Rapids @ Burn, April 3rd - Pre/During/Post Discussion[R]

Re: Rapids v. Burn, Saturday April 3rd, 2004 [R]

Yoinked for official game thread duties.

Please put any PBP, discussion of results and/or smack talk in here.

 

Good luck this season from a Fire fan. Nice to see you turn it around near the end, before the injuries and suspensions...you really surprised the league.

 

I sure hope we see the opposite of last year. Except for dallas, I hope they keep up the good work.

Looking to see good things from Pedro, Powell and Mastroeni. I'm predicting Spenny lights them up with 2 and Pedro finishes with a 3rd. No reason not to be optimistic.

 

We may have been lucky to take the point. Yes we defended well enough and were unlucky to have had the handball pk, but I just don't know about Cannon...
He had hands of stone, there were several times that he punched the ball that I thought he should have caught it. His goal kicks were horrible, to quote something I once heard TeamUSA say at a game, "I know crack dealers with better distribution".
The new kids - Pedro looked OK, but he got rid of his trademark Orange Monstrosities for the second half. The jury is still out on Gary Sullivan aka Greg Brady.

 

what i thought sullivan was a big prensence in the back he wins every header and steps up in front of people. The midfield is terrible they cannot control the ball at all. We need pablo to come back and not in defense but into the midfield let borchers and sullivan play the back and most importantly get both de la torre and powell out they are just bloody awful. De la torre cannot defend at all and his man keep getting the crosses off that sullivan had to head out. Sullivan is a strong player, what about him playing outside when pablo comes back, de la torre is a publicity stunt being a mexican he couldnt defend anyone today and its been that way all preseason.

 

Not a bad effort. Not enough possession and flow to the game.

De La Torre was awful back there. Let's hope it was nerves, or Stewart will be back soon. He was flat out bad.

I thought Pegeuro looked pretty good. With Zizi back, we should be solid up front.

 

I'd echo the thoughts of capone on Cannon. His distribution is awful. De la Torre is very weak, or at least he was tonight. Chris' second yellow was a terrible play on his part (and I am his unofficial apologist), heck the first yellow was ugly and deserved. He had a poor game. That being said we picked up a point on the road. Pedro's speed is fun to see, and I liked Powell and Beckerman in the center. With Pablo back we could be decent.

That Dallas attack is woeful. If they convert any of five sitters they win.

 

What game were you watching? Cannon and Pedro would get my game balls.

Cannon was the only reason we didn't lose the game. His distribution may have been piss poor and he may have given up a rebound or two, but he only gave up one goal on a pk and had about 3 or 4 superhuman saves. If Scott Salt were keeper, Dallas would have got us by 3.

Pedro also had a stellar performance. He had a couple of pretty lousy touches and seemed to have problems around the touchlines, but he was dangerous 75% of the time he touched the ball. Save for the goal, I thought Spencer had a subpar (for him) game. Chung didn't seem to be dangerous. The defence held up but it seemed mighty shaky at times.

One good thing (besides a point) came out of this game. Henderson will absolutely not play next week. Henderson's game deteriorates so he turns himself into a thug. Nice choice on keeping Hendo instead of Carrieri, Hanki.

Dave Dir is a bonafide idiot.
Quotes not word for word, but as close as I can get.

"The defence has played good tonight, at least defensively."

"When you are a midlevel salary and you don't start every game and aren't consistent, you need to be cautious." - referring to Carrieri.

 

Tonio had a horrible game. The right side outright stunk.

 

I think it's a bit early to start taking potshots at guys, calling them thugs. I didn't see anything that shows me his game has deteriorated. He hustled and played hard.

I think the quote on Carrieri was spot on. I think Zizi is a better finisher, and Pegeuro is just as fast as Carrieri was. For the distraction he brought, the downside was too large. I wish him luck, but I'm not crushed to see him gone.

 

first of all henderson and chung should of been subbed..They both got tired. we have the bulk of our offense over 30 ......I wanted to see how differently the game might of been with new legs -crawford and kingsley. I would like to see 5 in the middle so that we can use the sides more. Even the announcer mentioned how it is open for the opponents to use it so effectively. This would of been the perfect game to start subbing them out....

 

Per discussion at the Celtic Tavern, the Rapids have not yet won a season opener. "With the draw, Colorado remains winless in season openers, amassing a 0-7-2 record all-time." MLSNet account of the match.

