I understand and appreciate this sentiment. But the guy was there to do that exact thing. Like it wasn't like he was a defender who happened to be in a spot and it didn't go right. He is now the all-time scorer in MLS, a freaking Jedi mind trick in human form, and he was at the height of his powers in 2014. Had he netted that he would be a US Soccer all-time legend. He didn't, so get get's the other end of the deal. All that said, Wondo is great. I just won't begrudge the Belgium Brigade when they bring that up.
I remember my feelings after he missed that chance against Belgium... but couldn't remember what the sequence looked like... so I googled up the video... there was no weird hop. He should have at least put that one on frame... The Keeper might have blocked it...He also could have accelerated a bit and taken it out of the air... but he chose to hit it on the bounce... and then looked at goal before he hit it and almost whiffed! Just an opinion...and doesn't diminish what he's accomplished.
My kids are 4 and 6. I am way less regular in all SKC things (including these pages) because these two kids I love. But tonight, for the Penalties I was able to heard them in (with some Mac and Cheese) for the shootout. We talked about soccer, Melia as Superman, and they could tell their dad was juiced. My kids were reacting to every SKC goal and every Melia save. ***Thank you for those five freaking minutes Tim Melia and Sporting KC. Thank you. Thank you.*** (Also, just want to note I think there’s always an advantage to going first in penalties. As good as SKC has been, I feel like that’s a coin flip we’ve won more than not. Also, I have no clue why these shootouts are always in front of the MS, but I hope that endures).
The statistical breakdown of this game is simply stated. Lotta crap, but OMFG Melia is a god. That was the greatest PK sequence I've ever seen.He didn't just save the shots, he saved them comfortably, despite the fact that they were pretty decent shots. I was furious about the continued addition of minutes to the four. I refuse to accept that it's standard practice, regardless of gamesmanship, to add four minutes to four minutes of added time. that said, Puncec zoned out on Wondo? The way it turned out, it's a nice last game for Wondo if, as the announcers over here were saying, it appears to be his last game. Goal at the death is a fitting tribute. Still, if we'd lost I'd be throwing my monitor onto the street.
Not even just that, he zoned Wondo out and also pointed a 2nd attacker coming in for Lindsey to pick up on the play. Puncec has done well for us this year, but that wasn't a shining moment.
I don't think Wondo is retiring. In fact, I heard reported that he told Vermes after the game that he was gonna come back next season. I know he was strongly considering making this his last season, but I'm not positive even he knows either way right now. And Puncec had a really rough game. He won't argue it, but there's no way that's not an own goal for San Jose's opener.
about the added time.. i saw this tweet in the quakes game thread: not sure if this is true given that it is doyle, but if it is true one oughta give credit to Saghafi for enforcing the ROTG. Just annoying that maybe one out of 1000 times it actually happens that a referee lets all the wasted time during extra time be replayed. My guess would be that on average less than 50% of wasted time actually gets replayed, which makes Melia's gamesmanship so effective to begin with.
SKC was lucky to escape that game. Those set piece goals aren't coming against teams that actually defend set pieces and/or have a half competent keeper. Dia and Puncec picked a bad day to put in their worst performances of the year. EVERYTHING SJ did offensively came through C. Espinoza, who wasn't defending and was staying high, to expose Dia's forward runs. At what point does PV tell Dia to stay home and not get burned over and over and over and over and over? We all know the answer to that one. I can't understand why Peter refuses to make the simple tactical adjustments needed in elimination matches that react to how the other team is trying to play (see Blanco and Portland, WC final match) but he hasn't to this day, and probably never will. On the attacking side, without Pulido SKC just aren't very good. Much of that is down to Khiry and where he plays. With Pulido at CF, that gives us Khiry at a wing forward, where his holdup play and excellent passing ability are a HUGE improvement over the speed and random chaos of Gerso. A front line of Russell, Pulido, Shelton will take SKC far. A front line of Gerso, Shelto, Russell will not. Anyone know why Kinda didn't start?
Or part of their game plan was to exploit the set pieces since San Jose has allowed the most in the league this year. Actually I'd argue that he did make adjustments, then for some reason the team went away from them. If you watch the early portion of the game when San Jose had possession, Gerso was dropping deeper to assist Dia and it was Busio who was basically pushing up on that wing to press. Then Gerso and Russell switched sides and Espinoza started getting play down that wing. Since he was out against RSL the assumption has to be that he wasn't fit to play the whole game. It's possible he was the COVID positive and just wasn't ready to go the full game.
I'm all for it if it's consistent, that consistency stopped just 2 games later in the same day when Dallas scored in stoppage time to tie it, celebrated for about 2 minutes, and 10 seconds were added on over the original amount of stoppage time.
It would be an own goal in England (which requires a shot to be on frame), but under the revised FIFA rules, which MLS is operating under, any shot attempt which is remotely towards goal will be created to the striker even if deflected. Just found this out this morning.
They didn't give it to the shooter, though. They claimed Fierro got a touch on it after it bounced off Puncec, and I cannot see any evidence at all of contact. Maybe they could generously give it to, I think, Salinas? But even still, the truth of the play was that no San Jose put a shot anywhere near on target but for Puncec's touch. Doesn't really matter, I guess. Weird day to see Jaylin Lindsey looking like our most effective defender. Good signs of progress from him, at least!
Except that he didn't flash a yellow for time wasting, so he didn't think time was being wasted. And the melia time waste was mostly SJ players yelling at the ref about a phantom hand ball.
I was going by the announcers over here, and while i do believe they're really good at picking out what to focus on in the game, they are clueless about the inner workings of MLS. And they will never figure out that there is a C at the end of SK and it isn't just noting that it's city instead of united on a club name. They seem wedded to the fact that the team is Kansas, and the stadium being in Kansas is all the evidence they need not to double check
Fair, but that opportunity doesn't exist against most other opponents. Sporting will need to be a lot better in the run of play than they were against SJ. Not sure I saw the game the same way. Reality is, SJ had one tactic - keep Espinoza up and have him lead counters. They never event tried to attack through the middle or from the other side of the field. SKC let SJ play their preferred game and never made them switch to option 2. SJ looked comfortable all game (except when defending corners) and could have (maybe should have) won. Espinoza, who is not Lodeiro, Ruidiaz, or Vela, dominated the game for long stretches of time and SKC let him. I don't want to think about what the other Western Conference play makers will do to this defense.
He was our most effective defender only because he was on the side opposite of C. Espinoza. SJ had one game plan, and since SKC never tried to do anything that would require SJ to adjust, they kept going down the Espionza flank. Lindsey had the night off.
Espinoza is really good. It's just he's on a crappy team. I don't think there is a team in the league that he wouldn't walk onto a starting wing spot for.
this is the key that everyone who's talking about that doyle quote doesn't bother with. ok, melia took longer to take the kick. that happens all the time late in games when teams have a lead. if it's not egregious enough to even be warned by the ref, then the ref has no business adding on time for it.
And we'd all be super pumped about it, and then we'd end up matched against them in a game that went to a shoot out....