I think Jesse nailed it on the head in the papers today about NE lulling you to sleep then making you pay when you make a mistake. They had two good chances to tie it up at the end, but we held them off. Which is important. Also, some of the guys, most noticeably Zach, CJ and Jimmy, seemed to be joking around about some of those flurries at the end. That strikes me as different than some of the results of the last couple of weeks, where they've still been kind of intense after wins. Not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Later, COZ
Not attempting to troll, so take this for what it's worth. In general bad performance by both teams (understandable considering the players missing on both sides), but the Fire deserved the result they got. Good match by your boys tonight. Congrats on the win. We'll see you (possibly) on the 3rd of August.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, in fact I've been having the same thought. His skill on the ball is quite good. He's got speed, strength, poise, and talent. To me he almost appears to be a Mastroeniesque player with a bit more offensive ability. Armas is nearing the end of his career and Pause and Buete aren't replacements. Segares would be a great fit.
Thoughts on the night... Thornton - Improving. Had a couple of really nice saves. Looks better and better as the season progresses. Brown - Beautiful pass to Sega for the goal. Played solid overall. Griffin - Still not impressed with him. At all. In the last couple of minutes of the game he drove me nuts. Fire had an attack which he joined, then they lost the ball and the Revs countered. You would think that he'd be one of the first to hustle back, right? Wrong. Herron and Barret were hustling back while he was jogging back, while trying to hold on to a 1 goal lead!!! If he was tired, he shouldn't have joined the attack! Curtin - I love the way he always comes up with the headers. Yea yea, he's tall... but look at Reiter, he NEVER seems to be able to head the ball even though the guy next to him is much smaller. Looked kinda shaky marking Twellman... maybe that's why Brown was marking him towards the end of the game. Overall a good performance. Reiter - Sorry buddy. We don't have the luxury of giving you all the time in the world to learn how to play in MLS. I'd like to see Sarachan keep him on the bench and give Herron and Barret more playing time. Pause - I thought he had a solid game. Marsch - Great game. Except for a few bad passes, I thought he played very well. Guess his legs don't tire that much. Rolfe - Don't know what happened tonight but he looked like the old Jaqua, falling down whenever the ball was around. I think he misses Thiago. Mapp - So much talent, so little fire in his belly. He needs to go to boot camp or something. This kid can be awesome if he decides he wants to run hard and hustle for 90 minutes. Had some very nice runs today and some even better crosses. Buete - Looks better every game. Had a bad miss on goal but covered a lot of ground out there. Looks like he's coming along just fine. Segares - WOW! I love this guy. He plays with so much intensity out there. Looks very, very comfortable going forward as well. Very solid. What a find! Gave us 6 points in the last two games. Barrett - I'd love to see him get significantly more playing time. I think this guy is for real. Missed a great chance to score, but should develop much more composure and patience if he gets significant minutes. Had a really nice run and a beatifull pass to Herron which should have been an assist. John - He had 63 seconds of playing time and didn't do anything? Horrible. Herron - I'm still a big fan of this guy, even though he's having a rough year so far. I think he'll start putting it in the back of the net very soon. Looked VERY hungry out there. Overall, ugly win but it's good to see others getting some playing time. Great atmosphere at Soldier Field. Everything was great except for the poor finishing and the invasion of the bugs.
Nice win despite the fact it should have been 3 or 4-0. I was waiting for that weasel twellman to score late to ruin the win. I had been hoping arena would call him up to the national team so he wouldn't play against us.
My random thoughts about the game: - I think Lubos' time is up. He is lacking the intesity and effort that I see from Barrett and Herron sometimes. And the PK....c'mon man - Griffin should really never step onto the field for us ever again. He missplayed at least 43 passes during the game. - As much as I was against Buete when he first started playing in the first 11, I really think he's starting to play well for us. - Gonzolo for MVP anyone?
Rolfe misses having someone that he can work with up front. Thiago doesn't run that many balls through CR although I am sure that b/c Thiago creates problems for the defense, he creates more space for Rolfe to work. I am not sure why he was on the turf but I do know that on a couple of occasions, he was knocked down by a Rev player with no call plus the obvious PK that he should have gotten when Reis mowed him down in the box. Zach got called for doing a lot less than that on Adu just a few games ago and it was obvious that Reis was not going for the ball. I also think one of the reasons he was on the ground was b/c he was making an effort to get balls that were not coming to his feet and he was trying to get to them just to try to make something happen. On the ball he blasted over the net, Reiter tried to make an impossible bicycle kick when CR was waiting for the ball to get to him and I am sure it affected his timing on his shot. As Bill Quigley pointed out in his article, CR was involved in at least four of our early opportunities to score including having Reis just barely get to his shot to the right post. It is hard to be a lone ranger up front which is the case when either Reiter or Herron are in the game. In a word, Herron sucks. He committed as many fouls in 20 minutes than Segares did as a defender in 90. He is not typically a team player although he did have one really nice pass, I think to Reiter, who again could not pull the trigger in time to score. If you play with one forward, Andy would be that type of guy but he does not work well with any of our other guys at this point and we are more than midway through the season. However, that is not our game. Herron has great speed and aggressiveness (when he controls it). He played essentially the same way two games ago when he came in off the bench--out of control.
