Sarcasm - Not a real News Story Mayor Offers Lillingston Key to City Associated Depressed After a hard fought 90+ minutes in the rain, the Chicago Fire are in the MLS playoffs. Chicago came into the game needing a tie or a win to make their way into the MLS Cup playoffs. After several corners and a Zach Thornton save of a blistering shot by Chicago's Chris Rolfe, it was an unlikely hero that emerged to launch the Chicago Fire into the second season. It was the 67th minute. After Chivas USA conceded more corners than any club should concede in a match, much less a season, that our hero broke through. It was Blanco that sent in a driven ball from the corner, directly to the head of Eduardo Lillingston. In a very athletic and direct manner Lillingston buried the shot in the back of the visitors net. There was only one problem; the net was his own. When asked about the fact that Chicago had made the playoffs Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said "Those boys made us proud. They fought hard in the rain and kept the fans hopes alive." The mayor also said if Eduardo Lillingston would be willing to come back to Chicago he would gladly award him the key to the City of Chicago, in addition he would decree that day Eduardo Lillingston Day in the City of Chicago. "Eduardo is a hero in this city and we would like to see that he gets his just rewards." The mayor was then asked "Would you like to see Eduardo Lillingston brought onto the Chicago roster in the off-season prior to the 2010 MLS season?" The Mayor replied "Hell, no. Have you seen him play?" MLS Cup playoff tickets are available at chicago-fire.com or 888-MLS-FIRE. END SARCASM
agreed - even impressed with Hamlett resisting his darker unstincts and putting an attractive team out there in a match where the needed result might have excused a more cynical tactical direction. Chivas was pretty disappointing, I thought, and didn't really look that passionate about what could have been at stake for them. Delightfully funny to score on a corner without scoring on a corner. Only the Fire...
Got home and watched replays of the goal. Maybe it's because I haven't seen the Fire score in a while, but I thought it was a beautiful goal. The way Lillington found space, timed his jump, and knocked it down towards the goal like he was doing a sit-up in mid air, kinda reminds me of McBride in his prime. Yes, I'm sure he was just trying to clear it in front of the near post, and yes it's sad the only goal we've had to admire in a while is an own goal, but all the same it sure was a nice goal.
Hamlett's keys to defeating Chivas: "They are a very good passing team that stays in their system," Hamlett said. "We're going to try to take away their space, pressure the ball and make it hard for them. We're going to attack them, put them on their heels and test [goalkeeper] Zach Thornton." This was pre-game in the new Fire Blog on ESPN.
Among the starters, Baggio and Pappa tied on top average speed for the Fire, so I'd say your eyes were deceiving you last night with the rain. Or the whole team looked slow and everything's relative.
I clarified in my response to UICSoccerFan that I meant mentally slow. Both he and Logan Pause seem to take a few more touches than they should to make a decision. Baggio is a rookie so I guess he has excuse but much of the time by the time he got the ball forward, the opportunity has closed up. Hopefully, he'll learn. And yes, congrats to Hamlett for finally resisting every instinct he has and actually sending his team out to attack instead of sitting back for a 0-0 draw. He even played Rolfe as a forward!!! Are we SURE that was Denis out there? I just really really hope he's learned that from here on out, ties will likely not be our friends. To move on, we'll have to score and win.
cooool, not sure if you all noticed, but our win kinda sorta made the front page of yahoo. We're the side story of some college guy scoring from 95 yards out. everyone log into your yahoo account and vote for the "buzz" to go up. I didn't know you could do that for yahoo articles but I intend to do that with all mls stories from now on.
Don't you ever get tired of saying stupid shit?, really. He was the best of both teams in the midfield, that includes a guy that's in the USMNT pool.
I do believe you're clouded by the UIC lure. I think the best guy on the field last night was Mike Banner. (I understand you clarified it by saying in the "MIDFIELD") I do think that Baggio played better than Nyarko, I'll give him that.
I agree with you about Banner. Thought he was the best player over 90 minutes for the Fire. Rolfe had a great first half but was mostly invisible in the second.
