Matchday 4, Saturday May 15, RSL vs Nashville

I am in St George
I got hit by 3 of Rusnak's corner kicks

 

You made the right call, IMO.

 

In general, I agree... but, notice what Wondo did with his short appearance. Of course, we have no super-subs like him.

 

This will be quick because this was one of the most forgettable RSL matches in years

1. Color me both surprised and happy to see Freddy slide Rusnak to Attacking Mid, Kreilach to the 2 man midfield line, and not slide Besler to CB. There was speculation on the RSL radio pregame show (I cant remember the guys name) that Besler was in fact ahead of Holt on the CB depth chart. This game disproved that.
2. Color me worried that Herrera and Silva were both out of this game completely. Everton, too. Those injuries are impactful and really hurting this team.
3. Rubio's work rate is really admirable, and he's shown some good flashes on the ball, but I can't not see this as the next version of Paulo Junior. As more and more film comes out on him, the less effective he is going to be. I hope he has more wrinkles to his game. Not necessarily a knock to him, but this one really felt like a game that took the wind out of his sails from recent weeks. Kudos to Nashville's scouting
4. I do not like Justin Meram as a starter. He is reliant on a lot of pace and moves. He doesn't have the cleanest of touches/passes when needed, and if he isn't able to have an edge on a player by being fresh he just isn't effective. Him starting on this team is telling of where the ceiling is.
5. Similarly, Julio's touch continues to astonish me for how poor it is. The guy has loads of pace but is sooooo sloppy with how and where he touches the ball. His loan stint makes sense and, in a far too quick reaction, I don't see enough to justify bringing him in on what would almost definitely have to be a TAM or DP level contract.
6. Speaking of DP's, imagine what this team could do with one in an Attacking role. Especially midfield. Whats that? That guy makes HOW MUCH!? I simply do not get it. The quality that Rusnak offers is so massively below what he is giving to the game. He had a rating of 6.3 this game. His average is 6.33 on the season. He's 13th best; just 0.01 points above the legendary Nick Besler. How in the actual ******** is anyone ok with him being captain, let alone in the lineup at all?
7. I will say, it was nice to get the first clean sheet of the season. I don't really remember Ochoa having to do much in terms of making saves. Holt and Glad did just enough in the key moments (and Nashville was just that poor in those same moments, it must be said) to make it a pretty boring game on that end of the pitch.
8. I can say with almost 100% certainty that Wondo would have scored a game winner in this one, again, though.
9. RSL's heatmap is more in the defensive half, pivoted towards the right where Holt/Brody played. If the ball is showing up the most in Holt's area then RSL isn't going to be doing much offensively. Well, it will be offensive, just not attacking.
10. Nashville made 3 subs ahead of Freddy making his first. For being a "tactical genius" he sure is reactionary in those moments, it feels. Further, that first sub wasn't until the 76th minute, with the next phase not getting into the game until the 82/83 min.
11. I think Freddy really took to heart the breakdowns against SJ late and made some super defensive focused subs to close down the space on the wings for Nashville. This was a good move, but with a better player in the air would have been too late.
12. I'm not sure how anyone could watch that game and say of all the players to be allowed to go the full 90 that Rusnak should be one of them. Ironically, if you look at the ratings on whoscored, the subs were made to the top performers while poor players were left in. Most notably Rusnak and Rubin
13. The movement off the ball in this game was atrocious. Nobody wanted to make cutting runs, either direction, and nobody wanted to create space elsewhere. It was truly one of the slowest games I've watched on TV
14. The last gasp header falling to Holt was fitting. He had one of his best games (maybe best) in an RSL shirt and was one of the only players worth putting on the scorecard for this one. His miss summed up the game rather well.
15. Somehow I feel more bleh after this one than after the San Jose game. The bike goal certainly helps with that one, but I'd have thought I'd be more excited about RSL defending better. I don't know if I can really say either team did enough on the attack to compliment the other defense. The game felt like it was never actually in gear

 

One of my thoughts seeing this game live was to watch and listen to Rusnak and see what he might be doing and providing that doesn't come across on the broadcasts. Even though he arguably had a better game than the recent path I still saw nothing that indicated his leadership on the field.

I think we had 11 corners and only the last one offered any sort of threat. Rusnak just blasts them and when Ruiz gets involved it all gets a bit too cute for my liking.

 

From Doyle's Armchair Analyst column:

"Nashville brought a classic English 4-4-2 to Rio Tinto and just kind of crushed the life out of what ended up being a scoreless draw. The only good chance RSL generated all night was a header from center back Erik Holt deep into second-half stoppage time, which probably tells you everything you want to know about the rewatchability of this match.

This is fine from Nashville — collect road points any damn way you can. For RSL, I think it’s a pretty compelling data point that the ball moves better and the overall attack is much more dynamic when Albert Rusnak’s not in the engine room."

 

1. Albert was more involved than he typically is, but didn’t have the impact you want to see from the 10. Not anywhere near it.
2. This is typical Silva. Our depth is so bad that we need him playing even though he makes major errors in every game. Yet, he’ll miss 40% of the games due to injuries.
4. I agree. He would be an acceptable sub.
5. Yep. Julio has blazing speed and I like his physicality. But his positioning doesn’t reflect a high level of knowledge of the game. He also doesn’t make runs when it’s obvious that a run is called for. He will ball watch.
8. After an atrocious Nashville missed shot I sang this little ditty:
“I know a man from San Jose
Who would have put
That ball
Away”
9. The heat map accurately reflects that we spent most of our possession with the back line passing to one another in our half of the field.
10. “Freddy the tactical genius” narrative comes off as something said by people who like him and don’t want to say anything negative. They could be correct. I’m not an expert and it’s difficult for me to see it.
11. As I posted elsewhere, I think Freddy’s subs impacted the game. I truly think the bench is pretty weak right now for attacking game impacters.
13. This is why we saw so much passing back and forth between the back line. It reminded me a lot of our 2020 play.
14. I think his best game isn’t MLS level. Just my opinion.
15. It was pretty unwatchable. Not a shining example of the beautiful game. At least against SJE we dominated and played attractive soccer for most of the game. I didn’t see that in this one. I was disappointed to see a new franchise make its first visit to The Riot and emerge with a justified draw.

 

I was very curious to be at the game where I could perhaps watch Rusnak more closely in the live setting rather than the broadcast. I've wondered if there is something more tangible, visible or otherwise apparent with his leadership that is not coming across on the broadcasts. I do indeed think he had a better game. But I saw nothing that demonstrated the justification of his salary, being a captain or any potential of becoming the playmaker we really need right now. He came with a good game but hasn't done anything to improve, develop or change it.

I did listen to a bit of the painful postgame interviews. Freddy's response to nearly every question was "uh yeah, we need to work on that."

 

And, yet, annoyingly, Wondo didn’t put his chances away this particular weekend.

 

For the life of me, I don't know what a guy like Milan Iloski has to do to get subbed in. Watching Dougy play out of position up top has to be infuriating.