you provide similar minute by minute analysis when Holiday was shanking all those free kicks and crosses early in the season? Interest that A-rod seems to be the only player that gets her every touch analyse.
This is a point aside the point and not to mention extraordinarily hypocritical. We are talking about the system and how she does well in it. I brought up Tymrak simply to show what kind of system Bayern played. It appealed to her and she thought she could do well in it like she did with KC. Tymrak did en up playing well in the system (not sure why you think she bombed, did you actually watch or your just basing your analysis on stats) but she wasn't really rewarded with goals or extra PT. She really didn't get enough play time, at least not the same two seasons I got to watch Hagen play in, to judge how she would have done if she stayed on. It did, after all, take Tymrak a few months to get going with KC last year. Same with Brooks, she had half a season and didn't exactly start every game like Hagen did. If you want to dismiss an argument when the sample size of a player is to small to judge how well they will do with a team, but then turn around and use the same argument when it supports you ... well, I think that's silly.
nope. never said that. i know that's what some people want. and i've already posted about it. my point is that if that's true, vlatko will put her there. but none of her coaches has ever seemed to think that about her other than maybe some emergency occasions. pulling her back to a winger does two things vlatko may not like. removes her a few crucial yards away from the front line where she scores goals from open play better than any one in the league, and works against step 1 in fckc's defense, reducing the quick closing down of the opposition on certain occasions when fckc loses the ball in their (fckc's) attacking third. but again, there are positives and negatives. if that's where she serves the needs of the team, i'm sure the coach, who is an excellent tactician, will put her there.
So let me get something straight. On this particular topic are you arguing your opinion for something in particular, or are you arguing against what others want to see? I've made the point from before the season even started that I'm worried about how Amy Rodriguez will be used. Half a season later, with lots of users echoing my concerns with how Amy seems out of place despite her production, I continue to believe the best option for her is to move her to the wing where I am confident her production will actually increase. That being said, don't argue my point. I want to hear yours. What's your opinion about this situation again? Trust the coach?
- Let me start by saying that I appreciate all you do on here and I truly having people like you to chat about FCKC with and share a passion. The effort you put into the play by play shows true dedication and fanship, and I like the idea of giving grades on player performance but... As a special education teacher who has spent countless professional development hours on grading and assessing students I couldn't let the "F" grade go for Arod. It doesn't seem you have the same standard for every player and what is your criteria? As teachers in my district major assignments must now have a clear and concise rubric attached that is graded the same by all teachers in the district. Also in order to fail a student they must be lacking in the overall learning target in the class, followed by at minimum 4 smaller learning targets. Schools now focus on results to give grades and not the process like ACT scores, End of Course Exams, Common Core etc. Let me try and apply this to Arod's performance: Major Target: Mastery demonstrated by winning games (Overall Grade averaged out is a C see break down below) Minor Target: "Activating the offense" - The major criticism of Arod, so I will give her an --F Minor Target: Keeping possession - Although it's not the approach you or I particulary love, Arod does keep possession with her back passess let's say 70% of the time bc the process shouldn't matter, lets focus on results -- C Minor Target: Goal Scoring - No question 2nd in the league in goals all from the run of play --A Minor Target: High work rate and hustle - She has been questioned here though not as much as Holiday--C Accurate grading is VERY difficult to put in practice and I had troubleeven with this poor example without a rubric and collaboration with peers to agree on performance targets etc. Honestly, it's the results that matter not the process and there is no possible way in a game where Arod scored and had several other shots that she should fail if mastery is demonstrated by winning games. Perhaps you were measuring something different but grades should be given over a broad topic with multiple ways to meet that goal. The minor targets can be rewritten but I think the major target for every team in the NWSL is to win games. And Arod helps KC win games and whether or not she's a good fit for our offense doesn't matter if we are producing wins. The teacher in me just couldn't let that go. Ha.
Wow, that's harsh on A-Rod when written down like that. But those are the back passes that I mentioned earlier. She really is similar to Leroux: very fast, a goal scorer, but not as technical on the ball as her teammates.
I understand you are not as anti-Arod as some posters and I appreciate in the last paragraph you acknowlege some of her strengths and contributions to the team. I'm with you, I think she could do well on the wing and that option is at minimum worth a try. Hagen is probably a better target forward but Arod still has an important role, and let's make Hagen prove it in more than one game against a defense with a poor strategy. However, this Cuellar : Arod comparision has got to go. Arod has played in over 100 NT games with 1 of the best teams in the world. Her goal count may not be impressive but the point is: wrong or right multiple NT coaches have deemed her good enough to contribute minutes for the USA. Cuellar may be younger but still, and honestly has she scored a goal since she left KC? She is too insignificant for me to even look up those stats! It's not like she had awful midfields at Seattle with Rapinoe/ Fishlock, and DC with Matheson/Nairn. I was as perplexed as everyone else when we traded Cuellar and appreciate her contribution last year but just because Arod and Cuellar are both speedy doesn't mean they are of the same caliber. KC is holding on to ARod not because of name value, it's because she scores lots of goals and is she's good: no free pass here.
