Maissoneuve will be happy, his corpse tendons won't need replaced after playing on granularized tires for 90 minutes... It will either be a 2-0 loss as the Fire weasel an early and late goal against our partial defense, or, a 1-1 borefest as the Crew grab an early goal but give up a late goal to piss away points...
Fire are 11-6-1 against us all time and this is the first game at home back in Chicago, on a friday night. My guess is that Fire come out very pumped, the first half should tell the story here, if it's not 2-0 at halftime, it could be another long night.
Williams is gone which puts Akwari in central defense most likely. He did a great job shutting down Ralph last game. He's by far a better option than the pride of Shrewsbury. My guess is that Hejduk and Paule get switched tho the left side, with McCarty on the right, and an Akwari/Clark central defense, which in my opinion is what we shoulda been playing for a while. I think that's our best four defensively. The boys seem to have come out to play vs Chicago both times this year, and have gotten two ties against them, but I just don't see that streak continuing. Watching Paule get interviewed on MLS Wrap he tried to assure everyone that confidence is high and the team is gonna keep fighting and make the playoffs, but I just don't buy it. I don't think anyone does anymore. Crew lose 2-1.
Hmmm. No Damani Ralph, No whitfield, CJ Brown is questionable...I wouldn't be suprised if the Crew somehow found a way to win this one, just to make this miserable season stay mathamatically alive.
I know it was, I'm agreeing that the same thing will happen again upon further thought. I just couldn't think of any a-league players for chicago so I mentioned Armas.
I keep dreaming that the Fire will do a Bears impersonation on their first home game at Soldier Field; then I wake up and remember that the Fire could field a team of U16's (or ex-WUSA players) and still get a result from us. Sorry to say but 1-3 is a realistic result (That's if we actually get some SOG; one in the match won't get by Thornton's belly).
Chicago 3:1 Columbus Busch quoted as saying for the 100th time "We needed to take care of business and we didn't. We worked on our mistakes all week in training, but we made those mistakes here tonight." Busch explains the loss straight up.
who covers beasley? i saw the fire game last week on FSW, and DMB looked fast and on his game. usually, i'd say hejduk could reasonably contain him out there, but sat. he was playing in the center of midfield with orlando perez out wide. i guess we will find out for sure what akwari has, but he'll need lots of help from clark and whoever plays dmid.
more bad news coming? Soccer America Daily says: The U.S. U-23 men's national team, which is preparing for its Olympic qualifying campaign, will play Haiti in a friendly Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. ET at Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. U.S. coach Glenn Myernick is expected to announce his roster later this week. Buddle and Martino both in the player pool.
MatchNight's Match Preview. Game will apparently be on Fox Sports Ohio. Live at 9 PM Friday night. Of course, this would have been better if it was a mid-season game when we were in better form, but it's still Crew on TV.
wow, doom and gloom central over here. Was a little worried that you guys would be all fired up for a playoff push, instead it looks like you should be on suicide watch. Thanx for sucking. Hows my spelling, Bill?
Re: more bad news coming? I'll pay Martino's airfare, but the guy needs to play against tough, physical sides to improve. U-23 technical matches won't help his Crew performance.
Your spelling's fine, but the Caps and content still suck. Check the WUSA boards. They can take no real thought or substance and turn it into a 1000 word diatribe. You are much better as you can turn nothing into only 50-60 words - much more concise.
The Beasley/West matchup could be the only worthwhile part of this match. Those two have had some great contests. I just hope the TV shows some of their work.
i'm just glad it's on tv. again, i think beasley is chicago's new attacking mid, so he won't be seeing much of west.