Official Crew-F*re PBP & Post-Game Thread [R]

jesus cristmas. what the hell has happened to this season.

i gotta admit, i called and left a meassage for smith tonight.

 

right, kumbyaa kumbyaa <

 

I'm so tired of dealing with negative, so I'm going to try to think of positives.

I thought Nelson Akwari played well. He had some bad moments, but I think he showed the promise that will make him a good CB in this league. It sure would be nice to see he and Gibbs team up next year for the Crew, if we can get Gibbs with our allocation.

I thought Westy had a good game too. He's really improved his game ten fold both offensively and defensively, IMO. Maybe the only player on the Crew I can say that about this year.

That sure was a nice goal by Jaqua. McCarty was out of position sure, but I thought he recovered well and tried to play Jaqua's body, without fouling him, to get him to make an errant shot. He showed touch and streangth on the ball to put it away. It will be interesting to see his development.

 

I, too have been impressed w/Akwari thus far, and agree w/you about West and McCarty. We need to be careful, though, about projecting the future performance of players. A year ago we all thought Martino and Garcia were going to be among the top players in the league. Now they're in for a lot of criticism. What it comes down to, though, is that they've had sophomore years. They both have a lot yet to learn, and so will Akwari if he's playing regularly next year. It takes time and match competition to develop to your full potential. I think we shouldn't really judge the success of some of these players for a couple more years yet.

 

the red was killing me last night, too

from Mlsnet's match event log:

CLB -54th Minute. Foul Committed by 2-Frankie Hejduk, 2nd of match. Foul Suffered by 15-Jesse Marsch, 1st of match. Card Issued. Yellow Card Issued to 2-Frankie Hejduk. Foul Type: Persistent Infringement (???)

 

Agreed. He still has his lapses with a horrible fiirst touch from time to time, or a pass that Carl Lewis couldn't catch up to in his prime, but he has definately improved this year.

Is he a keeper? I don't know. We waited 5+ years for him to develop, and I can't tell if this is just a hot streak for him, or if he is really ready to become more than a role player in this league.

 

I thought McCarty did the right thing in doubling Razov and cutting off his left foot shot. Clark should have slid more central but reacted way too late to be of use. But that happens when you go from a 4-4-2 to a 3-5-2 in desperation mode. One miscommunication, one goal, one season down the drain.

 

What's even worse is that at the half, the Crew had 5 fouls, the Fire had 9. Persistent infringement can be called not only on a player but on a team. This was Hejduk's 2nd foul, the team's 7th or 8th and not all against the same player but Hall decided to give a card. In the mean time, he looked the other way as BMB was continuosly hammered by Boca and Curtin and while Perez resorted to all type of crap to close down Hejduk on the right side.

MLS refs continue to be the biggest joke around. Well, after Greg.

 

I wasn't violent at all. It was around the 70th minute. I just expressed how frustrated I was with driving 3 hours to see this team every week that has the talent to win, but is being led by an unqualified coach. I said I appreciate the talent that he (Smith) has helped assemble here, but if Andrulis was retained as coach next year I would have to think long and hard about whether I was renewing my season tickets.

 

I think 3-stripe was having too much fun with that phone last night. It was hilarious when she just started leaving messages to random people at the Crew office.

However, I thought she left a nice message too for Jim Smith...

But the thing that annoyed me the most was how we sucked it up, yet every 10 minutes they're pushing you to call and order your season tickets for next season. Yeah, great marketing.

 

He led the Crew in assists last year and was injured down the playoff stretch. It took him until midyear to get fit and back into match comfort.

 

yeah, I'm aware. I just started out with such high expectations for west. Maybe they were too high. But this is one of the first P-40 players. He was in the player pool leading up the WC 2002. He was an alternate when allw as said and done. If he had better ball control there is NOBODY in MLS who could stay with him. And he can score goals when needed. I'd just like to see him put together everything over the course of a full season.

 

2, but HE works at it...and was in the middle of wife problem early in the year. At least we know how to handle injuries...