Ralston v Mathis and Howard?

The Metros have the same disease we had in May.

I think you have to look at this as Pierce and Ralston vs. Mathis and Howard, which gets to be more of a wash. Obviously, I don't mean this in the sense of their importance to the national team, but rather their importance to their own teams.

Even without Mathis and Howard, the Metros have the players to beat anyone. If I were a Metro fan, what would scare me is the lack of team cohesion and intensity at a time of year when everything is on the line. Check out the Metro boards - those people are worried.

 

Actually, I'm more concerned about the loss of Ralston, especially how that may impact the effectiveness of Twellman, our only consistent/regular goal-scorer.

In losing Howard they certainly lose the leadership and an excellent goalkeeper, probably their MVP for 2002, but the team has shown it can play without Mathis this season, and Metro remains a very dangerous team with Williams, Diallo, and Faria in the line-up.

Remember that Faria and Diallo are their leading goal-scorers, Faria having scored against us in our first match of the season, Big Mama getting two in their 4-3 win later in the season.

I think the good news for the Revs... let me rephrase that, potential good news could be the return of Llamosa if healthy enough.

If that's the case then we could play the following line-up:

GK: Brown
RB: Cullen (he played wide right down in Miami)
CB: Llamosa
CB: Kante
LB: Franchino
RM: Heaps
DM: Hernandez
CM: Kamler
LM: Griffiths
FW: Twellman
FW: Harris

But make no mistake, we're gonna miss Ralston, and if we can't find another way to effectively get the ball forward then we're in bad shape. That being said, I think Kamler and Hernandez can really contribute in this match.

The Magpie

 

Mathis isn't a big loss for the Metros, but I've now seen Tim-may! Howard in person three times this season, and on tv several more, and I think he's the Metros' mvp. Not only is he very, very good, but the rest of the team knows it, and relies on him. They seem to have lost all faith in one another of late, and Howard was the one guy that everyone could count on. Without faith in their keeper, they're in danger of falling completely apart.

Still, them's the breaks - you make the playoffs based on your season-long performance, and getting suspended for bone-headed red-cards is just part of the season. Every team has to deal with suspensions, and, as suspensions go, Howard's is a fair one - but that's a topic on many other threads, so I'll leave it at that.

 

The combination play between Ralston, Twellman, Harris, Heaps and Hernandez has been evolving to the point where Ralston has missed two free headers about ten yards in front of goal from crosses put in by TWELLMAN! In other words the quality of interchange by the Revs front players has just been getting better and better over the last month. We will miss Ralston like crazy, in my mind he is the most complete player in MLS. At the same time we now have an offensive pattern or fabric that was a two person show for the first four months of the season. The others will have to step up but I think that they can, given that they are running on pure adrenaline at the moment.

However, beware the ex-Rev factor, esp. Williams.

JIM DOW

 

Re: Re: The Metros have the same disease we had in May.

I know that they won in Dallas without him, but I think Pierce was a big part of the resurgence in the last month.