Whatever, the kid makes twenty some passes last night, and doesn't connect two of them, and his "decision making" isn't good?, wtf are you guys watching? I've never been one to pull any punches about UIC when they've played badly or Baggio, for that matter, and you should know that better than anyone. I get tired of the Bob Bradley analysis around here, using ambiguous terms to describe a player is just annoying. "He looked slow", great, scintillating analysis. I guess if one thinks John Harkes has any idea of what he's talking about, then it's all good. The guys on ESPN Deportes thought Baggio was damn good, but what do they know. Yea, I'm a bit bias here, I'm bias toward real soccer players, toward guys that actually read the game and don't just run around like chickens with their head cut off, but hey, I can hardly wait for Thorington to come back and prove me wrong. You want to bitch about a player, bitch about Pappa and his penchant to shoot from 35 yards out when he has 2 guys siitting at the far post, not about a kid who knew how to play in the conditions last night, and did a pretty damn good job of it.
Banner was caught out of position three times last night, and if the weather wasn't as it was, Padilla would have had a sitter.
Rolfe had a great game last night and busted his hump on virtually every play the entire game. He didn't have as many offensive opportunities in the second half due to the way the game was being played but to say he was invisible is crazy.
I thought Mapp was invisible last night...two games in a row it seems he just hasn't shown up to play...and he's a better option than Nyarko and Rolfe on the right side, or left... First it was Franek, then Soumare, maybe now it's Justin's turn. PS: I would like like to say all my FYPs in advance...(just copy and paste) Thank you.
Yes, the first half was great. The second, not so much. If you want to replace invisible with "had no real impact" then I will concede.
I remember the times he was caught out of position (the Padilla one in particular), but Busch wasn't barking at his defenders much last night so if he is content with them, it's a good sign. And if you are referring to the time when Padilla was open at the back post, taking a volley out of the air like that is not a sitter. I also remember everything else that Banner did offensively and defensively throughout the game. I also take into account he is learning a new position. To have a player that doesn't play a completely flawless game is not expected. Players are going to have bad shots, passes, and decisions. It comes down to their overall impact over their time spent on the field.
I think Banner is getting better at the position, and that he has true soccer skills; my biggest concern last night was his urgency to send about 8 or 9 balls over the top directly to a Chivas defender when he had a better option of playing a simple ball. I'd be the first to say that no player is flawless, and that's at any level, in any league. Padilla could have settled that ball fairly easily, there was no one within 10 yards of him; that's a sitter, and he botched a very good opportunity. I have no idea what Busch has to do with a player being completely out of position, his job is not to tell a defender to cover the obvious, that's why teams have a training pitch. There were two other instances in which Banner had drifted to the center of the box leaving a man unmarked at the far post. When Banner plays simple he's a good player, when he starts his "I wish I was Ronaldo" routine, I get worried.
Guess maybe you need to go back and watch the game again but if you define "invisible" as back-tracking and playing defensively then I would agree with you. DH changed the tactics a little at halftime and went more conservative stressing putting more players behind the ball. Rolfe was doing a lot of tracking back in the second half which didn't minimize his "impact"--it only changed its focus.
