Poor @WhiteHartShame Had enough confidence in a Crew win, but didn't go all out for his grouchy point.
Santos was a good player for us tonight, but holy hell, why didn't he pass to a wide open Diaz in the box?
Sample size for Nagbe being on a starting XI ? I think we need to make a youth movement and get someone at the 8 that will score a few goals and Nagbe doesn’t score . I’m surprised he is starting for Atlanta . He is basically a older more experienced version of Artur with a much better past track record
Idk but i thought he should of got 2 PKs. How was that play your talking about not a PK i saw a lot of contact to the legs sliding in front of Santos and taking him out.
Uhhh. That might be the worst description of Maybe I have ever read. Artur is slow on the ball and does nothing going forward. Nagbe was the engine for Atlanta last year. Their whole game was quick countering soccer. He was the reason it worked. He would receive or take the ball in their half. Carry it through the midfield. And rack up those secondary assists. The only part of that Artur does is maybe win the ball (or foul) in our half.
Great win. Listened to the 2nd half on the radio. Not quite dead yet. A win next week and some more help and we could even have a pulse going into the Philly game.
Great game over 90 minutes. We looked dangerous early with the Santos shot just wide and the offside/non-PK non-call. We then had three and should have had more in the second half. It could easily have been a 4-2 win. Great: Diaz and Zardes. The numbers showed the impact Diaz had attacking down the right side. Zardes had his best game of the year. He won balls, held up for the attack to move up, made smart runs and even had the good pass to Santos that was called offside. His goal was superb. Good: Santos and Mensah. Santos started strong, then came down a bit and he definitely was trying to make things happen on his own when a pass would have been better. Mensah was a rock in the back, heading out crosses and blocking shots. Above average: Keita, Afful and Maloney. No glaring mistakes by Keita and much better distribution. The outside backs had their hands full and mostly held their own. Maloney allowed Josef to accelerate past him for the goal but was heavily involved on both sides of the field and his shot sounded some alarms on the Atlanta side. Average: Room, Artur and Guzman. Room didn't have much to do and didn't have a chance on the goal. He needs to come out on some crosses like the one Josef headed wide late in the match. Guzman needed to do better with the drop pass from Zardes and his defensive positioning was suspect at times but they both won balls in the middle during the key moment when the Crew turned the 0-1 to a 2-1 lead. Below average: Mohktar and Argudo. Neither had an influence on the game on the left. Mohktar seems to look to pass first instead of making a little space and getting a shot off. Argudo had a bad turnover that led to the Atlanta fans blowing horns and letting smoke bombs go - for a close miss by Josef. Porter - no idea why Guzman was in. I would have started Argudo and Artur if he was planning to sit Trapp. He still gets credit for whatever they did in the two weeks off. The team was prepared for 90 for the first time in a long time.
With this win, an interesting phenomenon has occurred... CB9K record now stands at 9-15-7 (34 points) after 31 games. Sigi's 2005 season record was 8-15-9 (33 points) on 32 game season. So regardless of the next game's result, CB9K will have a better 32 game record in his first year than Sigi. For my fruit sellers out there... 1. CB9K did inherit a better team (14-11-9, 51 points in 2018) than Sigi did (11-16-5, 38 points in 2005). 2. Sigi did have a lot more off-season to work on his team for the first season (hired 10/5/05 and played first match of the season on 4/1/06, just under 6 months) compared to CB9K's off-season (hired 1/4/19 and played first match of the season on 3/2/19, just under 2 months). 3. Sigi matched the previous year's USOC performance (Round of 16 vs Round of 16), while CB9K improved upon the previous year performance (Round 5 vs Round 4). 4. Sigi has the better historical resume coming into the first year when compared to CB9K's CV. 5. Sigi's 2006 team finished dead last in both Conference (6 of 6) and overall League standings (12 of 12), CB9K is guaranteed not to finish last in either category (thanks Fussball Cotton Candy) in a Conference of 12 teams and a League of 24. What does it all mean for Year 2 (and, possibly Year 3), who knows? But I thought this was some interesting information to add to the discussion of what this season really tells us.
It’s our second win since the beginning of August, and only our 9th since March. I think you’d find more joy in these small and rare victories if you focused on the result rather than what some handsome message board poster thinks. But, all fandom is unique, like so many snowflakes.
Well. Didn't expect that. First, hats off to Zardes on the equalizer. It's easy on first glance to say "yeah, that's a rebound into an open goal." But seeing the replay from behind the goal, that's a darn good finish. Inside the post, up top. That couldn't have been placed any better. Diaz. Wow. It looked like that chance had blown up in his face after a lousy pass, but great composure once he got it back. I'm liking him more and more. We've mentioned Darlington Nagbe on these boards lately in terms of a possible trade target or in terms of the National team situation. I think he's vastly overrated, bordering on just-not-that-good-to-begin-with. Well, I think the only time I heard his name all night was when that ball found him with a chance to equalize in the 69th just inside the penalty spot, and he completely misplayed it. I just don't get it with this guy. One thing I noticed that pushed my buttons tonight... A few years ago, the culture of professional soccer changed. It's not customary anymore to automatically kick the ball out of play if a player is down on the ground injured. So here's my question: How is it that the only ones who haven't gotten the memo yet are the people actually involved in the game? Caleb Porter lost his mind a couple of times over this tonight, and you see players gesturing for the ball to go out for this reason a lot. It drives me nuts. PLAY THE GAME. Guzman is terrible. I hope we never play him again. I didn't even notice that Trapp wasn't out there until he subbed in late, and I just went "oh yeah. I forgot." Pretty remarkable that we only have nine wins this season, and two of them are against the champs.
I couldn't be happier with the Crew win by 2. That own goal did me in....I have missed so many grouchy points by one goal this season, kind of like The Crew!!!
Guzman has his best game from us. Normally he’s god awful hot garbage. Last night he was simply bad. Congrats to him getting his first win as a starter. Only took 4 months. Diaz is going to be a very exciting player for us. If we can get a new #10 and have Pedro and Diaz as our wingers we could be in good shape. A lot will depend on who replaces Pipa though. Glad Keita got some solid minutes. Hopefully he develops into a top CB for us and the Nats.
I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a certain poster's advice (hint hint) and drop a $20 on that game last night.
I apologize for the deletion. Someone PM'd me that I shouldn't show the photo of the ticket until it's been cashed in. Long story short, I put $100 on the Crew at +650 and covered a substantial part of my ST tab for 2020. Unfortunately, Mrs. Smoking Monkey is now holding the ticket.
I don’t know why some tend to knock a player for scoring off of a rebound. Positioning is just as important, if not more so than ripping one from beyond the 18 or something. Our beloved Dante Washington scored a ton of goals for us that way. Zardes did the dirty work getting the ball out to Diaz then put himself in perfect position to receive that rebound. What often looks like being at the right place at the right time is usually an attacker reading the game and putting himself in that position.
When I typed that, I didn't mean it in the sense of suggesting that rebound goals aren't valuable or that there's no skill involved. I was only pointing out that it was a more difficult finish than it first appeared.
Honestly Diaz has a wasted cross earlier they he should of did the same thing i think he realized it and adjusted . If you strike a ball hard a GK can’t catch it is a strategy that is often better Than a impossible pass. Shoot your shot don’t be gun shy