I mostly agree with your observations. However, I think we saw Leonard play his best game yet as a Fire player. He definately was better in the midfield than on defense and actually had a few excellent passes. He does have some good skills, but there are two probelms that still exist with Leonard -- (1) He needs to play more to continue to grow as a player and (2) that is not likely going to happen with the Fire and their depth at midfield. Basically, it appears that Leonard is the current year Kelly Gray and he will ultimately be traded to another team where he can actually play.
You're being harsh on both Lubos and Griffin. I thought Reiter's intensity was one of his brighter spots. I think if we saw him in a game with Thiago, and if he got used to Rolfe and Mapp a bit more, he would do fine. The PK was well-saved, and much better than Marsch's attempt last week. As for Griffin, I think he played ok considering how out of position he was. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel, and this is what happens. He had some decent defensive work, and I don't think he "misplayed at least 43 passes" at all. He had a good cross in minute 21 that almost resulted in a goal, too. I mean, I'd rather see Guerrero, obviously, but he wasn't that bad considering he was our last option (considering Dave was never going to play Will John from the start). My only complaint is that he doesn't hustle as obviously as others, and seems a little slow sometimes. Speaking of hustle: Scott Buete was my MotM. He was all over the place, and had a great shot, too.
Herron does not suck. He's a very talented player who needs playing time to gel with his team. I'll take Herron over Reiter any day. And I think he played better this game than the last. I'd like to see Herron for 90 when our A team is on the field. He can score without great service like he almost did this game, but with great service I think he can be lethal. By the way, what's the harm in Herron committing so many fouls?? I'd rather have him play phisically like that... once in a while there will be a no call and he'll score. The fouls he committed were harmless. They were in the opponent's third, where NE would have had the ball even if he wouldn't have fouled. If anything, he took some time off the clock with the fouls and didn't get any yellows either, so I don't know about the "out of control" part. I'll take his seemingly "out of control" play to mean he really wants to be out there. Players that are hungry like that and have the skill to go with it should be on the field. He had a great pass to Barret in the last 5 or 10 minutes of the game which Barrett should have done better with, but I don't remember a nice pass from him to Reiter.
I'll give you a hint...it rhymes with "red card." One comment about Reiter, though. On the play that led to the corner kick that led to the goal, it seemed like he deliberately mistimed his jump to get the two defenders to jump with him, which allowed the ball to sail over all three guys. Then, whoever it was behind him sent a ball toward goal that was deflected for a corner kick. If my interpretation was right, that was an amazingly heads-up play that'll never show up anywhere in the box score. Later, COZ
Basically, our B team outplayed their B team for just about the entire game. It amazes me how well we controlled the tempo of the game without Guerrerro and Thiago. Jessie Marsch played a great game as midfield leader. Gonzo has been consistent since his first game with the Fire and should be MLS Rookie of the Year. All of our defenders played a great game, and Zach was great, too. Those of you who criticized Griffin were too harsh. He played a decent game given the fact that he stepped in for a full game for the first time this season (I think). Rolfe played a good game, but I'm still not convinced he's the missing link that will save the forward position. I felt sorry for Reiter missing that PK, but I also agree with the comment that he played a good game. It's too bad Herron hit the ball with his hand(s); he still has the potential to score as he proved again. Yes, he seems to be a bit out of control. Give the guys credit for finally figuring out Reis. If we had won this game when they had a subsitute goalkeeper would have lessened its value. I thought the ref was looking too much at the ball or players' feet. New England got a way with a lot of shoving. All in all this was a fun game to watch for Fire fans.
That was my take on the play as well. I was confused at first, but I'll assume the NE defenders were as well.
Congrats on beating our B team, but I have to disagree on these two points. ROTY is Parkhurst's to lose at this point Could the same not be said for Chicago?
Bvllshit it is, Segares has shown a lot more than Parkhurst at this point in the season including two game winning goals. He makes runs up and down the field that you're crappy second string midfielders couldn't dream of ever making.
