I was wondering about that. Must have checked MLSNET before they updated it. Bradley will probably play Vaud on the right side of the defense, saving Gray for later when we'll need fresh legs and size to deal with Ed Johnson when he comes in the game. Later, COZ
Get off the bus, Gus Looking at the match report, I've got some bad news. Gus St. Silva is the ref. We'll be lucky if we make it out of the Cotton Bowl without any injuries on plays where no foul is called. That also gives me some more justification on changing my scoreline. After being called to the carpet on the main MLS forum, I went back and checked. St. Silva, in addition to being the joke of a ref for the second 0-0 tie against United, gifted the Earthquakes a PK earlier this season (according to Kenny Stern during the last Chi-SJ telecast...I don't remember it) and was the center man in the absolute debacle against Miami last year on that Wednesday night loss. I'm almost curious enough to compile our records with each ref, since we still didn't *lose* two of those games. On the other hand, Kermit Quisenberry is the junior assistant referee. I have no joke, I just like saying "Kermit Quisenberry." Later, COZ
i hope the people going will give gus a piece of their mind, then move into an area of fire only fans
Re: Get off the bus, Gus Holy mother of God...MLS wants a brawl for tv. I'm convinced. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else, but wasn't there a 'Kermit Quisenberry' of some fame in another field or maybe in entertainment? I can't seem to place it...
Not to be mean, but if my name was Kermit Quisenberry, I would have been at the courthouse on my 18th birthday changing it. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, Gus St. Silva deserves to be a referee about as much as Elvis deserved his black belt.
Re: Re: Get off the bus, Gus You're perhaps thinking of longtime Kansas City Royals pitcher Dan Quisenberry? Later, COZ
Re: Re: Re: Get off the bus, Gus I think you may be right, believe it or not. Baseball cards from years of collecting still have a way of sticking in my head. I wonder if Kermit is a relation?
Re: Re: Re: Get off the bus, Gus aye... believe he finished his career with the st. louis cardinals... died a couple years ago because of a brain tumor, i believe
If he was indeed a Cardinal, that answer is inherently oxymoronic. St. Louis are nearly the Dallas Burn of baseball. StL has its t-shirt jerseys and mulletmen, but Big D has that little something extra to make them all the more horrible. Oh, uh...'Fire'.
The Inswinger, 8/8/02 Okay, the big new soccer column is almost ready to go, as is the rest of the new website. More info will be available shortly...it may exist in e-mail as well, if there's demand for that. GAME PREVIEW: Chicago at Dallas, 8/10/02 Call it the terrible twos. Saturday's match between the Fire and Burn is the second leg of "The Brimstone Cup," the manifestation of the teams' fierce rivalry created by fans of both squads. The Brimstone Cup is in its second year, and at this particular juncture, both teams are in second place in their conferences. The Fire have also won only twice in the Cotton Bowl, and with all the talk of the artificial turf at Cardinal Stadium in Naperville, maybe the blistering heat will prepare them for an afternoon start in Dallas. Aside from the heat, Bob Bradley's squad is quite familiar with this opponent, as Mike Jeffries' Burn is more or less the same bunch the Fire have faced previously, with a couple of exceptions. First is midfielder Ronnie O'Brien, who has added some spark to the Burn squad as a late substitution. The 23-year old from Ireland has won games for the Burn, but still hasn't displaced Oscar Pareja or Joselito Vaca in the starting lineup. Continuing our rule of twos, second is second-year forward Ed Johnson, who Dallas fans billed as the second coming after a preseason tear. Both of these players are young and fast, which may explain why they can be effective as late-game substitutions, particularly at home (where the Burn has only lost once in its last nine games) when the heat is a factor. On the bright side for the visitors, the Fire have not allowed a goal in 237 minutes, and newcomer Orlando Perez has strengthened the defense by moving Carlos Bocanegra into the middle. With additional help from midfielders Jesse Marsch and Billy Walsh, the Fire should be able to bottle up service from Pareja and Vaca, although both Burn middies tend to strike through the center of the field, where the Fire tend to be a bit more vulnerable than the flanks. And while forward Jason Kreis had a big game in Naperville in June, scoring two goals en route to a 3-1 Burn win, that was against a patchwork lineup that included two rookies, and A-leaguer and no World Cup players. Offensively, the Fire have their work cut out for them. Since the World Cup, the front line has been erratic at best, following up a dominating three-goal performance with goose eggs. This makes it a bit hard to predict how the team will fare, even more so when you factor in a 4-0 brain fart on the part of a typically solid Burn defense against San Jose a few weeks back. Can Beasley get space to run? Can Wolff get behind the defense? Can Kovalenko keep his head as midfield "general"? Can Ante get another two goals and an assist? Please? The Fire need to win this game, as it represents the game in hand over the Metrostars in the standings, and a win vaults the team into first place in the East. A tie puts them even, and after this setup, can the result be anything but a 2-2 tie?
Gus St. Silva is a moron Flagrant handball in the box. Tackle from behind. Gus must be related to Arsene Wegner. He never sees the incident in question. Ahh.. and now the Burn goal. God how I loathe him. On the plus side, Fire Fans/Ultras in good spot. Visible and making a noise. Rock on!
Not even half an hour into the match and St. Silva has already humiliated himself, MLs and American soccer five times over. I can't watch any more or I'll hurl on my TV. I'm switiching to the WUSA game. The Charge are playing so at least I'll be able to drool over Heather Mitts.
Blown handball call, cheap goal against, Wolff's blown sitter, and Matt Jordan with a horseshoe up his ass. Lots of holes in the Burn defense in the first 45 min. One goal won't win this one.
Now folks, not that it needs to be said, but that is why Hristo is here in MLS. Unfriggin real. Even in limited action, that's why no opponent wants to see #8 out there. The match as a whole is heating up too. Just like your usual Fire-Burn battle.
We missed CJ Brown. Vaud was getting beat 1 on 1 every single time. He should have been up on Kreis on the second goal. Wolff should have had a goal. Except he missed the open net. Scoring: DAL - Pareja (Rhine) 25 CHI - Stoitchkov 64 DAL - Kreis (Suarez, Cerritos) 89 DAL - O'Brien (Martinez) 91
left side of the box on a free kick about 3-5 yards out of the area. he sends a bender around the left-side of the wall straight into the net. jordan didnt even move.
A beauty of a free kick from about 20' out, after he fell down on a little bit of contact. Unfortunately, it didn't end well. Fire get caught a bit flat on defense as Kreis gets between Vaud and Curtin and scores the go-ahead in the 89th minute (granted, there was a deflection off of Dema on the through ball), then the defense gets caught pushing forward and Ronnie O'Brien ices it in stoppage time. If you watched the replay, you can probably fault Boca as much as Wolff for that sitter. Wolff was already trying to slow his run, and wasn't able to hit it nearly in stride. The curse of St. Silva continues, although he did finally give Stoitchkov a call. Later, COZ
Yeah, they were isolating Martinez vs. Vaud for most of the second half. I'm not sure I would have left him in that late in the match. Kelly Gray can play right back, right? That said, we had enough brain farts in the defensive end to lose this one by a much wider margin. I don't know if it was the lack of CJ's leadership or what. Billy Walsh almost gift-wrapped a goal when he let a low cross get through at one point in the second half. We let the ball bounce around in the penalty box entirely too much, and I'm not even going to mention some of the passes around the backline that got picked off. Now we have to start counting on the Metrostars to lose, and while that's not asking much lately, I'd rather we were driving. Later, COZ