GOOD @ EVIL 10/2 postgame thread (KC@LA for the clueless) 6 hours 50 minutes until the celebration begins! The Wizards shall smite the evil Galaxians. All the cheating and PKs will not stop us this time.
Post match stuff in here, no trolls or flamers from LA regardless of the outcome. Someone's season ends tonight and one or the others fans aren't going to be too happy about that so keep it cool.
OK. This will not be a popular opinion around here im sure, but The fact of the matter is that 4 of those 5 goals were things that tony should have had, and 4 of those 5 were entirely his fault. This was one of the most extreme cases of a goalkeeper not being on i have ever seen . The first one was a nice goal. It was the only one the galaxy really deserved. just about everything else was a major ************up by us/tony. Second one was a mixture of things. It was : a) out defenses Incredible lack of ability to just CLEAR THE F-ING BALL! , and b) Diegos attempt at a bycicle within the box and with cobi clearly coming up behind him. c) Tony being out of position. Third one - Tony, If there is a defender on a player taht is coming towards your goal..DO NOT COME OFF YOUR LINE!!! period! fourth one- See #3 Fifth one - See #4 I will be fair. It was not tonys play alone that contributed to that loss. What exactly the ************ is wrong with our midfield?!?! There is no reason that our midfield should be any sort of a problem with players lkie Quill, Armstrong, Preki, And Klein. However, For some reason know only to the person who knows these kind of things (which is in all likleyhood bob) We have a tremendous inability to connect our defence with our strikers. Dario and Igor has the potential to be a kick-ass combination in this league, but they need more service than the type of stuff they were getting last night. Everytime we go on a ttack, we always seem to find some way to poke-ass around until we give up the ball again! Although I despise Cobi JOnes, our Midfield could lean a bit from him. every time he gets the ball, hes gone! miving straight up the field with it. That would be much more effective than what we are doing now, which is basically a) get posession of the ball b) hold it for alittle while unitl you are pressured c) play it back d) play it to he wings e) Wing player pushes it in to the middle f) Wing player sends a short pass into a person in the midde of a crowd of people in the center circle g) That player then sends a long, high, diagonal ball to oen of our fiorward which is ALWAYS, without excepetion, either easily intercepted by the head of a defender, or nowhere near the intended target. That is not bunkering, folks. That's just STUPID FOOTBALL.
Well, at least the fish and chips were money. Had a good crowd at Malloy's, too bad about your shirt Sam. In spite of the rugged play there were no ugly incidents. Ruiz hugging Nick was a classy move. Good luck to Galaxy the rest of the way. Already looking forward to next year.
1. Someone dive in on that free kick and block the ball. 2. Diego! Boot the damn thing out of there! 3. Vermes! Down only 2-1 around the '60 minute mark, no need to sprint up top like a center forward and leave Nick totally exposed! 4. Vermes! Just 'cause you did it once, doesn't mean you need to do it again! (Or was someone else caught totally and completely exposed on this one?) 5. Guys. Don't embarrass yourselves with stupid missed backpasses like that. That's no way to finish a year. PS. #6. Tony, it's okay to save a shot from the other team. Ouch. Giving up two each to Ruiz AND Cobi. Ouch.
Classy post, and I know how difficult it is. Been there. All season LA has had this weird pattern of exploding in one game and looking unbeatable, and then next game out looking pedestrian at best or completely impotent. Tonight KC just happened to be the other team on the field when GaLAxy had one of their very rare explosions. The difference, in part, between Game 2 and Game 3 was at the mid-field. I do not think your guys played badly - I think not playing a sick or tired Cienfuegos (pretty gutsy move by MLS' "gutsiest" coach) meant we had five active and energetic mid-fielders. In KC, Cien was not himself and Vagenas was hobbled, so LA midfield was a disaster. On the first Ruiz goal, do you think there was a deflection? Or was the shot just screened? I do not agree that Tony was so bad last night - he just got hung out to dry. The guy who looked bad to me was Garcia, who got turned around and inside out at least twice, including most vividly the 5th goal. In any event - and I stayed for 10-15 minutes after the game to watch - your guys went off the field with heads up and with class. Meola made it a point to shake hands with Cobi, Lalas, and Ruiz that I saw - maybe others. Tony takes a lot of stick from our fans, and we know he can be a competative hot head, so for him to act this way showed a level of dignity that I did not know he had. No more "Fat Tony Mazola" cat-calls from this LA fan, ever again.
Glad you noticed the handshakes, etc. Classy. This series was won and lost in midfield and some rather niaive attacking play by the Wizards. Credit to LA for finishing chances too. Our superior midfield play in Game 2 (especially Diego and Preki) won us that one. It was a gutsy move to bench Cien and the increased speed for LA was obvious from the outset. Our niaivete showed when only 2-1 down after Klein did his Preki move. We still had 40-odd minutes to go and suddenly we play two defenders??? WTF!? It was like the counter attack was alien to their thinking. Yes, go for the equalising goal, but you don't abandon the defenders so quickly. Vermes was pushing up, fine, but then someone needs to cover him, if not he needs to stay home. Ruiz dominated Garcia on those counter attacks, no other way to look at it. Yeh, Garcia was let down with no one to help him, but if he is gonna twist and turn and stay 5 yards off his man, then he is gonna concede a shot (and likely a goal) every time. He needed to move in closer to Riuz and block him, by any means possible. Tony looked slow all night, slow to react, slow to dive, out of position terribly, and only intent on blaming others.
I blame the second one on Diego and Vermes 110%. Diego should of had that ball out, he was just kinda waiting for the ball to come down, he took his time. Somebody should of told him Cobi was comeing...Im thinking this was the goal where Vermes took the ball from Meola. Thats what I blame on Vermes. Second time this season he has done that. It was pretty obvious Tony had that ball but Vermes stepped in front of him. Bad move.
KC and LA are similar teams. The key difference being what decided the series, LA's finishing. Hard to fault Tony on too much. We're used to him coming up with at least one or two of them, so it's obvious to us he wasn't at a peak. No shame in playing a team that puts everything just inside the post on the day. You just have to tip your hat. I have to think that when KC got the first and second goals, even though LA had the game well in hand, LA fans must have sweat it a bit. The series was close KC fans gave Tony the same treatment when he was a Metro. He was class then too.
What difference?? We scored 8, they scored 8 + a bogus PK. Totally even. If anything, we're better as they needed 2/3 home games to equal us.
i was. i actually started to think towards the end of the first half we were losing serious momentum and that a KC goal was pending. i think in retrospect that 2nd goal was the hammer blow, it came against the run of play and at just the right time to hurt KC. still not in retrospect, that early goal definitely had me on the edge. at the end of the day an exciting series. do you honestly believe the result would have been any different. cross out the penalty and call game one a tie, you would have still pummeled us in game two, and in game three we would have been just as fired up as last night. did you honestly see winning that match last night? or the mini-game? ask new york about how that works. last night was as much a must-win as it would have been if we tied in game one.