Review: On Second Glance....

I decided I'm going to give each game a second viewing since I paid for MLS Live this year, last year I found myself wanting to go back and give certain parts of games a second look, but since I don't have DVR and there's never a second showing of the game I couldn't. Instead of putting these second viewing thoughts in the game thread I wanted to start a stand alone thread to kind of track trends over the course of the season. Usually during a game I get so caught up in the action (or I've had a few too many beers) that my brain turns off and some moments pass me over. Plus it's just easier to watch a game and be a bit more objective when you know the final outcome, win, lose, or draw. Settle in next to the fire, these posts are going to be quite long.

So the first game, vs Orlando.

The Good:

• Burrito. My god, he is by far the best player on the field for this game and it's not even close, pretty much every time he touched the ball he made something positive happen. Orlando players were training cones and he didn't just burn them, he flat out embarrassed them. He is single-handedly responsible for the second goal, he slaloms 2 Orlando players with ease and as the ball kind of gets caught up on the turf he slows down (but in perfect control) and slices the ball with the outside of his foot to a wide open Beltran to his right. Credit Beltran for the best cross he's ever put in while wearing an RSL uniform. There's going to be a lot of games this year where Burrito is the best player on the field.
• Plata. Took him a good 10-15 minutes to get into the game, but once he did he was making excellent runs up the left side. He interchanged fantastically with Burrito and Javi, had a couple good give and go moves with Yura, and was mostly dangerous the whole time he was on.
• Compactness and organization after the Phillips red card. Last year we saw us break down A LOT after getting red cards, this game was a complete 180. We actually settled down, stayed organized in front of the defense, and generated several chances as well as several spells of really good possession. Despite having to sacrifice Sunny, the midfield and forwards put in a ton of good work to keep RSL dangerous.
• Using the entire field. It's been a long time since I remember RSL using the entire field to attack, the last few years have been almost exclusively the "Javi in the left channel" show for our attack. This game we attacked both left and right, Yura drew the penalty with a smart through run up the left, Burrito and Beltran worked the right side for the second goal. Plata and Yura had multiple moves up the left that generated shots and crosses and Beltran wasn't awful going up the right with some Javi/Burrito moments. Interestingly there was almost nothing up the middle.

The Bad:

• A very loose high line strategy. The book on RSL has long been written, in years past it was a long diagonal ball to spring wing players in behind. Last year it was long balls over the top to get guys in through the middle. This game was two VERY obvious things, catching our outside backs stabbing in high and springing Shea up the left (and whoever up the right before Phillips got his red) and just blindly booting the ball up the middle and letting Larin/Winters run onto it. Time and again it worked with ease, we should have been down 2-0 and a man after 25 minutes, the first Orlando goal was directly a result of Beltran stabbing at an Orlando player, Luke not being aware of Shea in behind, and a simple pass up the left in behind that completely broke us down. Maund got smoked by Larin up the middle and a nice touch for the finish makes it 1-0. Then the Orlando keeper makes a simple 15 yard roller to a defender in the middle, who turns and boots it straight up the middle and both our CB's get smoked to make it 2-0.
• Beckerman had too much ground to cover after the Phillips red. We saw this a lot last year, KB had to cover way too much ground in the middle and we gave up a lot of stuff in that area of the field. In this game he got caught on the wrong side of the ball many times and had to make a lot of tactical fouls. No idea how he didn't get a card.
• Rimando doesn't trust his defenders and there is VERY little communication with the 4 directly in front of him. There is a lot of confusion on when he should come out and when his defenders are going to handle the ball. As far as I can tell there is almost no communication between Olave, Maund, and Rimando the whole match. One awful instance of the lack of communication was between Wingert and Rimando which almost gave Winters a tap in goal late in the game.

The Ugly:

• This was about as bad a defensive effort you could possibly see from a team. Wingert was by far our best defender and even he had to take a tactical yellow to prevent a breakaway up our left side. Olave and Maund didn't do one single good thing all match, both got caught ball watching multiple times which gave Orlando many good opportunities. The disallowed Orlando goal in the first 10 minutes was Olave ball watching pretty much as bad as Gil's ball watching against the cRapids last year. He literally just stood there while Larin ran towards goal for the easy tap in. Phillips had as bad a 19 minutes you can possibly have as a defender, by my count he completed 2 passes the whole time. Beltran got badly beat by Larin which lead to Phillips' second yellow and Beltran was getting burned REPEATEDLY by Shea after that. Interestingly Orlando almost never attacked Wingert's side after the Phillips red, Wingert had a mostly ok match, but his poor communication moment with Rimando almost gave Orlando an easy goal.
• The Olmes for Burrito substitution was the worst possible sub Cassar could have made. Burrito was tired, but he made a couple really big defensive stops just before he was subbed. He was still putting in work on the left side with Wingert AND most importantly he was still very strong in possession. There was two spells around the 80' and 85' minute where RSL were able to maintain possession for a good 10-15 straight passes and kill a lot of clock, Burrito was central to both. Olmes did absolutely nothing after he came on, he slipped in the middle of the field which caused a soft turnover and dangerous Orlando counter, and then committed a stupid foul on the edge of our defensive third which gave Orlando another dangerous opportunity. I realize pickings off the bench were slim, but simultaneously removing a guy who was putting in good work and helping tremendously with possession and putting in a guy who did nothing but give Orlando dangerous chances was a killer. Cassar needs to read the game better, a young Glad for Olave would have been the best sub, Allen for Yura would have been the second best sub.
• Olave is no longer a player worth having on the field, he is a liability, period. At the 75' he tried to play a cute ball up and over an Orlando attacker, then tried to run on to that ball himself. Instead the ball bounced up and over his head and the Orando player had a free run in on our goal. After that point Olave did absolutely nothing and he committed several more fatal errors. He even flat out gave up on a run when Larin and Winters went charging up the middle and should have scored a goal, but the ball rolled just wide. From the first minute to the last, Olave made mistake after mistake, even worse he couldn't clear the ball more than 25 yards or so. The only positive thing he did all game was make one break up of a pass in our box, the rest wasn't even just bad, it was truly awful. And Maund wasn't much better.