It's interesting you follow this thread, I was of the thought of mind to entertain the idea that, with any other team in the NWSL, Amy Rodriguez would struggle just like Cuellar, but even I know better. I brought up Cuellar strictly in the context of 1) she is fast like Amy Rodriguez, 2) KC won games with her, and 3) she scored goals at a similar pace and in a similar fashion to Amy Rodriguez at similar points in the season. I understand Rodriguez brings a whole lot more to the plate, and that is exactly what I think we see if she makes the move, but I was making a counter point for the specific argument of: KC is winning games, ARod is scoring goals, and her speed keeps defenses honest and helps stifle counters, so why fix what isn't broken? Cuellar did the same thing for them last year within those same arguments being made when she was traded away, why did they try to fix what wasn't broken? Us nuanced soccer fans knew better and understood why it happened, so you just got to keep it in context. Make no mistake, the argument I'm trying to make is not Rodriguez=Cuellar, or even Hagen > Rodriguez. That is too black and white and I'm too nuanced of a soccer fan to lower my analysis to that level. I'll never have proof, and nobody who counts will ever admit it, but the impression KC is giving to some of us nuanced soccer fans is that Ando is making concessions to what he wants to do to because Amy Rodriguez only wants to play forward and score goals. If she moves to the front 3, even for one game to see how it goes, then I will be happy and I will no longer be concerned that Amy Rodriguez is possibly being a selfish prat. I want her on the team, I want her to succeed, and there is no reason to think she can't continue to score goals from the front three, especially considering the offense on this team flows through the midfield. Holiday won the golden boot last year, Amy Rodriguez can do it for KC again this year, and has a better chance to do it from the front 3. The only time I'll be satisfied with the kind of performances that Amy Rodriguez has given us this year at target forward is if it's in the final and KC wins the championship. Until then, I think there are two players on the roster who could do better than Amy Rodriguez at the target striker position. Simultaneously, I think there is nobody on the roster who can do as good and provide as much as Amy Rodriguez can at RM.
For a UCLA guy I think I've always been reasonably objective about A-Rod. I always enjoyed watching her play because the way she moves is like almost no one else, she has a certain personality to her play but I've always noted her "wild as a March hare" shooting accuracy when people got over-enthused about what she could bring to the national team. One thing I think people miss when they compare how fast A-Rod is to other players is her first step. Many of the other fast players build up their speed over a distance of - oh I don't know - 10 or 15 yards or so and yes when they hit top speed they're fast. But A-Rod has that first step which allows her to get separation from defenders over a short distance. So if you're trying to create attacks in a 4-2-3-1 with short thru balls rather than long balls where the forward is racing 30-40 yards, A-Rod is a better candidate for that kind of attack. Plus she has other qualities - isolated near the corner, she can do that bunny-hopping around to get space to pass. Sure her passing, crossing skills aren't exceptional but in that position she can be dangerous. Ditto for her hold-up skills. So maybe not a superstar but, now that she's showing improved shot accuracy, a very good striker, one of the better ones in the league. I agree. And I see Babranski has added a very thoughtful comment.