As usual with you, the signal to noise ratio is exceedingly low. Still, I decided to rewatch the game focusing on Husidic. As I did so, I found that his performance was worse than I originally thought and your assertions proved as off target as a Justin Mapp shot. Did the kid do some good things out there? Yeah, such as his nice 5 minute stretch from the 32nd to the 37th minutes starting with a nice through ball to Rolfe (that touched off Harkes's comment about it being Baggio's first important involvement in the game which seems to have got your panties in a bunch. That play was really Husidic's 2nd or arguably 3rd play and still far less than Pappa, Nyarko and even Banner) and including his whiffed attempt at a shot on an incoming corner in the 34th and a nice shot at goal in the 37th on one of the rare occasions he trailed the attack with purpose. But "the best of both teams in the midfield"? You apparently took a bottle of Johnny Walker to TP to help ward off the cold and wet, drank it all in the parking lot before the game and were blind by the 10th minute. I won't list every single time Baggio wasn't up to speed but a few instances will suffice: In the very first minute he did nicely to strip the ball from Padilla and get it to Pappa but then on the subsequent Chivas counter he did not read the play quickly enough, allowing Gallindo to get the ball into Lillington in our box in a great place to score. Luckily, Lillington did nothing with it. In the 8th minute, Baggio collected the ball in our half of the field with McBride and Rolfe ahead of him running towards the Chivas goal. With one or touches, he could have sprung either one. Instead, he takes three touches and then has to square pass to Pause who then tried to spring Rolfe up the right. In the 47th minute, he get the ball in the center circle and passes to McBride which is fine but then he just lopes forward with no real purpose when he should have exploded into the space behind Rolfe up top. Chris had expected Baggio to be there and one-touch laid the ball off... to nobody. Result: turnover to Chivas. In the 71st minute, Baggio gets the ball and has little support. In that case, a quick backpass is fine to reload the offense. But he waits too long and then has nobody to pass to. So he tries to dribble around with no plan and Lillingston picks his pocket, starting the Chivas attack. Around the 73rd minute or so, the ball is bouncing around the center circle and it lands in front of Baggio. But the much quicker thinking Lillington pounces on it instead and lobs the ball to Kljestan who had an excellent look at goal and really should have scored. Happily, he pushed it wide. I think that's enough to make the case. You can focus on him while rewatching the game if you want more examples. Anyway, the thing that stuck out to me as I rewatched the game was not even that Baggio was a half step behind, but that he was so uninvolved in the game compared with Pappa and Rolfe, even in the first half when we were all over them. In part that was because he was playing the Thorrington 2nd d-mid role. Also, Baggio looked more comfortable with square and back passes. This is Hamlet's influence, no doubt. So Baggio was a bit limited by his role in Denis's strategy. I'm sure Harkes didn't understand this when he made his comment in the 32nd minute. The problem is that even when you take those things into consideration, it's remarkable that most - but not all - of the time, Baggio seemed to be standing or cruising around the middle of the field, not too far from the center circle, not really covering any opponents but also not in good positions to show for the ball. D-mids and even CAMs often do dirty work that people who don't know the game don't recognize. And a player can do smart things off the ball that create space for teammates who have the ball. But a close look at what Baggio was doing out there last night reveals very little of that and a considerable amount of aimlessly wandering around the middle of the field behind the play and unconnected to it. When you look at the forward passes Baggio did make, they're pretty pedestrian. He'd usually - but not always- get the ball, look around (see the 59th minute for a classic Husidic take-two-steps-while-looking-around-trying-to-decide-what-to-do moment) and pass it to the guy closest in front of him. While there is some virtue in keeping it simple (I wish Blanco, for example, would knock it off with his overly cutesy backheels and bunny hops already), his creativity factor is close to zero and is easy for any defender worth his salt to read and anticipate. Blanco, Pappa and even Nyarko made plays for themselves or a teammate out of nothing. I didn't see that from Baggio last night although I realize he's a rookie and his role limited those opportunities to make killer crosses or drive to the goal. It would still have been good to see him effectively switch the point of attack (not just make the first short square pass available, which is not the same thing), play some quality diagonal balls or do something to surprise defenders when he was able to get forward. Another thing I noticed is that Husidic didn't seem to win many balls in the air either goal kicks or otherwise. Except for one in the 70th minute, it sure looked like each time the ball came to him in the air, Chivas came away with it. Defensively, he seemed to let guys run right past him, notably Padilla in the 30th minute who then got off a shot that should have gone in. It just looked like he was content to let play happen around him, possibly because he was taking to long to anticipate and was therefore left less involved than he should have been. So, a half-decent rookie performance against a quality foe in difficult conditions? OK, I'm down with that. "The best of both teams in the midfield", however? Wrong. Anyway, thanks for playing and please pick up your consolation prize at the door.