The Metros were probably just not thinking when they released the news that Lisi was missing a game for his sister's wedding. In the MLB or NFL, players miss games all the time to go to weddings. Just that they are smart enough to give other excuses such as: "sore lower back", "family matters", "the flu", or even "food poisoning".
Halftime and the metros are down by 1. The metros again seem to have a missing link in the midield and the defense weren't pressuring for like the first 30 minutes which is making the Revolution look like the better team. Let's hope for a reviving second half.
The score is 1-0 Revs at the half, and those of you who feel that Lisi isn't an integral part of the team are having a lesson right about now. I'd hoped that Clark would step up and take the responsibility of linking the defense to the offense, and had feared he'd be overmatched in that capacity. Sadly, the first half has confirmed all my fears. That said: He hasn't been as bad as Williams, Pope, Ziadie, DiGi or Wolyniec. Horrible. The only guys who have anything to be proud of after that half are Walker, Mathis, Guevara and Gaven. At least it looks like they're trying. The good news is that we're only a goal down and the Revs are still crap, no matter how Shep is going on and on. They're not going to score a second - this game is still winnable.
Try the whole team. Woly keeps going offsides. No passes are connecting. Revs came ready and they deserved the lead. Hopefully the second half will be a bit different.
This is just depressing. Now both teams just look awful. Metros came out looking a bit better. They were actually in the Revs end, but nothing happened. It's the 62nd min, and I still don't think the Metros have gotten a shot on goal. One maybe. But so far this is a snooze fest and some sloppy ass soccer.
Wow. 2nd goal by Noonan into the top corner. Just froze Walker. Walker didn't even move. Just turned his head and saw the ball sail in. Not lookin good.
Metros goal by Jolley off a corner. Nice re-direction by Pope and Jolley slid it past Brown. 86th min. COME ON YOU METROS!
Well, that's all folks. Final score Revs 2, Metros 1. Both Revs goals by Noonan and the lone Metros goal by Jolley. Some of the bad blood boiled over again in stoppage time. Pope took a swipe at Cansela's legs and then a little scrum occurred. Seems like Richie Williams and someone else was more into it then anyone else. Pope got a yellow card for his troubles. Closest the Metros came to a goal was by I forget who, but Brown made a save just about on his back. That was probably the turning point. Dissapointing loss. Oh, and since I'm up here in Providence, I got the Revs broadcast crew. Let me just say Brad Feldman is a tool.
The Rev's broadcast crew? You must mean Shep Messing and J.Piss Dellacamara. They suck. I hate homer announcers but these guys spend 89 minutes finding fault. Tonight it was justified, the rest of the time it's not. Shep Messing was a piece of *@#*@#*@#*@# keeper in his time. He was a *@#*@#*@#*@#ing token "American" poster boy for the NASL but *@#*@#*@#*@# as a player. He was nothing -- just the product of desperate NASL hype. Half of the girls' High School keepers across the State of NJ are better now than he ever was. He couldn't take a position from 2/3ds of the boys. So to hear that creep ragging on our players is disgraceful. Dellacamera was always clueless so nothing new to say about that. In the rare event that Shep checks in here, let me say FU Shep, FU. Steve C. is the only true pro on MSG.
Final Revs 2-1 Metros We didn't deserve any points out of this, but (IMHO) neither did the Revs. I can't believe that Nicol bunkered with 35 minutes left in the game - it's like he forgot what happened the last time these two teams met in league play. They were only saved from OT by Clint missing an open look from 12 yards at the end of regulation time. I suspect this loss will make Bradley do some reevaluations. The subs were Magee for Wolyniec (which was expected), then LeBlanc (!!!) for Clark and Leitch for Ziadie. I suspect the last two were message subs - as good as Clark was at the beginning of the season, he's been drifting and near useless for the last two months. LeBlanc wasn't much better in his 15 minutes, but at least he looked to go forward. Putting Leitch on for Ziadie in the closing minutes when we desperately needed offense, I think, was a big, loud message that Craig can expect to find himself on the bench next weekend. He played perhaps the worst game I've seen a Metro play since last year's end-of-term meltdown. Pope played by far his worst game in a Metro uniform, and deserved the yellow. Jolley, aside from the goal, played a subpar game. DiGi was better in the second half than the first- but then again he was terrible in the first, so it's really not saying much. He did swing in some nice crosses in the second half, but that's hardly impressive given that he had open looks at the box for 35 minutes. Richie had the same problems Haig pointed out in his post after last week's game - he has no ball control, no speed, and doesn't win any physical challenges. Three of four passes he sends out to his teammates are hospital balls, and the rest of the midfield spends a lot of their time covering for his mistakes. Clark was, unfortunately, a more athletic version of exactly that tonight. I'm disappointed in Guevara and the fact that he didn't grab this game by the scruff of the neck when it was there for the taking. Gaven made some good runs to drag the Revs devensive midfield out of position, opening up some space for Amado that he just didn't use. He, once again, took too much time on the ball to be truly effective. Gaven, conversely, earned himself more playing time. He gave the attack some width and got behind the defense three times, which is three more times than I can remember a Metros midfielder getting behind the defense all season. Clint played well, but killed me with the miss at the end. Wolyniec was useless; and I say that as someone who thinks he's taken way, way too much flak on these boards. Magee didn't do anything in his time out there save for the perfect corner kick (there's no one in the league who serves a better ball from the flag), but Magee's never the guy you notice even when he's playing well, so I'm not willing to rate him poorly. What's the solution? Maybe the 3-back set the Metros went with against China. I certainly think it's time to get Richie off the field as well, and would love to see Clark play in Richie's role as a pure destroyer, being (as I am) of the opinion that Clark's game is suffering because he's not sure of how to execute his current role. That would leave Gaven as a right midfielder, Barto as a left midfielder, Lisi as the holding midfielder, Guevara in the hole behind Clint and Jusko/Woly/Magee. I'd say it's between Addo and Forchetti to figure who's the third defender. Or maybe this was just a bad game, and an example of how crucial Lisi happens to be. Now that I've got a few minutes between myself and that abortion I suspect it's a combination of the two, but then again I can't in good conscience say that changes don't need to be made. This is a team that's struggling because the rest of the league has figured them out, so it's time to shake things up.
