Metros were lucky to walk away with a point. Two posts and a missed empty-netter. If this was a boxing match, Harold Lederman would have scored this 116-111 in favor of the Crew, with one point deducted for Guevera's low-blow. Amado could have been tossed much earlier. Remember when he shoved Oughton TWICE in front of the official early in the 2nd half? Totally overracted on the Szetela foul. Don't be surprised if MLS adds on ANOTHER game to the mandatory one-game suspension for his theatrics after being red-carded. Even in the tunnel, I could see him looking back at the official with guards telling him to keep walking. Brenes is getting raves here, but there were many occasions where Leitch had to pick-up two guys since Pablo wasn't coming back to mark Hedjuk. Ironically, the key of the match may have been Vaca's injury. It seems to have affected Gaven the most, as the midfield was totally out of whack. I know Andrulis is not liked but any of the Crew fans, but I don't know of too many people who thought they would be only two points out of first place this late in the season.
What game were you at. Pope snuffed out every possible attack. Getting an f..ing clue Clark has not been as good this year with his injuries. He is a good player, but be serious
I agree with all but 4 and 5. Brenes, to me, had a marginal effect on the game. Vaca should be ok, if not we are deep in midfield
I'll chime in with my observations and responses: First, Guevara - I was at the game, and saw that he was playing hot for most, if not all, the second half. Can't say I saw it during the first half. I came home and pulled up the MLSnet feed and specifically watched both incidents, and I have to say he deserved them both. He'd been doing well this year keeping his temper in check. Tonight wasn't one of them. Gaven - I think he needs a benching. He's been ineffective of late, probably since his two-game anointing of "The Next Great Thing." Has it gone to his head? Are teams marking him out of games? Don't know. But lately he's been disappering from games for long stretches and maybe the benching will knock him back down a couple of notches the way it did Vaca. Brenes had a marginal effect on the game because nobody would pass him the f'ing ball. He'd make runs into/toward open spaces and the ball would get played away from him. I thought he played well overall. Won't comment on defensive stuff because I didn't really focus on that. Deep in midfield? Not anymore. Bradley the yonger, Gilberto & Lisi are out with ankle injuries. We just lost Vaca with an MCL sprain (as reported in the MLSnet write-up I read). Guevara's gone on international duty the next game(s), then suspended when he gets back. That leaves us with Gaven and Clark as our listed mids. Brenes and Magee are transplanted (technically playing out of position). Who else shall we transplant? Enough of that - time to rant a little: We need someone to step up in the midfield and take up the vice-presidency, so to speak. Amado is a great talent, but he can't do it all. Be it Gaven (ideally), Magee, or someone else, but we need a secondary playmaker to step up and share the load with Amado. Could we PLEASE stop looking like an we're trying out for the Olympic diving team?! Magee, Gaven, Glen, Woly all have irritating habits of trying to draw fouls in/around the box and elsewhere instead of staying on thier feet and trying to score. If they got points for diving, we'd be running away with the conference. (LA'd still lead the league thanks to Fishy.) Can we learn to hit the through ball a little sooner before the player goes offside or stops, then has to re-start the run? Perhaps even finding the guy who's got open space to run into, but just needs the ball served to him? Granted, this is all from my vantage near mid-field, but I see players (Magee, Brenes tonight, SGR of late) saying "Play the ball to me over here," and the ball never getting there. Are the players blind? Think they have better options? Don't know. But it is highly frustrating to watch. Bradley - PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE teach the guys to stay spread out!! It kills me to see us have all 10 field players compressed into half to two-thirds of the field (side-to-side, not goal-to-goal). Not only does it cut down options on passes, but it makes it easy for the other team to defend us. It also invariably leaves them with one guy wide open on the un-occupied side just waiting for them to steal the ball and send him in on a break-away down the wing, and us scrambling to get back to cover. While I'm at - sit Woly and start a new forward tandem. Glen, Taylor, SGR. Pick any two and start them. Nothing personal against Woly, but I hate to see him out wide and he doesn't bring more to the table than the other three aside from he works his ass off. I just want to see something new and see if we can't get more dangerous chances from the forwards. I'll get off my box now. I'm certain we'll make the playoffs, either as the first or second seed. We should get through the first round. But the play of this team has me worried. I see the flashes of total control and domination that we're capable of, and then I see the total lack of organization that give me nightmares of all out collapse and blown potential. They sure as hell make it rough to be a MetroSupporter.
