Without Dudar or Jakovic what did we expect? Every single goal came from the middle and 3 of those goals would have been easily disrupted by them. What happened that is positive? 1. Andy Najar showed up and he wants to play. 2. DeRo is scoring. 3. Salihi is scoring. In the end 4-5 points is all we really "needed" from this roadtrip in the grand scheme of things. We have the potential to get 6 still, so not a big deal.
I don't think you automatically lose; but I think your chances of a draw or a loss went up significantly as soon as that starting lineup was decided upon. Najar put in a great cross for Woolard's goal. He was also a massive, massive turnover machine who kept acting like he needed to win the match single-handedly, then booting the ball into row Z. Salihi depends on service. We knew that before he came here, we saw that in Charleston, we've seen that in his lack of scoring so far, and we saw it tonight. If we can hold possession in the midfield and someone can give him balls just when he gets in dangerous places, he can probably do well for us; but if we don't have that going on, he won't. Which brings us to . . . Have you watched TFC play in their last few matches? I have, and I think they're playing a lot better than you think. You're right, the back 5 would be the same regardless. But on Saturday, we'll need both DeRo and Pontius to be at their best. Or we'll need Boskovic to play like he did against New England's reserves for one half. Chances of that?
I suppose the cliche is that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. San Jose obliterated DC on second chance opportunities and were ruthless in finishing them. Having said that, I think the scoreline flattered SJ and but for a great save by Busch and a couple of other balls that didn't fall just the right way, the game was dead even. To me the Cruz OG was the killer because Willis had the ball covered. After that, the game became a track meet with DC trying to get back into the game.
Soccer is a confidence game. When we put Salihi on the field in a losing match I was kind of pissed off. Why take a guy who already is down on himself due to not scoring and place him in this situation? Then, despite being down, he comes out with a clean goal. This might be the start of something good for him. He started the year off missing on 3 sweet opportunities that were simply great saves. I feel like Santos's streak is a bit of an anomaly, considering he shoots so much and doesn't even get on frame. We're going to need goals from elsewhere, especially on nights like tonight where he is basically absent.
Salihi's goal was really nice, great ball from DeRo but Salihi took the perfect angle to meet the ball, really classy. The Woolard header was a beauty. Those are my positives. Not disappointed in the result, but seeing DeRo, Pontius, DeLeon and Santos dripping sweat and sucking wind at the end is disappointing because it was unnecessary. Oh well, TFC may be cursed, in which case it won't matter what United does. I don't remember Chavez being that good. Too, too fast, there was no hope stopping him tonight.
Chavez was fast but he is easily exploitable.. if his forward momentum fails, he stops, turns, looks behind himself for a pass outlet and if he doesn't find it then he just stands there kinda looking forward, then backward until he loses possession. DeLeon took advantage of that a few times.
Just a few random thoughts: I was hoping that the pre-game line-ups I saw were mis-labeled. Kitchen has no business playing as a center back in MLS. If you must play him in defense, put him out wide where his quickness has some use, plus I think he is a better defender than Korb. I know the team is depleted in central defense, but come on Ben, you should have known better! Saragosa didn't do much the whole match. Add to that, the whole team appeared to be 1/2 to a whole step slow, they kept losing all the 50/50 balls that were out there for the taking. Chavez was a handful-and-a-half. He plumb wore Woolard out, trying to defend him, but Woolard did a decent job. I was surprised that it was Woolard with the second goal. I thought that Santos had snuck in there. Najar looked like he was ready to play, and I would put him back in the next game at RB and let Kitchen stay at DMid. I'm glad that Salihi opened his account with DC. I also hope there are a lot more goals where that came from. Everybody has to believe in something. I believe that I'm going to bed, right now. Good night.
Fair enough Bootsy, maybe we sacrificed a little in Toronto to play this match in SJ. Hopefully we get away with it. But look at the attitude this team is developing. The mentality now is to give 100% all the time no matter what. We saw that the way DC was pushing forward even at the end of the game. How can you instill that mentality and basically concede a game to SJ because they're a tough opponent, on the road, on a short week, rotation matters, blah blah blah, etc ... etc ... We went to SJ and our front 5 or 6 imposed their game on SJ and played attractive dynamic soccer. I wouldn't worry about Najar's turnovers. At that point DC was playing high risk/high reward soccer ... it's bound to happen. The bottom line is that this team is deep in the front 5/6 and no real injuries in that area at this point. I see no reason to hold players back to save stamina (except maybe De Ro who is kind of irreplaceable). You play the hot hand until they're tired and then you go to the bench and rotate accordingly. Obviously you don't run them into the ground, but they looked pretty fresh to me tonight.
