There's a hella debate going on in the Charge's WUSA.com message board which has gone past the result of Saturday's game focusing on #22. My two microns: No one, first off, is wanting McV to be the second coming of Doris, or E-I. Just that she's a good player. But by the time she blooms into the player the coaching staff thinks she can become, it may be too late to save the season. If the Charge had a record like the Power or Spirit did last year and this was a rebuilding year, I think it would have been a lot more palatable for us to accept McVeigh playing *out of position*. But this is a team which was a legit contender for the WUSA title the first two years of its life, and this on-the-job training is not paying off right now. Nobody's even said anything about her back pass to Melissa in the box with Prinz about 3 yards away and closing in during the first half. She has improved, yes, but the remaining miscues she does commit are whoppers and they are hurting the team in terms of goals yielded, points in the standings lost, and post-season hopes. No one has yet said what Prinz did was not within the rules; it was perfectly legit from any angle. It was TEXTBOOK. Do you honestly think she could have gotten by Borisjuk - or Orlandos? It all goes back to draft day; you draft Callie Withers at 4, and she would have addressed the midfield issue, Orlandos at #6 the back, and you still would have had Solo as your #2 GK. We should have let Atlanta take Arrington - look at how that wound up. Melanie Wilson wasn't going anywheres down there. So they pull a swerve and pick Solo at #5; then Wilson would be the odd-GK-out. We pick her up off waivers, and we still get a good backup to Moore. Another problem I had is the caliber of foes McV faced in the Ivy in her college career did not prepare her for the caliber of talent she's facing now, and were not even in the same hemisphere as the Pac-10, ACC or even Big 12. I'd love to have an RPI of women's soccer conferences and see where the Ivy winds up in that. Withers and Orlandos were battle-tested against the elite of the college game week in and out. If you believe, as I sadly do that this is it for the league this year, then you need to do everything in your power to win now before the end comes, since you may not get another chance for a do-over in '04. But there is a stubbornness on the coaching staff's part that they're right on McV, even if conventional wisdom and the evidence - so far - suggest otherwise. What should give everybody pause was that there were no subs on our side Saturday, while Carolina used 2 of their 3. What purpose did it serve for Borisjuk and Kruze to warm up and down the south sideline for almost the entire second half if they weren't going to be subbed in? I'm not saying the injuries haven't been nuclear winter-esque for us; they have. But you've got to work on one thing at a time. We're also being shown to our detriment that size does matter. That's a thread-starting topic for another day, however. Paul
We have one more reason to be optimistic about this week's match. Julie Fleeting, "Ayr Scotland", will be in Portugal to play in an Euro 2005 Qualifier. They should beat them but they just want to clinch it with their best player. Now I usually don't plug commercial ventures but there's a good article in this week's Soccer America about the Charge. Take a look at it. In fact, take a look at it a book store or whatever and don't buy it. I feel better. Now I usually don't like rookies starting in a game but with our injuries we are limited. Also with the weather conditions on Saturday, I would have liked at least one sub just to limit the chance for injury and to shake some things up.
My 2 cents. McVeigh is just a convenient scapegoat for those who would like to believe the Charge would have a winning record, except for one rookie's mistakes. It ain't so. Prinz has burned better defenders than Orlandos and Borisjuk and she'll continue to do so. Defenders (including McVeigh) win most of the 1-v-1's, but they don't win them all. Two weekends ago Staci Burt got called on a foul in the box on Latham. SD got the pk and Foudy the goal. It was a dubious call, but from what I saw, so was the call on McVeigh. Lots of pk's this year. The Charge are where they are in the standings for a reason. The whole team has been outplayed more often than not. The tide might turn, but it's going to take a lot of hard work.
