Forever Blogging the Orange

since you keep pushing this and acting like i don't know what i am talking about

goal 3 he fails to close down the dribbler and gets throughballed for the cross that leads to the goal

he lets reyna run alone on the wall ball that we get way free about 45'



doesn't track the shooter goal 1

glorious throughball to him that he puts in the keeper's chest like a U16

doesn't close the crosser on goal 2



is in the area and lets the guy run who scores goal 1

his man scores the winner for FCD cause he went to sleep



vaguely paralleling his man instead of jockeying, ball gets passed for the tying cross goal 1

pointless yellow

just kind of jogging alongside his man again on the chance 56'

on the winner parker fails to come out to his man and he even kind of sees it but just jogs and doesn't help out in time



you can now insult me and my family, engage in exaggerated hyperbole, and quote some half informed but well briefed statistics in defense of bad ideas. that is a sign of preparation but not knowledge.

i trust my eye over yours any day. if you're gonna act like you understand what's going on from spreadsheets and freeze frames i will have to post video and show you up.

maybe with this information it will dawn on you he might be somewhat helping but also hurting a lot. ditto adam and many others.

and as i have said a jillion times on my "texans theory," i want what works in big games. i am less concerned with beating a fellow struggler when they had 2 games in a week also. when people figure out we need what works on austin or dallas we will catch up to them.

 

what does quintero's contract status have to do with raines? that's kind of like arguing memo is better. which was wrong, basics, but also they aren't even the same type or position.

my deal is he's going to be the 4th or 5th choice 6/8 on a team which has a lot more money invested in everyone else, who are also older, and age and salary tend to drive personnel decisions over actual quality. he "has plenty of time."

btw high flying prospects are not necessarily going to play by your timeline. they have their own idea how they fit in. they also have ambitions for europe and USMNT and such. if you think you can fart around for a while he may want a transfer by about year 2 of apprenticeship. i keep hammering on this. by the time SKC promoted him to starter, busio started a little over one season before getting sold.

btw when you say "there's no hurry" you basically concede my sequencing point. we added a player and bought the purchase option of the other. anyways, you can bet hard on HH all you want and the struggle bus can run same as ever. you don't take a team from last to anyplace worthwhile by nibbling around the edges and excusing mediocrity. you get there building around the really good ones.

problem is due to our personnel approach a lot of the good players are like 35. so rather than admit we kind of screwed up i guess the pretense is make coco the future since he's the right age. he's the wrong player though. can we make a foundation of actual stars? as opposed to the people who will be left when quintero and clark retire and start claiming social security in a year.

 

last point, if you are so enamored with coco and HH then go get some alberth elis track star wings to go chase down their alex lime over-the-top deep balls. they are not going to thread needles to feet. HH usually hits it sideways and coco just gives the ball away but when they are dangerous it's usually diagonal over the defensive line. it wouldn't be necessarily dumb -- it was the 2017 premise -- but we aren't built for it. and since HH will be like 50 when he arrives you might want the accompanying pieces post haste while it could possibly matter. when you acquire 30-somethings it's "now." you can't build for 2 years unless the idea is throw some money and names on the field and fool people we are making an effort, while the development work takes place behind the scenes. but then as i have pointed out your old fart signees block your young developmentals (people seem to forget how sigi built that 2008 team, it wasn't by making chad barrett sit behind some 30 year old time serving "because he has time"). you ultimately either commit to seniority or to talent. our average starter age and lack of integrated developmentals tells a story where our priorities lie. based on results i wouldn't be trusting my model.

and you can now say "well we thought thiago was that" but then let's start talking onstad isn't perfect then. thiago isn't so get on the stick. end the loan. get someone else in trade. i am sick of wings hitting chances to row Z. do something.

 

If they can figure out a way to play Raines without losing his HGP status, great I'm all for it. But securing that HGP status should be the priority. Everything else is noise.

 

re USMNT pepi odunze reyna musah paredes scally 19 nyeman slonina henry che gomez clark cowell 18.....for a team with a history of donovan beasley adu pulisic etc. raines is 17. raines may not be a finished product ready for NT ball yet but he's a solid pro already on the eyeball test. and when players like him on his trajectory see people 1-2 years older getting camps or caps, while getting first team ganes with their clubs, they may be less interested in your and the dynamo's foot-dragging idea of what is old enough.

as i said, the problem is the bridge has not been finished. you can get the academicians walking across to HD2 but at some point you have to take age risks and integrate to first team. you can't wait til age 22 or they will check out. which btw is how long it took deric and memo to get first team minutes. up, down, all around. if people think they are NT pedigree they are not waiting that long. they will demand a transfer. i see this "type" of team that prefers 23 year olds. it is a conservative, behind the curve estimate of how long it takes. i think 18 or 19 is more like it. and trust me they will too. if they are still being apprenticed age 20 they will hand in a transfer request. busio was transferred to venezia age 19. memo had to put up with it because he wasn't valued at that level, not a pipeline kid. there will be takers because the soccer world is not as dumb as we are.

and a team fresh off finishing last and running 8th probably has risks going status quo just the same. i kind of think like USMNT we stupidly prefer chasing the last output from 30 year olds over the opening stages of 20 year olds. i'd prefer new era beasley and donovan over old age reyna any day. but whatever, bet on HH and quintero's knees and hamstrings and limited upside. this is why we are where we are. we try to buy it but then buy on a beer budget. if we had another cameron or holden we wouldn't even know what to do with it because our instinct is to favor seasoned, even if the seasoning smells kind of foul.