Battle of the B Teams Chicago Fire: Winning Ugly! I'll take it, though. I was surprised by how well our B team was able to consistently move the ball through the Revs' B team and how well we were able to play quality triangles up the flanks. Maybe I should not have been since the Gold Cup effectively removed our starting defense and New England's starting midfield. Obviously, they missed their midfield more than we missed our defenders. Having Brown and Curtin as our backups proved the difference in this game. Buete had a great game. He sure tested Reis a couple times which was more than Reiter did. Marsch also quietly had a good game. Thornton looked a bit more like the Zach of old this game than he usually does. He had a bit more command of his box and looked less chained to his line than he has before last night. His late game save off that header was shades of the shot-stopping monster of '98-'03. Reiter has about one or two of those type of plays a game but they never lead to anything. Overall, his 2005 motto is still "Lubos Reiter: Making Nate Jaqua look like Diego Maradonna since April, 2005". The only reason Reiter is still starting is that Herron has been equally futile and for some reason Sarachan refuses to give Barrett a chance. Both Lubos and Andy have been massively disappointing this season. Segares now has as many goals as Herron and Reiter combined. So does the much-maligned Jesse Marsch. I will say this for Herron, though: he was robbed of a goal where he was obviously onsides. Which brings me to... Sweet merciful crap, did the officials suck last night. NE was allowed to get away with a ton of off-the-ball fouling. The PK given to us was utterly bogus. The west side linesman was simply awful. Horrible, horrible, and sadly typical of MLS. On the plus side, Section 8 sounded great. And we wouldn't miss him, really. Segares we would miss. Griffin? Not really. He did OK tonight but he hasn't been impressive in the limited time we've seen him. At least he doesn't waste an SI slot like Reiter. Overall, a good effort from our B team over their B team as we continue to grind out results. Ugly? Yep. But the 3 points it produced are beautiful.
I thought it was about even actually. And I wasn't sarcastic it was a deserved win, Chicago outplayed NE, no question. I just had two points I wanted to make and tried preface it with something nice, but some people love their knee-jerk reactions. If I wanted to be an ass I could've mentioned that first is still ours to lose due to our three games in hand and that we've beaten you both times with our starters available. Oh well to be expected of a fire fan i guess. And there is a reason why peole including Rev-hater Wynalda are saying Parkhurst should be an All-Star starter
My thoughts... I thought that we did a very good job controlling the flow of the game for large chunks of the game. Obviously Khano Smith is no Noonan, nor is Latham as good as Ralston. But we effectively shut down their wings and left them with the only way to move the ball forward being lobbing it to Twellman, him passing it back to a Rev, and repeat. Twellman did the best he could in there, but it just wasn't going anywhere. One of my biggest pet peeves in this game was the passing. Yes, we have a lot of non-regulars playing, but I thought for pretty cruddy overall. My largest problem was when we were trying to break Gonzalo free on breaks up the left wing. I would say about 95% of those passes were behind his run, so he had to stop, wait for the ball, and then start going again. It gave the Revs time to catch up. Biggest culprits were Marsch, Beute, and Griffin. I thought Griffin played OK. If he was a starter in his natural position it would have been an awful game, but under the circumstances he did fine. He has great pace and made a couple great decisions, but it seemed he was too timid to make the dangerous pass-played it too safe. Beute really impressed me on the offensive third. I'd like to see more of this from Armas, staying 5-10 yards behind the play and be able to step in and take a crack (and if it was anyone but Reis in goal, I think that first half shot is in the net). Reiter and Rolfe wasn't a completely failed experiment. We need Reiter up there (until Nate's back) to at least contest for all of Jimmy's high balls from the back. It seemed like Rolfe had an idea where the ball was going... but he wasn't quite there. Possibly they need more time playing w/ each other. Rolfe did seem to be slipping a lot (but I'm pretty sure I saw some other players do it too)... Everyone else had solid, if not spectacular, games. I'm much happier winning ugly against New England than winning ugly against the Goats. With any luck, Dallas will beat or tie NE next weekend. And hopefully the Crew don't Fire Andrulis before they make their visit.
Coz put it very well concerning what Reiter has done not showing up in the box scores. In his limited time this season, he has made some of the most intuitive backpasses, dummies, etc. that I have seen out of a Fire player since 2000 or 2001. I actually think he adds a good deal to the team. However, he is not a speed demon, and needs good service. With other players supplying the speed, I think he can be a very potent weapon.
Parkhurst looks to me to be a very good tackler. I'm not sure he is as polished a passer as Segares. To be fair the other way, Segares hadn't even gotten his chance to start yet when folks were already talking up Parkhurst for roty. So, he's got a late start.
Except that his finishing (an essential skill for a forward, I would think) has so far been craptacular. A while back I took some heat for suggesting that maybe Reiter is not a forward but an attacking midfielder. The more I've seen him play, the more I'm convinced that this is the case and that he and not Rolfe would be best used as our Thiago-substitute. In that role, Reiter can use all his backpasses, dummies, etc. to get the ball to someone who can find the back of the net. And if Reiter scores the occasional goal now and then, so much the better.
Everyone campaigning for Parkhurst for ROTY had better start learning the names Gonzalo Segares and Chris Rolfe.
Yes, he's just been playing out of position for 15 years for professional and international teams and nobody saw it. Crazy! It's just not clicking--he's clearly got the tools, but he hasn't found the teammates. Rolfe didn't have a great day either, to be fair--I thought Reiter did better than he did for most of the game, actually.
I agree with this too. My only criticism from the game is this - does he watch the fire play when he's not in there? All year long, when it's time for the strikers to make a run, about 80% or more of the time, Nate makes the near post run and Rolfe makes the far post run. They switch it up now and then, but more often than not, it's Nate crashing near post. If Reiter made more of those near post runs, he'd have been heading balls in that wound up being easy catches for Reis or easy clears for a central defender. As it was, we had BOTH Rolfe & Reiter making the far post run way too many times.