Man, that was attractive soccer from DC in the second half. Simply fantastic ball movement. Stewart was great on the right. Convey - largely invisible in the first half - stepped it up and dominated in the second. Etcheverry was valuable since it did not seem everything had to go through him. Does Convey seem to play with more confidence against USMNT teammates? He really took McBride and Hedjuk to the cleaners.
IIRC Cap room is not an issue regarding an emergency keeper. Simply because the league cannot have league matches were a Earmie Stewart or some other field player is forced to play in goal becasue of roster issues.
With all of the love and heart shown by this team I hate to be one of the first to whine.. but could someone PLEASE tell me that Doug Warren's "personal reason" for missing the game was a lot better then a fvcking WEDDING?! This is a joke. This game was huge and to force his team to use a guy that had never played before is BS. I would have understood this if we had a capable backup... etc. but to force us to get Rongen to pull strings and fly a guy in 48 hours before a game that COULD have clinched a play off spot for the first time in how many years?! --I hereby nominate Warren for an early career $hit list.
Which is more important: your family or work? I have to side with Warren on this one. He made a difficult decison that could have been detrimental to his pro career. However, we didn't lose, he'll be back, and there are other games to play.
btw...if San Jose takes care of business against the vastly inferior hacks from Jersey tomorrow, we're in 2nd place in the East.
They are earning that cellar position. And, yes, they will get the YOU SUCK allocation this winter. Well done, Cows.
Shawn, my understanding is that you can get the league loaner (ie: Baumstark) or do an emergency callup for a game. But otherwise you need to add someone to your roster. The issue for us involves cap space. I guess we could cut Parea and sign another keeper in a developmental or P-40 slot. otherwise we need to use Baumstark or call up a keeper game by game. That's my understanding of how it works--unless we clear cap room. The Warren-wedding thing is covered in another thread. The guy is making around $30K and the wedding was probably planned months ago when he didn't have a second of PT with DCU. And the coaches probably okayed it too.
Look, at this point in the season, with the playoffs on the line, every swinging penis better either be on the pitch or in rehab. Warren should have been with the club tonight IMHO.
Again, I think Ray Hudson did a masterful job tonight: - Knowing that we didn't have a real or even fake d-mid (meaning that in our normal 442 the Crew would be able to run at our defenders all night) Ray decided to clog up the middle with three players instead of two. -But they weren't the three players that we'd expect. Well, Etch was no surprise, but Q2 has been a winger of late and Chino has played very little in the middle this season. But those two are pretty slow characters and to put them on the wing facing the speed of West and Hedjuk would have been criminal. Maisonneuve and Martino in the middle are not nearly so fast. So Convey and Stewart played the wings- a much better set of match-ups. This midfield setup also shows how versatile our players are. -Playing stewart on the wing allowed Hudson to use both Cerritos and Martins at forward. martins, who probably wouldn't have started if we had gone to our normal 442, in particular was very good. -Finally going with just three defenders, minimized both Ivanov's brain farts and kept the Crew attackers away from goal. Do folks realize that the Cows only had ONE shot on goal? Great job Ray and John.
What can I say except the boys played con cojones. BIG efforts all around. Would have loved to see Martins or Earnie get one for their efforts, but hopefully they have saved it for New England. Can't say enough about the great team defensive effort. This team refuses to die.
the way Clint played? this COULD be detrimental to Warren's career. I cant see how you could leave the team in a lurch like this. Geddes is not ready and he f-ing knows this. p.s. next time get your younger bro to step in...
Great effort tonight after they gave up that opening goal.. Again, this team sat back way too early and allowed Columbus to come at them instead of applying pressure to their terrible back line (a good point brought up by Rongen on the telecast).. After that goal we were simply the better team out there.. I just don't know what it is with Columbus other than that team has no confidence right now and it only gets worse for them (or better for us to be more precise) as they have to go to Chicago next Friday and play in the re-opening of Soldier Field against a red hot Fire team.. Then they have to come to RFK the week after that.. The mood heading into New England will depend heavily on both the Mutts result tomorrow and the Crew's match against the Fire.. Spoiler alert.... With NE crushing Dallas tonight, NE could jump ahead of us with a win in Foxboro next weekend... It's getting very good right now.. As for the game itself, again, I thought we played fabulously after the 20th minute.. I thought Baumstark did well, but in all actuallity, he didn't even record a save tonight.. The backline trio were massive throughout the night, especially Namoff who continues to answer the bell for this team night in and night out.. I thought the midfield worked hard.. I thought honestly that Marco was utter crap for the first 45 minutes but came back with probably his best 45 minute stint of the season.. Good for you Marco... The forwards were active though I thought Cerritos, for the second game in a row, was pretty much a non-factor all night.. Thiba continues to impress and I can just feel a goal at his fingertips.. Stewart worked his ass off but his corners and free kicks were way off the mark.. Rongen again made a great comment in saying that he was floating his kicks in instead of driving them.. Good stuff.. Well, it's now a little scoreboard watching and waiting for next Saturday at 4 pm.. Best case scenario for United in the upcoming week: San Jose win over the Mutts Chicago win over Columbus United win over NE, but I'll definitely take a draw.. Dallas win over the Mutts - highly unlikely..
Dude, I got married August 15, 2001 at 3:00 pm. On August 15, 2001 at 7:30 my new wife and I were in our seats in section 232 row 6 seats 1&2 for a match against the Scum. The Club comes first!!!
well, that was a solid performance by all. no really outstanding players, but solid across the board earned us a point. i'll take that. i would have really liked to see someone (convey) actually step it up, but i can't complain about our performance tonight. i thought that the first half we looked really out of it. columbus ran through us for much of the first 35 minutes. we had touble passing and generally getting to the ball. the second half was a different story. if marco is a 45 minute player, then his second 45 minutes is where he started playing tonight. very good game from him and i'd give him motm honors as well. nelsen also was an inspiration tonight, not only keeping namoff (another solid game) and prideaux together, but keeping pressure off baumstark. great job by our captain. it is sort of good that petke has this week off. nellie, on the other hand, has to fly to europe(?) for another match. maybe these game suspensions will help rest up some players that have been going strong for a while. the warren/baumstark thing is sort of interesting. i'm sure that warren asked to be able to go to the wedding a while ago and the coaching staff agreed. when nick went down, i'm sure this came up again, and the coaching staff decided good player management was the best thing to keep morale at a safe level. baumstark did well tonight. the goal that was scored against him was the fault of our defense. no one was covering paule. after that, he really wasn't tested too much. there was definitely miscommunication throughout the match between our defenders and him, but in the end, it didn't burn us. i'm just glad that we came away with this point... not because i didn't think we would, but because i could barely read through some of these threads this week because everything was negative and full of doubt. we are a strong team. we are a deep team. we are a united team with tons of heart. we will survive these challenges. at least we (the fans) can go into next weeks match with a little more favorable outlook on the game. -ted