A bad matchup for us without Dudar or Jakovic. Woolard has been much better than expected this year but Chavez clearly gave him trouble. Then at forward you have the physical Lenhart and the crafty Wondo - the worst possible combination for our depleted back line. McDonald and whomever we stick next to him can handle speedy forwards or even skillful forwards with some success but this combo was a nightmare for us. That being said, I thought we already knew that Kitchen couldn't play center defense. Being the road team we would have benefited from a stricter referee. A few more stoppages and a few more fouls on Lenhart would have really helped. Then you throw in the bounce off Cruz on the third goal and the bounce off Lenhart for the fifth goal and it clearly wasn't going to be our night. Still, DeRo looking more like he did last year and signs of life from Salihi. If SJ really is as good as their record currently indicates then I'd have to say that DC, with our starting defense back, is a solid playoff team. I'm worried about TFC just because all streaks have to end, but it's too early in the season to be worrying about resting players. We rested players against Montreal and lost two points we should have had.
I agree they shouldn't have rested players against Montreal because that was a home game. But on the road, some are prone to resting starters in a midweek game. Tonight, for instance, Arena sat Beckham, Keane, Buddle and Magee (going with Cristman-Barrett pairing, yuck) and took his medicine against Seattle. A division opponent, no less. "I think it's a difficult week with the travel and playing on this surface. We wanted to keep some players fresh for the game on Saturday. That's the decision I made," Arena said. "We didn't think we were going to be able to play 11 players in three games and we had to rotate some players. It made sense to me to have those players available on Saturday."It might be worthwhile to see how LA performs against NY on Saturday versus how DC does against TFC. Also, only teams that have a comfortable cushion in playoff position towards the end of the season can afford to rest players then. It's more likely, in my opinion, that United will have to get results from those games and having a team that isn't run down at the wrong time of year will be critical.
The real key for dc this year is defense. That was a pathetic display by the back 5. It again shows me just how limited a player McDonald is. Also kitchen is NOT a center back. Until we dudar/jakovic back this team will struggle like the red bulls of last year.
I'm taking the fact that we got three goals, right up to the last few minutes of the match, as a positive. I suspect against Toronto we'll see De Ro/Pontius/Santos start, but get a swap at the half for Bosko/Salihi. Who knows, De Ro may well decide he's good to go for the match, and Pontius as well. If we hammer at Toronto early and often, which looks to be the mindset Benny's going for with this team, I think getting 3-6 points out of this trip is doable. Not easy, but doable.
Yeah, I think it's time to stop messing with Kitchen and let him play one position now. That position has to be DM. He had a really strong second half last night, as opposed to a nightmare first half where he looked oh so confused. You have Korb on the bench there, use him. Kitchen should play in the back only in an absolute emergency situation. United is close to that, but Russell, McD and Korb will do until guys get healthy. Why does McDonald, for all the good things he does, continue to mark open space as opposed to actual live players? When will this stop happening? Will it stop happening?
Definitely doable. It appears United can score against anyone so I doubt TFC will be the team to stem the tide. If United can score first and get that taste, they could run away with it. TFC doesn't need much of an excuse to implode.
I think that's a fair statement -- and maybe you're right that concentrating on TFC on Saturday would have had worse consequences tonight beyond simply losing the match. I don't know. I just know that if we come home from this road trip with less than four points, it will seem like a failed opportunity to me. They didn't to me at the end. I knew Kitchen couldn't play central defense; but I didn't think it would be that bad. But what was more shocking, to me, was how bad McDonald was, because he *is* a central defender. It's almost like he's Zelig: he absorbs the quality of play of the person he's playing next to. Pair him with Dudar and he plays well too; pair him with Kitchen and he plays poorly too. Blah. But that's backwards from what's going on here. There, we rested players because Montreal was a bottom-of-the-table team and we thought we could get away with it. Here, people were/are suggesting resting players in order to *concentrate* on the points that were more likely to be ours (and hopefully still are, but I'm not so sure).
I looked at SJ's record this season, and this is the first time any team has scored more than 2 goals against them. Our offense is still clicking and our defense, as patched together as it is, would likely have been good enough against anyone other than one of the top teams in the league. Giving up 5 goals is going to leave a mark, but I'm pretty confident that Toronto doesn't have the same amount of firepower. Yeah, right now our defense is shaky, but our offense should be enough to get us past a team like Toronto. I'm generally a glass half empty type of guy, but there is a silver lining in this particular cloud: we have a team that's scored 10 goals in the past 3 games. And hopefully Salihi got the monkey off his back with that goal. His timing on that run and the perfect chip shot he took really impressed me.
