At the Stubhub Center in Carson, California. Broadcast on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. One of these teams goes home disappointed next Sunday. Simple task for the Galaxy - just win the game. Take it out of Jair Marrufo's hands! Keep up the good work, Jaime Penedo.
On the bright side, we only need to put together a 4 game win streak. This thread should be slow during the game as we should all be there. Lets go boys! GO GALAXY! Lets make some royal heads roll
I gotta believe Robbie when he says this will be a whole different game. Feeling the first ting of nervousness just thinking about it.
I will work on setting up a meet-n-great table for Berks so all the BS regulars can line up to get an autograph...
I didn't post this in the last game thread, but the formula is the same as it's always been: draw on the road, and win at home. I'm sure Bruce went into the first leg with that philosophy. As long as RSL wasn't ahead, we weren't going to come out of our shell. Especially against RSL, who are so tactically sound. I expect us to play a much more open game at home, control possession, create more chances, and score more goals.
Interesting article on the playoff format: http://www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol/2014/03/14/away-goals-mls-playoffs I'm still holding out for my "No away goals. Two-leg draws go to the higher seed" format.
No, this is MLS's first year with the away-goals tiebreakder. Used in tournaments throughout the world (knockout stages of Champions League and Europa League, two-legged playoffs qualifiers for WC, etc.) and has it's proponents and detractors. I think Beakmon was joking about the "draw to the higher seed" format. It would give an enormous edge to the higher seeded team- it is the equivalent of giving them a goal at the start of the two leg playoff. Pretty sure we would have been up in arms if we had to start our playoff run down 1-0 to Seattle before the first game started!
Honestly, there is no perfect playoff format. All of them have their flaws and all of them seem to me abrupt ways to decide the fate of a 8 month season in one fortnight. It is what it is. It just seems much less satisfying to me than any American sport playoff. As for leg 2, all we can do is hope for a good performance from our guys. We haven't really seen one in a while. I feel like the line up and approach (while on paper clearly our best 11) is a bit stale. If was a gambling man I might consider throwing a surprise into the starting line up and doing something like Gordon on for Husidic and dropping Zardes back to midfield (which I know is not his strongest position). Its too bad that Dunivent was injured all year. I'd have liked to have had the flexibility of starting him and putting Rogers on the right side for Gargan or even into midfield.
Away goals or no, time to get the job done. If you can't win either home or away, you don't deserve to move on.
We started this season playing how we ended last year. Then we obviously got better but, it seems we're finishing up the same way. Its hard to resolve how the boys will let that happen in LDs last chance. We should leave everything we've got on that pitch Sunday.
I was actually serious. We'ere always looking for ways to make the regular season more meaningful, and that would do it. That said, you raise really great points about the enormous advantage it give to higher seeds. I'm not a fan of the away goals rule. I think it makes the home team play more defensively, in an effort to not give up an away goal. mbar is right: there is no perfect format (so Seattle fans will always have something to gripe abut when they're team gets bounced)
I just think that we will have had two games to outscore RSL - if we don't do that we don't deserve to advance. And if they come to our place and tie 1-1 and advance on away goals it just means they were able to score in our house and we weren't able to score in theirs, so again I think they win fair and square. Our problem isn't the rules - it's that we haven't beaten anyone recently.
Going into the playoffs in a funk does not have me supremely confident. Couple that with a seattle team that doesn't know how to lose recently, and teams like NE who have gone 9-1-1 since Jermaine Jones arrived, and I'm getting a sinking feeling. I'm hoping that LD's head is screwed on straight for this and that Robbie Keane shows us why he makes the big bucks. We need to score first, force RSL to play for broke, then destroy them completely.
To me, it looks like the road to the Cup is RSL, Seattle, New England. If we win the Cup this year, it's against tough competition. No cakewalks in these playoffs.
In most years I'm more impressed by what it took to win a Supporter's Shield than what it took to make a run for MLS Cup. But this is one of those years, maybe the only year, where just about every team that made the playoffs was a legitimate title contender.
I love you guys too. @TrickHog was nice enough to help me out - so I'm sitting near him. If you guys are in that area (no idea where that area is just yet), feel free to stop by! Happy to clink beers with you! Or just chew nails together. God I'm nervous about this game.