Khari wasn't a world beater, but he could hold the ball and try and give it to a teammate, which is miles better than everyone else. You are right though. We didn't belong on the pitch with SJ. They sneaked into the playoffs, and they can kick it up a gear. Winning the #1 seed for the playoffs doesn't mean anything if you don't take the cup. And we don't like we will.
in the second half Khari looked better than pretty much everyone else in a wizards uniform, save Bo and defenders. He actually had a touch and hustled and pressured. We looked abysmal going forward the entire game.
Future Texas residents? Nice....you've got about 3 months of news to catch up on sparky. Anyway, I guess it come off on TV a little worse then it was. Honestly, you guys didn't play all that bad. We got lucky on the first goal...who knows how that one snuck in. I was actually impressed that KC didn't bunker in for the tie. They actually started off the game pushing forward. I think it caught us off guard at first. And as much as I like being up 2 goals....last year was a lesson learned....anything can happen.
what a lackluster game... San Jose played well, very aggresive... we played poorly... i tried to count strings of 5 passes that KC put together... only happened like twice... our work is most definitely cut out for us....
No offense, but you're in the Wizards forum, not the Earthquakes forum. If anyone is going to call him "sparky" around here, it's us. Now shuffle back off to the Earthquakes board.
Everything about this game sucked. The Wizards, the announcers, the officiating, that bad hair implant Donovan had put on his chin so he doesn't look like his sister anymore. Yuck. On a happier note: 2000 season. Coming back to KC for the third leg of the series against the Gals. We needed to essentially win twice. I didn't think we could. We did. We can do this. We will win next Saturday.
Where was Davy Arnaud? Correction: Where has he been in the past 2 months? Was his early season success a fluke or is he just in a scoring drought?
First off, Bo was pushed just prior to the weibal goal. Should have been a foul but it wasn't. Wolfe's first posession in the box should have been a PK as he was pulled down by two players. Game should have been 2-1 san jose at best.
For what its worth as Tony was heading up the ramp to the dressing room after the game his limp was quite noticable.
bo can't be faulted for either of the goals, in my opinion. he should still play saturday. i don't see any problem with us bagging two goals this coming weekend. the problem is keeping them from scoring any. our guys need to look at some tape from earlier in the year when we seemed to be scoring at a much higher clip. i know klein's absence cut the attack a bit, but there's things that are noticeably different when we're struggling to score one vs when davy's looking for a hattrick. it's time for gansler's coaching to step up. i've gone through the whole spectrum of emotions toward gansler over the last two years, and now is the perfect time to justify my/our support for his abilities. i know he never touches the ball, but he's GOT to come up with a better scheme than what we had yesterday. i'm upset at the piss poor performance, but i'm not entirely surprised. somehow we have the best record in the league, yet we all knew we got the worst draw. here's to overcoming our adversity and giving us a night to remember on saturday!!! these games are what championships are made of!
You could probably put a lot of that down to a lack of imagination in terms of passing. For a team without a target forward, the Wizards were hoofing a lot of long balls up top. The midfield was almost transparent on those occasions when they didn't have the ball flying over their heads into Spartan's non-existent space. Coming back from 2-0 down is far from impossible, but it'll take a lot better than KC showed today. Hopefully the wider confines of the 'Head and the lack of ESPN cameras will roust the Wizards from their latest bout of sleepwalking....
I am sure he will still play but the second goal was his fault. Someone brought up the fact that we did come from behind in 2000 to advance. Ya we did but that was totallly differant. All we needed was a 1-0 win to force the mini game. That was a very easy thing for us to do in 2000. Now in 04 we need 3 goals in one game to advance. We have scored 3 or more goals in a game a whopping 2 times this year. (this doesn't include USOC matches) Boy that gives me tons of confedience that we are going to get through to the next round. I mentioned it in the pregame thread that depth would kill us and it has. When K. Stephenson is your first player off the bench and the guy hasn't played a lick all year you know you are in trouble. To this problem I blame Mr. Johnson and Bob for thinking that their personal was ok and they didn't need to get help to cover the injuries to key players.
What I don't understand was why didn't Graham and Thomas come on? When Igor went off, why didn't Zotinca move up with Graham coming on? That's not just a defensive move. Zotinca had some good moments and looked good going forward. And that yellow card on him was ridiculous. He pops up to get back in the play defensively and Donovan runs into him. I am so tired of all the Calfornia Whine. Why not bring on Thomas and put Garcia foward to just guard Donovan? Let him stick to him and everyone else attack. Oh, well, it was a great season.
Part of Davy's early success was due to the fact that opposing defenders didn't know anything about him. We were all surprised to see Davy banging goals in, I'm sure the rest of the league was equally shocked. Now people have done their homework and are defending him better. Which is easier to do at the moment since they don't have Klien to worry about. Then again, part of his recent scoring drought is because of the crap service the midfield has been providing. So in short, the jury is still out. But I am starting to worry that it might have been a fluke. I have very little faith that Arnaud or anyone else will step up in the second leg. Davy really needs to prove he can be a consistent goal scorer next season
What the F? -It's one thing to be disappointed; it's another to juts be a fair-weather, quit when you're down jack-ass. -This is by no means an unworkable situation. Yes, we played like ass, but we lost because a fluke goal just before half-time (demoralizing) and because we gave up waaayy too many corner kicks (won't happen at Arrowhead). -I think we simply gave up on trying to win and just tried to keep the score low after the 41st minute. -And it was a ******** idea that didn't work in the end. -But even though we played very poorly, SJ still couldn't grab a real goal during the run of play. -There is nothing you can do about fluke goals except accept they won't happen often, and we can easily correct problems that lead to corner kicks and our defense on the ones we give do up. -Having to score 2 and keep a clean sheet isn't easy, but it is certainly doable. -On another note, something else we need to work on is playing more physical. We were the dominant team for the first 10-15 minutes, but we let SJ push us around too much and grind down our momentum. -In the Open Cup, we took it to SJ by being more physical than them, and I think they learned that lesson. -Time for us to answer back. -A few more things. -Bo looked good and has earned the right to start barking out orders, telling the D where to be. -It's one thing to be quiet and know your place when you're #2, but I think he's move beyond that now both in his play and in his role in these play-offs. -and that doesn't bother me bit. -Also, Z needs to stay back, clog up the midfield, and make simple passes that maintain posession; not a glorious job, but he's at his best when he does that -and that is exactly what we will need in game two. -If we maintain possession and keep up a strong defense in the middle of the field, I'm willing to bet Arnaud and Wolff can deliver two goals at home.