Hey, Im not saying the Charge would have a winning record. The team hasnt gelled like in years past, and hasnt put forth the effort to consistantly win. Im just saying on a struggling team, there is no room for error, so any mistakes are magnified that much more. To use a baseball term, defense up the middle wins games (catcher, 2nd, shortstop, centerfield), well the charge defense down the middle has stunk most of the time. They need to get back to basics and have Fair play the D mid where she is most affective, get Makinien off the field (Gaberra did know something after all), and stop letting teams run straight at the central defense. KSP
Anyone who say my prognosis for the season knows I predicted the Charge for 5th place. You don't lose players like Liu and Zhao and Iverson and NOT be affected. The two Chinese are HIGHLY technically skilled with tons of experience at the highest level. Iverson filled a role of the consumate defender, who rarely got beat and won more than her fair share of balls in the air. Next is Smith coming off injury. I said 7-7-7, the team would struggle for 7 matches, find themselves for 7, then make a play-off spurt for 7. That was prior to Scasna, Smith and Arrington being nailed with bad injuries. These three leaving a team devoid of offensive scoring punch barring Pichon. So, there's a huge roster turnover, and the worst spring in decades, terrible training conditions for a new team to get acclimated with one another . Throw in two new coaches.... The bench has been pushed into the starting line-up...misaki has played acceptably well the past two matches... players roles have chanced, Tullock a holding mid has gone to the wing, and now into attacking mid the past two matches...hoffmann has gone from attacking mid into a forward role... so 7 matches have past, and the key is the mental outlook of the team.... against Carolina, they showed their best defensive composure of the season... and prior to the 2nd Pichon goal, about 10 minutes of their hallmark possession game... so what's the rest of the season to bring???
what's the outlook... The issue will be confidence, in themselves and knowing they can compete... Emily Burt has been a revelation out on the left, and I would imagine, she's nailed down a starting slot for quite a while.... so what would I do... Between Moore and Solo, it's the question of a physically more talented keeper versus a keeper with more experience. I would expect keepers to be alternated, until one emerges... and then 3-5-2 mcveigh tietjen-prozzo fair in the backline.... benson and mitts as wings tullock and makinen and hoffmann as the central mids with tullock in a holding slot pichon and burt as forwards... the key is benson and mitts wing play, collapsing at times to be 5 defenders and still getting forward for overlap play... and I think 3 central mids give far more passing outlets and will give the charge better possession in midfield...tullock and hoffmann can do this...makinen provides some holding ability... pichon needs no praise we all know her briliance, burt's quickness and skill have been shown the past two matches... a nice relationship between burt and pichon on the left has emerged, up top getting another scoring threat with pichon is a must... next, scasna gets over her plantar facsiitis and becomes a sub..again she's got some really nice skills, getting her into a sub routine to play 30 minutes offers the chance to affect the match offensively in the 2nd half.. And Kelly Smith...well 3 more weeks for her, and then we see her as a 15 minute sub..and then we extend it for 5 added minutes until she can play 45, and then I stop there. the key is playing good soccer and getting some momentum... as the season proceeds, the young kids mature and get better and the injured return... play your hardest and be satisfied with whatever the results are..
Here's the last A-J ranking of the '02 season: Code: Rating Rank Conf Median Max Min Size 1 PAC10 1864 2184 1499 10 2 ACC 1839 2167 1658 8 3 WCC 1813 2079 1296 8 4 B10 1707 2039 1605 11 5 B12 1674 1986 1181 11 6 SEC 1666 1835 1365 12 7 BGE 1610 1955 1300 14 8 IVY 1598 1843 1371 8 I can't help but agree with what Paul posted. The first time I saw McV play against SJ, I knew she was toast. And things have hardly improved since. Leaping ability is questionable, she's slow, can't read the game well, gets herself caught out of position. And ummmmm . . . . . forget about bringing in subs. Anytime you field McV & Mak is a condemnation of how bad the rest of the squad looks. Or so it seems. I also find it amusing how clueless the McV apologists are. I suppose one can neglect the number of undefensed goals that McV's mark scored against her. I suppose if PHL can score two more goals per game, that it should be more than enough to cover for McV's mistakes. Ahem . . . . . the original point was that McV wasn't worth the pick. Perhaps PHL could have done worse with the pick, but Mark would have had to work extra hard to screw it up. Not that he didn't work extra hard to reach for McV. Can things get any worse if McV, or Mak, were not to play? Perhaps. Can things get any better if McV, or Mak, were not to play? I say it's worth a shot. 1/3 of the season is gone. 2/3 is up for grabs. A 6-game win streak would be very welcome. If PHL play Mak & McV the same way, nothing will change. As I said in the 3rd week, Mak probably did something right offensively to become College Player of the Year. Stick Mak up front and see what happens. As for McV, as I said in the 1st game, she's a project. And she still is. Play her when the season's already lost, not when there's still a fighting chance.
you can only worry about the present an the healthy players you have... so 3-5-2 sit with double d-mids in front of mcveigh tietjen and fair...and that's tullock and makinen have benson and mitts out wide...perhaps they'll get forward more than they have thus far.... can both can cross the ball... hoffmann gets dropped into an attacking mid role... and burt partners pichon... that's my option right now.... and then scasna and smith give you more offensive punch as subs whenever they get healthy... gabe jennings has all the answers too