I think this is because <maybe you were alluding to this> (and the pattern appears to be proving it) he plays with is own physical abilities, and relies of the brains of the guy next to him. That sounds harsh, but I think this is more common than we realize, particularly in MLS.
Well this was like everything that could go wrong going wrong... Macon Santos showed us the lazy and selfish version...just whacking shots rather than putting in the work. Forwards completely lost touch with the back line and the team got totally stretched out. Cruz had a horror show. Did Willis touch any shots on frame? I hope people realize how good Kitchen is in the middle now. And I'm even more sure that by the end of the season Hamid, Najar, and Salihi will be starters. But this was always going to be as tough a game as we'll see all season. Glad Salihi broke his duck, Najar came on and made an impact for the 2nd game in a row. Learning experience.
It was the best possible loss we could have hoped for. I told myself, when I saw Dudar limping off at the half vs. Houston, that that was the end of our streak and I'm not surprised that was correct. Our defense is a patchwork line and sloppy. SJ knew this and they punished us for it, as a good team should have. They played incredibly well. But so did we. Against DCU 2011, that game would have been over by minute 60 - if not sooner. Last night it wasn't over until the last whistle blew. I'm encouraged to see such a dangerous attack continue to be dangerous even when going up against the best team in the west in their house where they have yet to be beaten once. It's true that the SJ defense has had some changes lately too, and I know they had some people out with injuries, but it surely didn't show. Obviously we are lacking there, and it's a shame because we have depth everywhere else. I was really impressed seeing SJ's outside backs get forward, and I love seeing a bit more of that from DCU also. Woolard had a good game, even if Chavez was a thorn in his side, and in general is on a great run. Najar looked sharp at right back, but his defensive play is still a bit shaky. DeRo has found his groove and it's a damn shame Busch managed the save on that bicycle kick. And Salihi finally broke the seal. This is valuable. If we had to lose - we still managed to get a lot of positive takeaways from the match. Saragosa was a ghost on the field though. And I do feel like Willis could have saved maybe 1-2 of those shots - they would have had to be incredible saves, but he is capable and it's a shame to see him let 5 go past. I think we'll see Hamid rotated in again real soon, maybe even on Saturday against TFC. For Toronto, I want to see DeRo and Santos rest. Put Salihi up top with Pontius, give Bosko another run in AM to see if he can find Salihi, and hopefully against a shoddy defense we'll see Salihi break out and really get things moving. At any rate, I don't mind a loss right now at all. It's a long season. I'd sooner us lose now to one of the best teams out there and have something challenge our swagger while we still have time to rebuild and regroup than have it happening frequently at the end of the season when we are scrambling for points. I'd like to see us finish out the road trip with 4 points, but I'll be okay with 3. Best of all though, I think we are finally getting to see what "Ben Olsen's Team" looks like.
Agree with most O'Malley's post. I would add that SJ's back line has been with SJ for a least two plus years. Maybe not as starters but at least on the roster. The attack is giving DC's backline time to get organized. Who knows when injured players will return and how they will do when they return. I would encourage DC FO to look at Burling as a pairing with BMac.
While I am inclined to agree with you, SJE were never going to bunker for 90 minutes and hope to score on a quick counter. After going 0/7, Toronto might be more inclined to, especially since they know DC will be trying to compensate for defensive fragility with offensive prowess. At this point, TFC has to be viewing a 0-0 draw as a move in the right direction.
What worries me is that this squad's strengths are also their weaknesses--the willingness to attack and move quickly sometimes works quite well (there's no doubt this team is more fun to watch and easier to pull for than the past few seasons) but it also serves not just to make up for defensive fraility but also, IMHO, to paper over shortcomings in attack/possession.
We were playing the hottest team in the league, so I think that Olsen felt obliged to trot out the guys who were part of our unbeaten streak. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if Olsen were to insert Hamid, Najar & Salihi into the starting lineup at Toronto in place of Willis, Cruz & Pontius. I think that Willis & Cruz have played themselves out of starting jobs while Pontius, who is coming back from a serious injury, might be due a rest. Unless the decision has already been made about Boskovic (and his lack of playing time indicates that a decision may well have already been made), I see him as a potential first sub off the bench in Toronto.
Yeah, I think I agree with all of this. If Bosko is the first sub (and dammit, he should be), put him in for DeLeon. I don't want to burn the kid out or turn him into a head-down-take-em-all-on type player from overwork.