Its been a couple of days since I've read the KC match reports (and I'm also sleep deprived on the road) so I can't remember who said this. But after our match with the Wiz, one of their players said that we "had too many piano players and not enough piano carriers". I took this too mean that we've got a lot of players with fancy technical ability but not a lot of "hard men" who do the dirty work off the ball. That's an interesting perspective (b/c people have been critical of Kovalenko) and most of the criticism has been leveled at our skill players (finishers, A-mid, Olsen for not attacking more, Convey for failing to show for the ball more, Stewart for disappearing in matches). Granted, KC may not be a good source b/c they're the ultimate MLS team of grinders and workers who get by on effort and organization. But none-the-less, it's an interesting perspective. Any takers on this?
I've been busy as well and not keeping up with the news as well as I should, but I remember that comment as well. But, I didn't take it to mean we didn't have enough guys to do the "dirty work". I took it to mean we dodn't have enugh guys who can or will stick a dagger in the opponents to win games. I don't think it was meant defensively. There's plenty of gamers there if you ask me. I think it's meant to point out the lack of finishing. There's been chances, just not results. Stewart could legitimately have 3 goals by now. Quaranta 3 in addition to his goal, Convey like 6 goals, Olsen a few, Dema a few, etc. Stoitchkov like 3 three in one game, etc. Not saying forwards need to be more selfish necessarily, since clearly some chances have been missed by attempting weak shots rather than passing to an open guy too. Just saying there's been no guy who's stepped up to say he'll put the ball in the net regardless. Honestly, Marco's been the only guy to really go at goal with venom. That's not good and needs to change very soon.
Interesting quote, but it looked like the opposite to me. We had plenty of "piano movers" on the field. Nelsen, Kovalenko, etc; We were really lacking a "piano player" to put the ball in the net. I think most people who've played have heard that quote from your coach before. Coaches always say a team needs a mix of piano players and piano movers. Graceful, technical players and hard players.
key issues I don't know... I agree that we have a few movers (dema, nelson, ivanov probably, and some part-time help like chino) and we have the tuners (earnie, convey, tino)... and I think in time esky will be both. I think the problem might be that we can move the piano and put players in position to play the damn thing, but nobody brought any music. maybe the problem is really with the conductor.
Re: key issues To continue with the analysis of the analogy. The 'tuners' are spending too much time being 'movers' since we don't have enough actual 'movers' to do the actual moving.
Re: Re: key issues I don't know about you guys, but as a (real) piano player myself, it doesn't matter how good you are at playing if the piano is out of tune. It all sounds good until you hit a key and then everything that sounded good suddenly sounds horrible. It’s also hard to find chords that don’t use the out of tune keys. That's true for the music too... you might be able to write beautiful music, but when it is played on an out of tune piano, it's worthless. Of course, if you know that you are going to be playing an out of tune piano, you can write music to skip those keys. It might sound good, but the composer is limited in the possible songs he can write. I'd venture to say that we've got the players, the music, and a few movers, but we're playing out of tune. Maybe somewhere in the moving and shaking of the last few years has made us a sharp or flat, but I'm not sure which. And I don't think we know for sure as a team. Good musicians can tell right away. If you're not so skilled in the matter, if you're not sure whether you are sharp or flat, you just loosen the strings until you are sure you are flat. The problem with tuning pianos is that they are expensive to tune, and you typically have to have someone tune them several times at first to get them worn in and steady. Either way, someone has to open up the piano and tune it... and I'd guess that would be the job of the technical coordinator. Quick fix = write music that doesn’t use the keys Best fix = dish out the money and the time to get the piano into playing shape
I thought the problem was we were masturbating without penetrating. What's this about piano playing and piano moving??? I've got it!!!!!!!!! We just need to find a penetrating piano mover!!!!!!