Any thoughts about this important game coming up Saturday? Big game for Independence as road game and going against a very talented Athletica squad. How will PHI play on the road and do against the powerful STL midfield? Can team continue to play tight defense and score opportunistic goals?
It was going to be tough regardless, but with Seger out, that's not good! However, I have confidence ....
They'll miss Seger, for sure, but they do have decent depth at midfield. I'm curious to see if they'll move Magnusdottir up and shift Lohman inside, if Mitts is healthy enough to start in back. Or they could push Krzysik up to d-mid again and move Buczkowski into more of an attacking role. Too bad there's no coverage of the game other than Matchtracker or Twitter. Didn't St. Louis have audio webcasts of some of the games last year?
I thought the same as well with Seger out, Mitts could start at right back and push Frida up in the mid with Lindsey, Lohman and Buczkowski. It will be in battle in the mid and I hope Philly can match the STL midfielders.
Yes, the challenge just got tougher (and the mountain top higher) with Seger out of line-up - team will really miss her presence. She is definitely one of the top players on the team, so will be a big loss. This creates an opportunity for others to show what they got and to contribute to the team. Depth is important in long 24 game season. The obvious move as previously stated is to move Frida up to MF assuming that Mitts is 100% and can play 90 min's on defense. Can't wait for the game and to fire up twitter and match tracker.
Me too, nothing like a couple of windows open with matchtracker, helping me keep into the pulse of the game. Woo hoo. Actually, I am hoping to read that Kirby gets another goal or two, especially against Hope.
Likewise, hoping for several corners or some fouls from STL so that PHL gets some direct kicks. Team seems to specialize in taking full advantage of their free kicks. Boxx plays pretty tough and occasionally collects a foul or two. Should be an excellent game....anxiously waiting to fire up matchtracker and twitter. Will also check to see if any audio from home team announcers.
“We gave up two horrific goals,” Philadelphia head coach Paul Riley said. “The first one was just unlucky, and the second one was poor goalkeeping to be perfectly honest with you. She was very slow moving across the box (for Tarpley’s shot). I mean they’ve got to come up with a couple saves a game, don’t they? But St. Louis was the better team tonight and they deserved to win.” http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2010/may/08/tarpleys-goal-lifts-athletica-2-1-win-over-philade/ Blunt comments...Unhappy with Leblanc...
LOL...Throwing the goalie under the bus. Leblanc is no doubt very good but not as good as she appeared to be in LA last year. The Sol's offense was so good that teams were too busy trying to contend with that to launch much of a counterattack plus the Sol had a great back line. Leblanc also didn't look as sharp with the Cnd. WNT.
While I thought LeBlanc could have been better on both goals, I didn't think she was terrible. Riley thought on the own goal, it took her a bit long to react. It was simply a weird play. The outside defender on Aluko's side had got caught upfield in the attack and Aluko and Tarpley are coming down quickly on a counterattack and Aluko attempted to send it across to Tarp. Falk was tracking back at full speed and tried to stop the ball, but it apparently caught her shin square and it was hit hard from 20 yards or more out to the left side of the net. I'm sure it caught LeBlanc off guard and to be fair to Falk, if the pass gets by her, I think Tarpley is in alone on a 1 v. 1 against LeBlanc. It was just bang, bang and in the net. Most people I talked to said they'd never seen an own goal quite so perfect (obviously not for Philadelphia) and so hard. The 2nd goal, Tarpley appeared to be heading to the middle, but touched it back to her left to reverse her field which gave her space from a couple of defenders. It was not struck that hard, but it was just inside the post and couldn't have been placed any better. A great little move by Tarpley. It will be interesting to see if Henderson gets another start.
Tough and long night for Philadephia in St. Louis. Nothing went their way but to be fair, Athletica controlled the game with a 15-8 shot advantage and obviously played well. I don't think LeBlanc was the main issue but really an entire team problem as obviously St Louis had the better of them all night. This was one of those games that is better to forget and get ready for the next one.