First off, Gaven sucked tonight. How he wasn't subbed out was BEYOND me. I love the kid, but he takes certain simple plays way too casually. He botched at least 10 plays. Why was Glenn subbed before Woly? Was he injured? Look some people are bitching about his diving (he dives...who doesn't...), but before he was taken out, Glenn was really making stuff happen. Since when does Maggee have the balls to make 20-30 yard runs from deep in our own zone and then promptly lose it? Parke is a super defender, however he was horrible in the air today. Marshall is a good defender, but I still like the poise and the attitude of Parke more. He has a presence on the field that is a joy to watch. Pope needs to get his act together. Where the hell is that Pope from the Nats? It isn't fair. We played well for about 15 minutes in the second half. Why? Simply because our players moved the ball quickly, and our fullbacks moved into space very quickly, thus opening up lanes. C-bus didn't have an answer. As someone else said we need to release the ball quicker, and stop springing the ball to Woly anywhere outside of the box. The guy's touch is horrid. I personally favor the SGR/Glenn tandom up top. I've always felt those two looked for each other. I want to see it for 90 minutes. Brenes did NOTHING in the first half when he was subbed in for Vaca. Second half he was better, but still had poor execution on some plays. We need to execute better. From passing to shooting. We need to focus more.
Amen. I root for the uniform but yesterday....uh, it's grind to watch this type of soccer. Poetic justice that Crew would miss the best chance in a match so bereft of chances.
This had been his MO since day one with the team. Lately his time on the field consists of wandering about, losing most balls played to him in the box, whining, and diving. Other than being a young American player I really don't see much in Magee.
Not trolling (I swear), but Guevara is flat-out wrong on both counts. There was nothing malicious about Martino's foul on Vaca (it looked like a freak turf injury), and I'm not convinced Szetela's foul was even a foul (he cleanly cherry-picked the ball and Guevara kicked Szetela in the back of the leg - I thought it very clear on replay, but not so much real-time). Frankly, I think he was playing on borrowed time after the Testo incident, when he was lucky not to be sent off for his two-handed shove of the linesman. MLS needs to crack down on that kind of crap. Guevara was on tilt for virtually the entire 2nd half, and after the Testo incident I knew that the Guevara Show wasn't over.
What are you talking about - Buddle won just about every single 50-50 ball in the air against Pope, which led to a couple of dangerous chances. It was very upsetting to see. That shouldn't happen
More dangerous chances would be nice to see, but I prefer goals. Without Woly we would have lost last night -- at least, without his goal we would have lost. It amounts to the same thing. I wouldn't mind seeing SGR replace Magee in midfield. Ever since his remarkable blind pass to Gaven he has been way less than remarkable. Much of the time his bad first touch is resulting in turnovers. However, with Amado out for the next two matches, we may need both SGR and Magee in midfield, depending on Vaca's recovery and Gaven's ability to get back in the game. I wonder if something (or someone) is distracting Eddie from full concentration?
This was because Bradley did not have him lined-up outside. We went back to the shapeless midfield. Chalk this sub-par performance to sub-par coaching and tactics...again!
I too was very surprised at Magee. I recall seeing him in the past and thinking that he was on track to become a dominant player, and a mainstay on the Nats. Really was high on the guy. I hope last night was not typical. His play aside, he was mouthing off to the ref after EVERY damn call, just blah, blah, blah, and not contributing much in the way of the effort I remember seeing out of him. As for Guevara, look at the replays. Foos is correct - the guy may have BELEIEVED he was right, but he was just dead wrong. Kyle Martino is about the last guy in the league who'd "hack" anybody, and the replay clearly shows no contact below the waist, and only a little contact of any kind, that being mostly from the side. It does appear in slo-mo that his foot got stuck in the turf. The LAST thing it was is a vicous, from-behind foul. A lot of times that wouldn't have been called at all. As for Young Daniels' "foul" if THAT is what Guevara considers an attack on his person he needs to find another line of work.
i think gaven didnt play well because he was stoned. he looked pretty gone out there last night and me and my friends were sitting by the ESC guys (we were the ones without shirts) and i saw some douche that worked there tell one u guys to take your feet off the seats. thats ridiculous...u guys always get that crap?
A few observations: Gaven and Magee are tired. They're not lazy, they're not not taking it seriously; they're just tired. It happens to seasoned vets, so it shouldn't be a surprise if it happens to teenagers. Brenes, Guevara and Bonseu were our best last night. We'll miss Amado badly for the rest of the month - hopefull Clark will rediscover his talent in the meantime. It's got to be laying about somewhere. I disagree with whoever it was that complained about Pope. He and Parke did an admirable job last night, save for the PK. Amado does yeoman's work, but the fact remains that he's not a d-mid and consequently there's more space to run at our backline than there should be. Martino was the best player on the field last night, and has been the best player in the league for the last 4-to-6 weeks. Every time he touched the ball it led to a scoring chance for the Crew, and of course the PK was due to his wizardry. I would be shocked if he's not on Arena's roster this week. Buddle was the first forward I've seen overpower Parke on occasion. Even guys like Ralph and Ching haven't been able to knock Jeff around, but there were a couple of plays last night where Buddle just thundered right through him. For the sake of the national team I'd love to see him start scoring in the league, but for the sake of the Metros I'm glad he's a pretty bad finisher. We were lucky to get that point, and we seem to have hit the end-of-season doldrums again. The next three weeks will be a real test.
