Overall analysis: STARTERS RITCHIE WILLIAMS(8)- Saved a potential game-wining goal in OT, blocking a shot next to the post. Almost scored in the first half if it wasn’t for Hartmann’s acrobatic save. AMADO GUEVARA (8)- Everything Tab Ramos should have been but never was. Continually hacked throughout the game but always bounced right up. Great ball control and passingskills. Great performance considering he doesn’t even know most of his teammates names. TIM HOWARD (7)- Kick save in the 86th minute on Ruiz’ point-blank shot preserved the tie. EDDIE POPE (7)- Solid job in the backline. Seemed like he’d always get his foot out at the last second to block an LA scoring opportunity. STEVE JOLLEY (7)- Another solid performance. It appeared that Ruiz was about to outrace Jolley on the one loose ball on the left wing....in fact Jolley caught up to him, took it away and drew the foul (not to mention a yellow card on Ruiz for dissent). Didn’t think Steve had the speed. JOEY DiGIAMARINO (6.5)- Made some nice runs down the left wing, one of which drew the penalty shot. RICARDO CLARK (6.5)- He’s hundreds of years ahead of Magee. Nice job coming back on defense to help clamp down on LA’s speedy forwards. JAIME MORENO (6)- Finally broke Metros long scoring drought (yes, it was a penalty kick). If he doesn’t place it just inside the post and with enough pace, it would have been saved since Hartmann guessed correctly. He and Clint are still not on the same page. If he didn’t score, I would have given him a “5”. CLINT MATHIS (5)- Stop bitching and play. After the injury in the first half, he was mostly ineffective in the 2nd half. MIKE MAGEE (3)- Playing just like an 18 year old should. Looked lost. LEITCH (3)- Cost Metros the goal. Played better in the 2nd half, but overall a lousy game. BENCH CRAIG ZIADIE (5)- Nothing spectacular. JOHN WOLYNIEC (INC)- Not enough time out there to give him a fair grade. Doesn’t get bumped off the ball as easily as Magee does. OVERALL?....HUGE IMPROVEMENT OVER LAST WEEK’S BORE-FEST. WITH GUEVARA HERE, THE SCORING OPPORTUNITIES WILL BE THERE.....BUT ARE MORENO AND MAGEE CAPABLE ENOUGH TO FINISH THEM OFF FOR GOALS?
Agreed..much more pleasurable to watch than last week..lots more opportunities, and the "Korea Fighting" section was worth it for sentimentality (just wish Mathis played along with another mohawk and clinical finish...), but all in all, worth the hour+ drive from Philly..PS the ESC tailgate is worth the trip alone, and there's more german sausage and Hop-Devil beer for the next home game.....cheers...Jack
Re: DiGi -- I felt like when Ziadie came in for Magee, we were playing with 2 left backs. DiGi never made the impact on the offensive end a left wing midfielder should make. Re: Wolyniec -- He killed a lot of our attacks. He's not playing at the same level as Mathis, Guevara, and Clark are.
big ups to Stinky for that awesome Korean dish he came out with. I may have to get the recepie for it
The boys played alot better tonight than last week, and yes I agree with the anaylisis of Mike Magee MetroFever, but tell me you didn't enjoy that sweet chip pass to Guevara. I thought that was gonna be a goal for sure. Jaime you knew he was gonna bend it past the far post for that goal. He rarely misses from the spot. Richie baby Thank goodness he hugged the post for that big save to help out Timmy. Someone tell Mike Burns that's how you stop an attempt for goal to help you keeper if he can't get across the line fast enough. Too bad Guevara won't be in Columbus with us because he has to go back for InterZone Gold Cup qualifying for Honduras. Still the boys looked great defensivly coming back for Timmy and a much better night of getting alot of opportunities to score goal. A deserved Pt for the boys.