The Ref:

• Penso had a shockingly poor game. The one thing every player wants the most is consistency, Penso was the EXACT OPPOSITE. The Phillips cards were good calls, both were obvious yellow cards. Within 4 minutes of the Phillips red Orlando made a rash challenge on Javi (or Plata, can't remember) from the side and a bad foul on Burrito near the sideline, both were clear yellow cards. Then another bad challenge on Burrito finally earned a yellow on Orlando, but minutes later Beckerman lost possession of the ball and committed a sloppy/bad challenge from behind where he didn't get the ball and fouled a breaking Orlando player, a clear yellow which wasn't given.
• Hines should have been sent off, before half Orlando had a corner and Rimando went up high to collect the ball, Hines (being marked) came in behind him and had no chance at the ball. Hines grabbed Rimando by the collar when Rimando was at his highest point, pulled Rimando off balance and Rimando fell hard on his side. This was as dangerous a play as you can make on a keeper, Rimando was 100% defenseless and if he had rotated further he could have fallen on his shoulder (causing a serious shoulder injury) or worse, his head. This was a clear card worthy foul, at worst a yellow and I could easily see red (given the Ceren red card on Javi, which was similar in intent to hit the player with no intent on the ball). Hines ended up getting a yellow in the second half for rashly stepping on Yura's heal, which should have been his second yellow. Penso had a good view of the grab on Rimando, no excuse.
• Penso overruled his sideline ref on the disallowed goal, which he shouldn't have done. Then in the second half Plata spun an Orlando player and would have had a breakaway towards the Orlando goal, the Orlando player grabbed Plata by the collar and stopped him, very obvious. Penso had a good view and didn't call anything, the 4th official had to make the call. Not only do the players not know what's a card worthy foul or not, but they don't even know when/if Penso is even going to make a call. Horrible stuff from Penso

Overall we were very good in the middle third and attacking third and flat our wretched in the defensive third. If I'm going to be frank, we should have lost this game. As much as it stings pissing away the full 3 points and settling for the draw, we were lucky to even be in that position. It should have been 2-0 Orlando very early in the game, even before we went down a man. If we don't sign 2 quality CB's, we won't make the playoffs IMO. Right now we don't even have a starting MLS caliber CB on the roster, which is shocking. This is going to make Rimando look worse, the lack of communication and having to second guess his defenders on every questionable ball is going to mean even more dangerous "sweeper keeper" moments. We're going to need A LOT of Burrito/Javi/Plata/Yura magic this year to give a chance at winning games, I truly believe Burrito is the best player we've had since vintage 2009-2010ish Morales, he might even be the best we've ever had period. There's going to be a lot of "oooo's and ahhhh's" watching Burrito/our attack followed by moments of me wanting to punch a baby thanks to our defense this year.

 

I'm convinced Burrito is a wizard from another world, lol. There were 2-3 times in the Orlando game where he received a ball (even once where it was falling/bouncing in front of him), multiple Orlando players converged on him, and with one or two touches got himself completely free of trouble. And as @MOS5 said, he doesn't hold the ball for too long, he knows the precise time to make a pass and he almost always completes it. I think in the half dozen or so situations where he was dribbling through guys he ultimately completely probably 2/3rd's of the passes he tried. Watching him play is a breath of fresh air, it really is like Javi circa 2009-10.

The problem with Beltran is that he gets himself pulled up above the 18 yard box covering a winger and then usually there is an interchange between the winger and another attacker more central. At that point Beltran should track the winger and trust either his CB or Beckerman/Sunny/Javi to track the more central player, but a significant amount of the time he either stabs at the winger (trying to break up a pass/dribble) and then the winger breaks off in behind him, or Beltran starts to track the more central player leaving the CB's to deal with the quick break of the winger in behind. I think Beltran is a pretty good 1v1 defender, he keeps the guy in front of him when tracking into the 18, but any time Beltran has to make critical decisions with regards to more than 1 player outside the 18 he makes the wrong choice just as much (if not more than) the right choice. This is why players are so easily able to get in behind him.

 

Yes, it still has the condensed version, also a nice feature if you don't have 90 minutes to watch an entire game over again.

 

Got home and did a few things, sat down and put on the game to watch it again and I passed out in the recliner like an old man, lol. I guess staying up to 6:30 am taking star pictures and then getting only 4 hours of sleep because of the early game today took it's toll.

Dam Good Milky Way by Eric, on Flickr

I'll probably try this re-viewing again tomorrow.

 

Yup, I posted a few more pics in the NSR subforum Digital Photography thread