The subs were questionable. Austin Washington? Really? The Fire defense might be the best in the league on paper .....but they have a tendency to lose composure. The Fire also blew a 2 goal lead last yr at home and dont forget tose two goals to Columbus in the Conference Finals. Busch has been less than stellar going back to last yr. I wont say the goals were completely hsi fault but he didnt do anything spectacular last night...or this year. A bigger goalie would at least block the angle better. Plus his distrubution is blah. Kevin Hartman was spectacular keeping his team in the game with some big time point blank saves. An upgrade shouldnt be out of the question. Slim would look pretty good in a Fire uniform right now. The bottom line is that the Fire completely outclassed KC for about 75 minutes and shouold have won 4 or 5 to nothing. All those missed opportunities at point blank range bit us in the a$$. Kevin Hartman stood on his head but some of those shots could have been taken better.
What you said. I left Matchtracker at the half and it's 2 - 0 Fire. I get back and it's a 2-2 final. Damn!
5. Blackhawks home playoff game number 2. I wore my +10 year old 'sweater' to a Fire match only because it was red. I did pad it with Fire scarves though and there was a Fire shirt underneath. 6. Cubs / Cards = huge rivalry in the afternoon. 7. The frickin' economy. Emphasis on The frickin' economy. I'm afraid it's going to be low attendance-wise league wide folks this year for MLS minus Seattle / Toronto. Even stalwarts like DC aren't filling the seats. Let me say a reliable little bird told me that a ticket rep for the 6 year contract signing people in club (STH) have 80+ accounts that never renewed/AWOL this year. Even at one ticket per account you see how much revenue is lost per game and again emphasis on the economy is in the crapper. My advice to us diehards that attend every single game is to get a few more 'personally' for as many games that you can no matter where you sit. I've already noticed that 3 of my fellow halftime nicotine addicts' have been absent from the first two matches.
a few observations from tonight's game: 1.) the FO is dropping the ball. at this rate the red stars are going to out draw the fire. 2.) the skyway $100 season tickets are a good excuse for people to buy tickets and not use them.. 3.) dennis hamlett is an idiot 4.) Austin Washington is not a midfielder 5.) wtf how did we lose that game? 6.) wtf how come no one showed up? what is going on with this club?
Ditto on everything, and Washington blew against the NJRB, I have no idea what he was doing on the field tonight since he was invisible.
You're dead on with most of your post, but you can't just re-define the meaning of "bunker" just so you can use it to criticize the coaching. There's a substantial difference between taking your foot off the accelerator like the Fire did tonight and playing all-out defense as Montreal and Puerto Rico did in the CCL. If you watched the New England game on Friday, you saw a perfect example of a bunker mentality. The Fire has had a much more attacking mentality this year than it did last year, and it's producing some incredibly entertaining games. I don't think they've bunkered yet this season, though it helps that they've had to come from behind in most of their games. In case this post sounded too positive, I'm angry that the team didn't really go for that killer 3rd goal in the first half. That would have put the game away, and in not doing so, the Fire let KC back into the game.
I hope there is a good reason... Actually, remember when we were walking thru the hallway to the stadium with Calen and Mapp, I said to them, "hey, aren't you guys sposed to be on the field?" Calen said, "we're injured." I'm fairly certain he said 'we're'.
Because midfield giveaways happen all the time and do not result in goals. This giveaway should not have resulted in a goal because we had them covered in an unpromising position. But when your defenders can't stay on their feet and thus gift the opponent a great opportunity to make a killer cross and then your defenders can't mark their men and let their opponent get to the ball first and then all your keeper can do is flail uselessly at the ball as it flies past him, then turning the ball over in midfield is probably the least of your worries, especially in the context of the subsequent utter disorganization of our back line and Busch's lack of command of his box. Sorry, but trying to pin this one entirely on Pause is just one more reason you have zero credibility on rating his performances.
I can recall several times, particularly in the first half, when a long ball put a wing or striker behind our defense, only to have #7 appear from halfway around the field to make a tackle or stand the guy up. Pause played a solid game. Our defense should be able to handle a giveaway 50 yds from goal. They didn't. Our offense created several chances in the last part of the game, including a potential game-winner from rolfe, that would have been goals if not for some ridiculous saves from Hartmann. It's poor organization in the back and some sloppy individual defending from normally reliable players that are costing us points. Not the offense, not the tactics, not Hamlett, and certainly not Logan Pause.
To me, "bunker" means you've closed up shop, are seeking to defend most of the time and you're bascially just blasting the ball out of danger with no thought as to where you're clearing it and therefore, no thought of building an attack. If you accidently happen to blunder into a counter-attack, you'll take it but that's a strictly secondary goal. This is exactly what we did after about the 70th minute mark and it is quite consistent with what we've seen of Denis when he has a lead. We should have just continued to play attacking soccer and keeping possession to run out the clock. What's scaring me now is Denis's quote after the game: "I think the second half got away from that in terms of trying to get that third goal, we didn't really need it, we just kept pushing and we got caught in an open game." First, this is nonsense. We didn't lose two points because we played too much offense but because we bunkered. Second, this tells me that when faced with a similar situation in the future, Denis will just revert even more strongly to bunkering, seeing as he thinks we don't need goals when we're in the lead. Denis should be forced to write "Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense" 10,000 times on a blackboard. Strangely, a far more accurate assessment of what happened comes from Soumary: "We kept things tight and kept playing the way we had been playing. Being up 2-0, we didn't feel much pressure to score a third or fourth goal. You play hard for such a long time and then blow it at the end ... it's unspeakable." Bunkering is something done when you have a lead although I suppose it can be done by an away team to preserve a draw. We haven't bunkered much this year because, frankly, we haven't spent much time in the lead. It didn't help that we displayed an utter futility in front of goal in the second half too as well as being quite poor on our corner kicks. Rolfe should have come in for Nyarko much much sooner. Finally, let's give credit where it's due: the Wizards are the first decent team we've played this year and they never gave up. Also, in the 2nd half Hartman tore off his jersey to reveal blue pajamas with a big red "S" on the front.
A tired Blanco in the 60th minute was better than a speedy Nyarko in the 65th minute. This blown lead proves fresh runners don't hold leads. Those fall under the fair weathered fans. Even though this is only the 2nd home game and 5th overall, it's a little more meaningful/exciting than a 1st/2nd week baseball game. And those 80+ accounts probably went to Hawks ticket packages. Maybe we'll be seeing more discounts/specials in the summer.
there is no good reason for giving up 2 goals in 15 min. Bunkering never works. Ever. We absolutely dominated K.C. for 70 minutes or so, and then sit back and let them have possesion and a little hope. Look what happened. All we had to do was keep attacking.
And blaming this one on Hamlett is a joke, I hate the more than the next guy. He put out the best lineup of the year, the only thing I would have changed was Rolfe and Nyarko (I still think Nyarko should be coming off the bench and Rolfe should be starting up top with McBride). We had 4 or 5 shots that should have been goals, we should have been up 4-0 or 5-0 by time Kansas City scored there first goal.
Because even if Pause meant the goal and not just the giveaway was his fault, it's inaccurate. Sometimes a leader tries to take one for the team. Given the shakiness of our defense this year (the NY game excepted), I can see why Pause might want to try to bolster the backline's self-confidence by taking their blame onto himself. That may be commendable and all but it's still not true in any objective sense. Ward and Sega should be the ones pointing at themselves, not Pause.