Oh and before I forget. The Galaxy are a bunch of filthfy hackers who should have gotton two men sent off for natsy challenges. Ezra should have been one on the extra leg swing stomping his cleat on Clint's Ankle & that bastard Tyrone Marshall who nearly chopped of Wolyniec's legs. Those should have been straight Reds. And Ruiz is a little diving shmuck.
bro, Digi did a hell of alot better than that, i thought he was great. at least drastically improved from last week dre
I was most upset about lack of offensive cohesion last week, and there was profound improvement in that category, especially towards the end of the first half. They looked like a homeside out there in ways they did not vs. Columbus. Next Saturday should prove an interesting measure of progress.
R. Williams and Guevara share MOTM honors. Both played outstanding games. But let's not get too crazy here: Clint and Leitch made careless errors, and the team in general gave up posession way too easily way too much in the time (which should have resulted in another goal or 2 for LA). LA is a bunch of hacks defensively but we did also get our share of calls and non-calls from the ref (he let us push them around more than a little). Lastly, we did not presure their midfield nearly enough on defense, especially late in the game. We always seemed to be relying on one or two tackles by Pope or Jolley to save our asses, and seemed content to let them move the ball around freely in our half of the field. All in all, a deserved (but lucky) point. I'd feel alot better if we had scored a goal from the run of play. Guevara may end up being the most talented FA we've ever had bar Donadoni. A lot to look forward to this season...
mr. marshall is always a violent hack. as is calif. and albright and ruiz aren't all that nice either.
Yes, the lads did play better this week. And yes, Guevera played a wonderful match. But, for some reason, I am more disappointed by the results than I was last week. Maybe it was because I had a preconcieved idea of how the game should end (with the Metro winning). Or maybe it was because the team still has yet to score a goal in the run of play. I am not happy with the tie. I realize that it was LA that we played, the team that many have picked to be in MLS Cup. But I still have a let down feeling. Sooner or later all the good signs and intentions are going to amount to squat, unless they can pick up a "W".
Oh yeah.... didnt you see that LA goal coming when our defender (who was that?) made a meal of the play?
Cannot agree with you more. His speed of thought is extremely slow. He receives the ball and then tries to decide what to do. Cannot do that against the Galaxy defense.
McGee was absolutely horrible. At this point he just doesn't deserve to be in this league. He hurts the team when on the field. Hopefully Clint will permanently move to the top and McGee can learn in practice. Nice crowd; very enjoyable game. The question is this: Is Clint ever coming back to the old Clint? I haven't seen the old Clint in a long time; the one that was predicted to go to Europe and make a lot of noise. Is it just me or is that player no longer with us.
Yes, because Clint was so dangerous when moved up top last night. Not. I cut Clint slack only because of the injury, but you guys need to throw out your 2000 videotapes. This is not the same player we're watching here. Not in terms of confidence. Not in terms of explosiveness. This "put him up top and all will be well" stuff should just stop here and now. His game is not up to par no matter where he plays on the field. Last night, he was more of a threat coming out of the midfield than when he moved to forward and did nothing to support Moreno. And, while I agree Magee had a rough night and the Galaxy physically abused him, it's a little too early to bury the kid. DaMarcus Beasley was pretty bad his first 10 MLS games before finally realizing he could play in the league. Magee has shown some flashes. The scoop pass he made to Guevara was one of the prettiest plays we made as a team all night, and I'm still one of those who thought the kid had a pretty good debut vs. Columbus, generating our only real threats on goal. He'll be a contributer this year, just you watch.
quote And, while I agree Magee had a rough night and the Galaxy physically abused him, it's a little too early to bury the kid. DaMarcus Beasley was pretty bad his first 10 MLS games before finally realizing he could play in the league. Magee has shown some flashes. The scoop pass he made to Guevara was one of the prettiest plays we made as a team all night, and I'm still one of those who thought the kid had a pretty good debut vs. Columbus, generating our only real threats on goal. He'll be a contributer this year, just you watch. end of quote I agree ...Magee needs minutes...perhaps from the bench, but i think more patience is needed.....he is too young to be discarded so easily
Oh, the negativity! I walked out last night thrilled with the result because I was convinced that we were going to lose. We're starting a big bunch of kids who came back from a deficit and made the defending champs -- clearly still the most talented team in the league -- work very hard for a point. We improved a lot over last week. We had a few people (DiGi and Clark especially) who look like they're going to really shine this year. And can everyone please let Magee be for a little while? No he wasn't especially effective last night, but neither was Clint and we don't have people questioning his future on this team. He's 18 and it's Week 2. Trust for just a little while longer that Bob knows what he's doing.