Why must Metro fans choose the worst possible reasons are to blame for everything? Couldn't the kid just be tired? God you people are harsh.
He was working his ass off and the heat got to him --------Glen----Taylor------ Brenes------SGR------Gaven ------------Rico------------ I put Rico since Amado is out for awhile. Brenes is a true left sided player which we haven't had since Edgar left.
Matrim55 - ". Amado does yeoman's work, but the fact remains that he's not a d-mid and consequently there's more space to run at our backline than there should be." On the money, buddy! Good observation. Why did AG drop back into the defensive area. Noticed he had a new potholder thing on, maybe he was hurt or guarding an injury... That move besides giving Columbus too much room seriously hampered Eddie and Magee's effectiveness as attacking mids. Lack of possibilities up top was obvious. Wound up with too many last minute Waly-balls. Cornell Glen is rediculous... I really thought that Amada was manging his emotional flare ups very well this season until tonight. Oh, and just to say again, Cornell Glenn played like a total wuss out there. If he can't be bothered to run for the ball, bench him. Granted we got our one goal do to his first dive, but this diving thing is embarrasing and shamefull and if you are going to dive all the time, then you give up your right to complain to the ref that he misread a call. Play honestly, leave the ref alone and shoot more...now I am starting to sound like last year's posts.... please, let's not self destruct in the last quarter of the season like last year. And not for nothing, Magee has never played better than he has been doing in midfield. Eddie Gaven and Jeff Parke are the most consistent Metro players we have. We do have the goods, we do...we really do... (cue montage - Waly's goal, Parke saves, Eddie's runs.....)
Martino wasn't included in the 23 man camp roster. Buddle's not that bad of a finisher. For a while, his hangup is that he's either injured or he scores in limited PT. He's still a bit raw, tho.
These two are so right. Last year I went up to one of the players, can't remember who, and asked why they condensed the field so much. He looked at me and said what do you mean? For passing the thorugh ball earlier, it was so apparent last night, someone would start a run and the player with the ball would pass it back and they would start all over. The one thing against the forwards is once you don't get the ball the first timne, don't stop running. Watching the Man Utd AC Milan game, the Milan stiker kept running in a figure eight through the defense. They had to stay honest and he was almost always ready for the ball. And no, I'm not expecting our strikers to have the talent of those on AC Milan, but the work rate, yes
Bob said it in a more subtle way. On Amado Guevara receiving a second yellow card: "Amado is a competitive player. He's going to show his emotions on the field. I think that the very best referees know how to handle situations so it never comes to endings like that. Amado has made a lot of progress this year. He has worked very hard to take more of a leadership role and handle the frustrations on the field better."
Good jopb by the ESC last night. The only thing that ketp us down last night was the final score. Is it just me, or is the section deathly quiet when Metroflip is MIA ?
Overall the boys played a strong match. Hope that Vaca is not going to miss this Saturday's road match in Kansas City. Nice hustling goal by Wolyniec. I agree that Glen keeps diving to draw a penalty but it looks to be a desperate forward who hasn't scored since the 1st road match in Kansas City that if he can't put one in he will flop to draw a call or for a penalty in the area. Fabian Taylor had the go ahead goal at his feet but just couldn't put a good boot on it and he knew it. I think we all know how hard and how emotional that Amado Guevara is. He puts pride into his play 100%. He has done everything that Bob Bradley has asked of him and he has also stopped with his flopping from the majority of his play. Don't know how he got his first caution of the match, but his 2nd he should have kept his mouth shut after Szetela got him from behind. I know Amado wanted a red card given to Szetela yet he got doulbe yellow and earned his first Red of the season. Better in this match than in the match against the Revs since he will serve his suspension playing for Honduras in World Cup Qualifying. At the same time it's good to get a point but if Amado was still on the field and didn't argue for Red To Szetela, I think he could have stayed on the field and tried to help score the match winner. But right now still in first with a two point lead. Got to make sure that when we go to KC on Saturday #1 Walker has to stay with us. I don't think he will be playing in Foxboro since it looks to Be Timmy & Keller in my opinion, but still you never know if Bruce will make a surprise pick.