Definitely agree. Seger's injury really hurt Philadelphia's midfield and Saint Louis was able to keep Lindsey in check most of the night. I am impressed with Philadelphia's speed. After Sanderson came in for Maruyama, I thought her speed caused a few more problems for Saint Louis. And Magnusdottir, Rodriguez and Lyndsey Patterson are fast, too. Surprisingly, Philadelphia's air game with Falk on headers didn't come into play much. However, part of that was because Athletica really didn't surrender many corner kicks nor many free kicks in their own end. I can tell you that from an opponent's standpoint, while Athletica had the better of the play, I can see where Philadelphia can be a pretty dangerous team and they are a lot better from the midfield forward than I thought they'd be. But like Hoover said, it wasn't their night and they were missing Seger. I talked with Coach Riley and he is a true gentleman. He thought the fact that going from turf to grass (Saint Louis has probably the slowest field in the league) hurt them as well.
I can also tell you that this was one of the worst officiated games I have seen in a long time. Both teams thought the center ref stunk! They've got to do better finding refs who know what they are doing.
Remember Falk was Leblanc's teammate in LA last year...However, Martina Franco is missing...She is not playing for any other WPS team now...I am sure she could be signed as a free agent... I guess Leblanc could end up as Henderson's backup...Who knows?
Damn. Called her out big time. Danger Will Robinson. I haven't read write ups of their other games. Has he called out other players that haven't produced as expected? Or just LeBlanc in this game? Sorry, Cville KC, "true gentlemen" do not throw a player -- particularly a popular player like KK -- under the bus like that--definitely not so early in the season. This was an @sshole move. LeBlanc had 4 saves and she didn't cough one up like Solo And on Tarpley's cut back, three Philly defenders got beat first. Riley better be careful how he handles this keeper situation. I wondered when he drafted LeBlanc in over Henderson how that was going to play out. Both are positive people & generally thought to be stand up teammates. But if the competition btwn the two isn't handled properly (and in house) the team (and season) can go bad very quickly.
To be fair, when talked to him that wasn't the tone at all. While he mentioned that he thought LeBlanc was a bit slow to react, it was not in a harsh tone at all and he quickly followed it up by saying that he would have to look at the tapes to see exactly what happened on the play. It was a strange play, so strange in fact, that most of us forgot exactly what happened on the play, most especially me. I had Aluko making the final pass, when in fact it was Tarpley (a mistake I freely admit to). Heck, Aluko couldn't even remember what happened. That is one thing I did notice about Riley, is that he would often start off making what would be considered a blunt statement, but would follow it up with a full commentary that when taken as a whole, it softened the original comment considerably. For instance, he called the own goal a "fluke", but quickly added that Saint Louis could have had a couple of other goals in the first half and that Saint Louis was the better team and had better possession. If you would taken the fluke comment by itself, it would have sounded like sour grapes, when in fact, it was a simple statement of fact and not an excuse. Having not heard the entire interview where he made the comment about KK I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt for now..
I would say that the referee in this match was very lenient overall. He let a lot go early in the match, letting at least 3 players get off with stern lectures rather than carding them (Buczkowski, Ellertson, and I think the 3rd was Krzysik). Both Chalupny in the 1st half and Lindsey in the 2nd half thought that they had been tripped (both just outside of the box, although Chalupny actually ended up in the box). Lindsey got her yellow card for vehemently protesting the non-call, Chalupny uttered a rather rare expletive (for her) in response to her non-call. Boxx was very upset about a call where she and Gina DiMartino were battling for the ball. Boxx was called for the foul and I think the call was actually made by the AR. I'm not sure whether Boxx got her yellow from the actual foul or for arguing the call. However, I was at the other end of the field on that call, so I couldn't render an opinion either on the original call or the card. There was one other play that occured about 15 feet from me where the ball was headed to the endline and Miyama was trying to shield it so that it would roll out. It was almost to the line and Mitts hustled to try to save it and ran up Miyama's back. Both players went pretty hard into the boards. Mitts came out of it the worse of the two and was down for about 30 seconds or so, but frankly, I thought that was a no call. Neither player did anything that I thought warranted a foul and the ball may have been out of bounds before contact was made anyhow. Then there was the play where Solo got a brief lecture for not putting the ball in play when she didn't even have a ball from the ball girl yet. Couldn't quite figure that one out.