Clark was worth the price of admission for me. He seemed to tire late in the game - but his combination of skill, athletic ability and desire is amazing, especially since it's only his second game.
We gave 100 minutes of effort. Clark, Williams, and Guevera were impressive. My feeling is that we should be happy with the point because LA had better possession and more chances. But we are progressing. Clint is not the old Clint. Will he ever get back to 75% of his old self? Hopefully. My only disagreement with the previous posts is that I thought Ziadie did well. He even gave up his #20 to Guevera and took #21.
Not too bad of a game by the Metros. I listened to the first half on the radio, and it seemd that Clint, Moreno, Magee and Guevara were having really good games towards the end of the half since their names came up like every minute or so. LA's goal was a mistake by Lietch. It's like a outfielder missing a pop-up, it happens very rarely. You have to remember that the Metros are still a brand new team with only three players starting that were on the team last season. LA still has the core of their team. They'll get better. Don't forget, in 2000 when they were expected to have a poor season, they started kind of slow and went on to be the conference champions. Last year they were expected to win it all, started well and failed to make the playoffs.
Missed most of the Metros' pre-season news thanks to grad school obligations, so forgive me for asking dumb questions: 1) Is Clint at 100%--I heard he was recovering from a hernia, but don't know how long ago that was? Is he back into shape or is it a confidence issue? 2) How's the new guy (Guevara) as a distributor? Should they put him at a-mid and move Clint up front, assuming of course that he's healthy?
Clint's not at 100%, but getting better, last night's beat up shin notwithstanding. Last night was our first glimpse of Guevera, and it sure looked good. It sounded in Bradley's post-game comments that the move of Clint to up top with Jaime (that many on these boards crave) is precisely what he anticipates.
I saw Clint get out of his brand new (still had those temp paper tags on it) silver 911 after the game in the parking lot to say goodbye to a friend or whatever. I was going to say something to him like "hey,man, got to earn that ride..." but I thought better of it. I'm really depressed by him. I can't say if it's a lack of desire, a feeling that he is good enough to try 50% of the time and still win or what, but he just isn't the same. I was calling to sub him out around the 75th minute because you could see he was spent. I know it's only his second game coming off surgery, but it has been too long since we've seen the real Clint. He used to be a poor man's Zidane. He's now a middle class Brian Maisonneuve. (sp). I know McGee is a kid and will eventually improve- I'm not worried by him playing like poorly at times as he will improve. I'm worried that this is the beginning of the end for Clint, that we will only ever see again what we saw tonight. A man with undeniable skills able to make passes here and there but no longer able to change a game, to fight with reckless abandon, to put the team on his back and take us anywhere. He is, as was remarked last night, playing on the same level as Stoichkov right now, just without the excuse of being on the wrong side of 35. Hopefully he will get more fit and return to some sort of form, but I fear a non-drugged version of Darryl Strawberry unfolding here. A young kid (mathis was older at the start) who put up great numbers, showed us glimpses of greatness but personal mistakes, injuries and time conspired to stiffle a once promising career. As for the game, I had hoped for more than 1 point in two games, but I was glad with the result. LA looked more dangerous than we did last night, I thought, but we played hard, took advantage of our one chance and got a point out of it. We needed to score (it had been 300 minutes almost since our last goal) and we needed to not lose (we'd lost something like 8 of our last 9 going back to last year). Not the highest of hopes, but we need to take baby steps with our expectations. Ideally we would have won 2-1, but at this point with a rebuilding team, you take the point and move on. Hopefully we can continue to improve next week, though without Guevara (who was magical at times last night) I once again fear for our offense. I thought Digi looked very good last night, and I wonder if we'll see Regan start anytime soon. We've now tried Ziadie and Leitch at RB, who's next? PS> Bradley has never missed the playoffs.