"The Rev's broadcast crew? You must mean Shep Messing and J.Piss Dellacamara..." Ah, no: neither individual is part of the Revs broadcast crew, but the Messing rant was quite entertaining none-the-less... The Magpie
Let us know if you are planning to hit the Track after the next game - we'll just tag along and bet whatever you bet
Dissapointing match. I agree with much of the sentiment that was shown on the boards so far. This team is much better top to bottom then the Revs, but I really think we played down to their level. Richie really tries hard, but he was HORRENDOUS tonight. His inability to lay down an effective ball in the final 1/3 of the field is what killed is time and time again. He cost us 4 or 5 golden opportunities. Guevera, except for one nifty move was slowing down the game considerably. We should have taken it to that central pairing of Kante and Llamosa. Kante hasn't played in forever, and Llamosa is a shell of his former self. I felt the defense, all four starts were very bad. Digi had some bad touches, while Ziade served about 10 balls into the box. Was any one of those crosses dangerous? I dont' think so. Mathis, my man you should have pummeled that ball into the back of the net. The Revs commentators were non stop in their criticism of Clint. It was ridiculous. Both of those guys were making me puke. I don't know why the team is so timid on the ball. We don't move well off of the ball. Maybe the 3-5-2 at this point is the best option. I don't think we have the personel to do it, but it is probably better considering the inability of our fullbacks to make any meaningful forays into the offense. We are playing very ugly soccer right now. We had some nice sprints in the final 10 minutes, where the passing was relatively crisp. Also the field, I guess because the Jets are playing tomorrow..... Anyway, hopefully Jusko will add another dimension to our team. A true target forward that Mathis can combine with.
I started the minute I walked down the aisle. Pitiful. Not only were there football lines, but the soccer lines were barely visible. What a joke. And then the game started and the Metros didn't realize it for about 50 minutes. That was by far the worst performance in a half this year. They had a team in a position to put them away for the season, and they came out like they were continuing the exhibition against China. Somebody on the Metros should introduce Mathis and Guevara, as they couldn't pass to each other if they were holding hands.
Since beginning of the season, Metro has a tendency to play a weak first half and a stronger 2nd half with late goals. People got used to it and think this is the way we play and it is OK becuase eventually we will score. It becomes a bad habit. Tonight, it finally took it toll. We have 7 games to go - 4 home 3 away. IMHO, coach Bob needs to quickly find ways to get rid of this bad habit, and to start showing a strong game right from the first half.
Back from the game and may I say that soggy and disappointed is a bad combination. With the Revs missing Twellman, Moore, and Pierce this one should have been ours. The new allignment seemed at first like it should give us an offence but alas it was not to be. While Amado is almost certainly the most talented player we have he STILL is out of step with his teamates. But he was not alone. There were too many passes into empty space or at least three steps beyond our man. The first half the team was sleep walking. Only some of that can be attributed to the rain. I agree with th earlier posting that the substitutions seem to be message substitutions. I must disgree however with an earlier comment about DiGi (who is not one of my favorites). It seemed that for a good portion of the game he was the one guy who was really in the game. A few weeks ago we were sitting pretty in first place, now....? If we aren't yet in serious trouble we are getting very close.
We just lost at home to the last place team in our conference that was missing their two best players and had won something like 1 game in their last 11. (from mlswrap, I didn't check that stat). It does not get any worse than that. If this is the team that Bradley plans to bring to 3 DC games and the playoffs, we're all fooked. This team has 4 wins in it's last 16 games. That's pathetic. It is an absolute outrage to support your team, show up in the pouring rain and spend hours getting soaked to have your team mail in an effort like that for 70 minutes. Yes, they almost came from behind to pull out a tie, but we sucked for the first 70 minutes. Quick update on the season: we've had 11 home games, during which we've taken 15 of a possible 33 points. We've scored 15 goals at home, worst in the league. How does MFO expect anyone to support this team when this is their reward?
I completely agree. This was the first time this year that I felt like walking out of the stadium. The team should be embarassed with this performance. While it is nice to say they can come back on anyone. They need to get their heads out of their a$$es and start playing like they mean it. Do I think they will make the playoffs, yes, but with the team they have, I am expecting better than the performance tonight.