I enjoyed the gathering at the Celtic Tavern. I do wish that sometime we could meet somewhere that everyone could sit together. There has got to be some place that has a room where we could all sit and watch and cheer and groan.

I thought that Pedro showed great promise. If I didn't know better, I wouldn't guess that he was a player that had been with the team less than a month. I will reserve judgement on the defense until they add Pablo. At DU, he not only played very well, but was a very vocal leader of the defense. They didn't really have a leader tonight, and that showed with the runs that Dallas made right up the middle of the defense.

I thought that overall Cannon played very well, especially in the saving department. He did mis-strike a number of balls that came to him on the ground though. I don't know what to think about Henderson. He always runs hard and hustles throughout, but both of the fouls he committed were pretty outrageous. They were not attempts to get to the ball; they were outright body blows.

We had some very nice passing combinations, though most of those occurred in the last third of the field, and very few happened in the buildup.

Last of all, we were very lucky that Dallas does not finish well. They had a number of chances that they flat out blew.

At last, the season is upon us, and boy am I glad. Something to talk about besides cheerleaders.

 

Have a question: Where's Pablo?!?! No mention of him in the lineup or injured according to mlsnet.com-- this is unacceptable. He is on my fantasy team and got a big "0" with him. I have Zizi too, but IS listed as injured.

 

Too bad Hankison gaved away the best possible answer to that in waiving Carrieri.... Instead he continues to pay 300K for Powell and Zizi, neither which have deserved a dime.... And if this is the best we can do (5 total shots, with 2 on goal) against Dallas, then my prediction is that Hanki may want to start looking for a real estate agent, because he is about to be leaving town soon.....

 

If they keep Mr. Hanki much longer, I may have to boycot the rest of the season. Pathetic display last night... just pathetic. There were some bright moments but this is deja-vue Hanki.

 

At the Rapids gathering last night at the Celtic Tavern, the rep there from the Rapids said that Pablo's hip pointer was not bad. He could have played, but they were concerned that playing might make it worse, and bench him for more games later in the season. Under the table, Arena may have wanted him sitting so that Pablo would be ready for World Cup qualifiers in June. Who knows what is really true about ZiZi. The truth is that ZiZi and Powell make enough between themselves to pay for a whole middle to low income team, and how many total goals and assists do we have between them. Want to compare that output to that of Carrieri? I am hoping for better things from the team. I was excited about the potential between Spenny and Peguero, but apart from that, 5 shots to 20 is not a good ratio, especially considering we were playing a team that was soooo bad last season, playing with a new coach and a number of new players. Let's hope the home opener looks better!

 

Unfortunately, I missed most of the second half. If it was more of the same for the Rapids then I'd be disappointed. The team seemed to be barely holding it together, and were forced to react to Dallas the whole game.

I though Pedro looked great. Good speed, good knock down header, and a nice touch all around. He needs to pull the trigger faster. In my opinion, Zizi should be given lots of time to heal, and may be the next guy to go from the team.

Powell looked all right, but it's still debatable if he's worth it. One thing I was looking for was some interplay between him and Beckerman, and that was a big zero. You could put Mastro out there, and have the same result. I don't know if this is by design (Hankinson?), but there needs to be more interplay and movement between the two central mids. Time may take care of this issue.

I thought the defense did a creditable job, considering that they were starting a rookie in a key position. The Burn ran at us a lot, but that was more of a midfield issue then a defensive one. The guys on defense made the stops they needed to. If anything the bigger issue may have been not compressing the field enough to minimize the acres of space between our mids and the defense.

The Rapids turned the ball over a ton, playing too many aimless long balls. I think the talent on the team is better than we're seeing. The game approach hasn't changed from last year, and so we have the same problems. Too often the Rapids are stagnant with extremely poor movement off the ball. The balls out of the back have to be better, and the midfield has to hold possession.

 

IMO the rapids just need a new coach to to get the juices flowing for this team.. They just can't seem to get it together under his leadership.. I feel I am stuck in time warp from last season... The players we got for the players we let go is a negative, the strategy is the same old same old under hankinson, .........I could go on and on... He just needs to go..

 

I watched the game at Celtic. Had a great time. I think the draw was a good result. This is not last year's Burn. They are a much better side now.
Could have been a lot worse if Burn were able to finish some chances they had.

The lack of attendance at the Cotton Bowl is staggering!

My question is, who will replace Henderson against L.A.?

 

Put Mastroeni in and push Powell up into Henderson's role. We should be fine.