 

mistakes, plural. multiple reds or game changing mistakes. he helps explain a lot of the Ls that change this from likely playoffs to maybe/maybe not.

to me it's silly calling an 8th year pro aged 23 "young." young is raines. young is first couple years in a pro environment or in a developmental situation. he's been playing 8 years in progressively more intense professional first teams. he has been on his NT for years. this is what you're getting.

if you think coco is better than quintero that's funny. he obviously better at offense and i think if he gave a darn he has a motor to chase people too. you see it sometimes when he's motivated. kind of like whatever people thought of elis, and whatever he often did, he could defend when he cared to. ditto davis or dero.

sorry, that's just funny. "best?" hahaha

yes, i have watched raines. i am bored with such insinuations.

what you're not grasping in this context, that you seem to get at the big picture level, is this assemblage simply doesn't have much ceiling left. this marginal (as in right at the line) output is about as good as they can manage. even without breaking it down to individuals i would already be telling myself i need upgrades "someplace" because an 8th place team obviously does. you even agree in your calmer moments and put together lists. you just when pressed seem to think we should field this pretty bad midfield and mediocre team. comes down to you need to follow through on your abstract roster sense.

worse, to me, it's like, if this is all i get for $2m plus salary, take the $2m and shop. i am sure i can do better than your "best" with $2m in this market. look at the darned league leaderboard and then track them over to the salary compilation. part of the problem is mopey dynamo fans so broken by the lack of spending they will back anything when the checkbook comes out. when right now is when you needed to put your foot down and demand $2m worth of player. like, give me what DC or austin or whatnot are coming up with.

you wanna make do we can make do to right around the red line and october drama.

 

side point, far as i am concerned, people who advocate "8" types as either good or their team's best tend to have a goofy idea of soccer. ask anyone from the Nagbe Era of US soccer ie the russia miss. overrate how much defense gets played, talk up water carrying over production. good way to lose games. the way you win games is setting up or scoring goals, or keeping it out of your net. an 8 who can't do either is usually just an excuse. you can't defend their play either end so it becomes work rate or some sort of two way mush. my experience teams where the helping hand can't create and doesn't crunch tend to be very meh. you want a good team that second in charge needs to be creative or a second sweeper.

this team in general is just too much hustle and missed execution. at a point if you want to get better that ball has to go under and not over the bar, and the second guy needs to be a spotless defender.

i say this because when you screw up and go down a goal or two in couva some supposed two way hustler doesn't help get those goals back. he might get a goal all league season. you can't speed up those 1-in-34 odds for that goal you badly need. you need someone who either never gives up those goals or who can produce their own.

 

i would have done something like go get julian green. he would put coco to shame. and if he came this summer maybe he makes a last second qatar case under berhalter's nose he can't ignore.

like hoppe, his lack of current fashionability in the higher B.1 or with the "fans of lagging indicators" USMNT (who want to see numbers before they believe in talent) probably brings his price down, but doesn't change the player's inherent quality. i'm pretty sure someone who can score on france and belgium can handle minnesota.

if i sat down i could probably come up with a list. that's a decent chunk of change and coco's a low bar to jump over to upgrade. just pick whether we want more offense or defense. think half the reason you can pimp this silliness is we can't quite decide and our numbers show it.

 

Yea I’d be more inclined to take seriously what he was saying was repeated by anyone of note. I know Glenn and Eddie are pretty much state TV, but it’s pretty clear among analysts that keeping him on is the right move. Even Victor Ariza, who in the media is probably the most vocally critical of the team, thinks the move is good. I know experts aren’t infallible but I don’t often see someone going against the common direction like this.

 

You must not have heard Glenn's shows when Segal bought the team. He went hard at Onstad, he isn't state T.V. He is as disgusted as all of us.

 

Literally nobody has insulted your family. That is yet another thing you have invented out of whole cloth. God you a are phucking phuc. You go after Brian ( which BTW you would never do in person, mainly because he's huge) and never debate him on what he ACTUALLY SAID! Brian is a super good dude, who would probably try and talk with you. Brian is one of those giants who actually value his brain. But you and the passive insults, just stop it.

He never said this team would be good, in fact, he said they wouldn't make the playoffs. WTF are you on about?

 

Oh no I did hear that and it was awesome. The state tv I’m referring to is the game broadcasts. I haven’t been able to listen to the show for a while to hear what he’s had to say about Coco.

 

Good recap. Parker and Coco had good nights.

 

Damn good blog this week!