Well its interesting that my break downs got this response. Look I think Rodriguez is a good player, but playing in our system with one forward, she doesn't fit in it. People can say, players can learn the system and adapt to it and I say they can't. Its ingrained in them to play the way they grew up playing for 10 years. Changing it in one year or a few is like asking a player to learn a new language. Its very tough. Rodriguez needs to play with her facing to goal, she is not good playing in the middle of the pitch either, when she received the ball in the midfield, any time a Skyblue player moved up to block her, she back passed it back to a defender. Rodriguez doesn't look for options, she doesn't keep her head up or wait for players to make runs. Its strangely odd, but a lot of players play without their head up and don't look at the play developing in front of them. It takes a lot of patience and coaching in the youth years to build this up. You can say, Rodriguez has 10 goals, she is producing and I am saying that is an illusion because the Blues should be producing more goals. Rodriguez has a very hard time creating for other players, and in the FCKC system, she has to create for other players. She can't be a one dimensional forward, she is the only forward in this system. She has to hold up, she has to play with her head up, she has to play off with the midfielder and get them into the fun of play. The 1-2 combo that I mentioned. I wouldn't be so hard on Rodriguez with her back passes, if they went to a midfielder, but most of them were going to a defensive player deep behind her. This absolutely kills the run of play, you can't set up a 1-2 combination play if your passing 30 yards behind you. And when Rodriguez actually did pass to a midfielder close by to her, she should be trying to set up the 1-2 passing combination with her always. But she always runs away from the midfielder, not towards her. How do you teach a player to make yourself available for a run when you run away from them? And what is worse is what this does to Lauren Holiday. Having Rodriguez up top, limits how good Holiday can be. This is her team, her offense and when a forward won't play off with her on 1-2 combination plays or doesn't hold up and wait for Holiday to make a run. It limits Holiday's effectiveness. To me Rodriguez is a ball stopper. A player that stops the offense if she has the ball at her feet because she can't create for others. Yeah Rodriguez has 10 goals, but we scored 5 this match and Skyblue the previous 2 matches played Portland tough and won 2-1 and drew against Seattle 0-0 who happens to have the highest scoring offense in the league. And these were clubs with all their internationals on their roster. And we blow 5 goals on Skyblue? When normally we struggle to score 2 goals a match. Isn't anyone a bit curious as to why we created so many scoring chances this match compared to our previous matches? A good example was the Breaker match where we scored 2 penalty kick goals. It was a horrible match by the Blues. They had so few scoring chances. And don't even count shots, but chances that resulted in good scoring opportunities. When you have a player back passing as often as Rodriguez does, she is taking scoring chances away because the Blues are not building in the attacking third. With Hagen up top, she played the hold up role, got Holiday activated in the attack by combining with her on passing plays and was constantly holding the ball up and sending passes to players on the run. Hagen builds the attack inside the attacking third and that is a huge reason why we have more scoring chances this match. Just a massive difference in the way the Blues played this match and it showed big time.
I've been trying to find the right way to say this as well, and I think you did good. It is an illusion so much so that if someone just looked at her stat sheet or the KC record, they would wonder why we have a problem with it. I've always thought that when this team is at its best and has the right mix, the scoring is high, and the distribution of those goals is high. 30 or more goals spread evenly amongst Amy, Lauren, Erika, anequal number for the revolving door at RM, and an number for Sarah Hagen proportionate to her time spent here, and the rest sprinkled about the DM's & back line. Instead we have Rodriguez chasing for the golden boot, and as odd as it is for me to say this, it's a sign that there is something wrong for KC. This team moves through their midfielders, not their lone striker. It is much the same with Seattle, who really moves through their power house of a midfield with Fishlock, Winters, and their own Boot candidate, Little.
there's no illusion. the team has played more than 2/3 of the season. they're in 2nd place, a full 10 points ahead of the third place team, near the top of the league in goals scored with arod the leading scorer in the league from open play. it's not an illusion. she's doing an outstanding job. nah. he's been losing games left and right, and arod can't score goals.
Last year, KC finished in 2nd, scored the most goals in the league and had the leagues leading scorer. They promptly lost in the Semi's. You can be content with the teams performance as long as they are winning games and scoring goals, but you'll have to excuse the rest of us if we want to see something better on the field, now and at the end of the season. We're going to have to disagree and end this discussion. You have several people on this forum putting forward thoughtful discussions on their opinions of Amy Rodriguez and all you can do in response is to ignore the talking points and quip sarcastic one liners.
??? my posts #51, 53, 58, 60, 62, 70, 72, 78, and even my last post #87 are answers filled with thoughtfulness, brevity, and clarity. very few of them have sarcastic one liners. because those reasoned posts bear hefty disagreement with your ideas doesn't mean that you can conveniently ignore them. the sarcastic one liners point out certain absurdities, and help me avoid being repetitive in points i have made. as always, i acknowledge that i may be totally wrong in these matters. i'm just a football typist presenting my ideas and (on this thread) agreeing with some things other posters like fckcevans, kolabear, and blaze have said. i just disagree with you and forgedias. i'm always agreeing to disagree.
also, for those who keep intimating that the team is not playing as well as they did last year, here is andonovski's view: “Oh absolutely. The team as a whole is better but also I think that the way we play is better. We play a little more mature, and we control the pace and the rhythm of the game...." http://equalizersoccer.com/2014/07/09/the-lowdown-the-case-for-fc-kansas-city/
I think Western New York was the team that lead the league in goals last year. Abby and Carli both had over 10 goals each. 38 total, which was more then Kansas City.