In fairness to Shanahan, Rod Smith retired before the season, the Broncos lost 7 running backs to injury during the season, and some guy named Champ Bailey was injured for 9 games. And full year or not, Smith's coached 41 games for us and has us at a truly stunning 15-14-12 record so far. At least Shanahan won us something before turning us mediocre, and at least with him there was always a chance we'd have a great run in the playoffs. With Smith at the helm, not once in the 40+ games have I thought this team was capable of anything great (individual players, sure. But the team as a whole? no). So why go through another 30 games of it? I think the parallels perfectly illustrate the differences in expectations, pressure and overall culture between the two organizations. Even down to the potential injured player excuses.
His last championship was last century. I never drank the Shanahan kool-aid as I didn't move to Colorado until 1998. Since '99 I watched him flail around oblivious to the concept of defense and obsessed with finding John Elway II. Yet he was allowed to fail year in and year out. Comparing his failing 9 straight years,9 years of drafts and trades, rebuilding, retooling with Smiths 1 year is simply not fair. I think GS deserves a lot of criticism but he also deserves a second year. Yes, Bowlen accepted failure from a coach for 9 years before waking up. Enough of the Bronco's, at least from me
Rapids quotes: http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20091025&content_id=7542926&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp (Somebody needs to tell him we're still alive) (It took you until tonight to figure that out?)
When the inevitable forum tagline discussion begins, if we back into the playoffs, I nominate something about how we excel at backing into the playoffs. If not, I nominate something about three-legged rabbits, because that is just a bizarre thing to say!
How is New England losing in Columbus a miracle? Would you bet against Columbus in that game? While the Rapids stunk last night there has been no reason to have expected DC to win in Kansas City, no reason to expect TFC would suddenly produce something approaching road form, no reason to expect that Dallas would waltz through Seattle... and there's really no reason to expect New England to win today. If money were at stake in any of last night's games I'd think the results went as expected. There's a lot to be disturbed about the team at the moment. This strikes me as trying to find a dark patch on a stormy night. Can't change it now in any case. I don't think anyone will disagree with Smith's sentiment. Clavijo came to a similar conclusion year after year. My complaint about him was that I never agreed with him on who he thought wasn't good enough - except for 2005 his initial assessment was right on, IMO. The big test for Smith, to me, will be seeing who gets moved in the off season. And, yeah I know he's already made moves. I've been alright with them too.
It's a miracle as part of the sequence of games in which the Rapids would have somehow failed to win a single game for 7 weeks, with 4 other teams within a point of them on the final day, and still managed to back into the playoffs on a tie-breaker. If I had told you 7 weeks ago that this was how the cards would fall, you never would have believed it. And absolutely. Let's see, Columbus has already clinched the #1 seed in the east, and the Supporter's Shield; they're coming off a mid-week game in the Champions' League; and the game has absolutely no meaning to them in terms of standings, only in terms of which #8 they play in the playoffs (RSL or Colorado). The ONLY motivation they have to win that game is so they can play an absolutely atrocious Rapids team. So yeah, I have plenty of reason to bet against them. ...except for the fact that DC had the playoffs on the line and KC, again, had nothing to play for; and the fact that DC is a better team that KC is ...except for the fact that NY was 4-6-4 at home before last night, 2-2-1 under Richie Williams, and easily the worst team in MLS this year Other than momentum, but yeah, I didn't see this one happening at all either. I don't expect them to win, I expect them to find a way to tie Columbus's reserves, which would be enough to get them in. See, New England has this thing called a good coach, something the Rapids have never experienced. And even though they have been hit by injuries just about as hard as we have, he's creative and skilled enough to find ways to put an utterly atrocious lineup into positions to win (Shalrie Joseph at forward, anyone?).
And you're helping make my point for me. For the Broncos, failure was not winning the Super Bowl. They made the playoffs 5 times in the years following Elway and no one was satisfied with that. For the Rapids, failure is not making the playoffs. Hell, when we made the playoffs in '05 with another mediocre team and managed to win a game in the shootout, everyone was ready to hand Clavijo an extension because it exceeded everyone's expectations, fans and front office. And there's never been any pressure on the Rapids to change that expectation.
KC had nothing to play for, DC had everything. Seattle had nothing to play for, FCD had everything The Red Bulls had nothing to play for, TFC had everything (Red Bulls as woeful as they are, are still better at home than TFC has been on the road). I'm not seeing this as a very strong argument for why Columbus will roll over for New England. Seems to me New England winning would be a miracle for them. Nicol may be a good coach, but he's also the coach of a team with 39 points that's struggled down the stretch, has been hurt by injuries (but you can't use that excuse), and needs to win on the road on the final day of the season. Sounds oddly familiar. There's no arguing that the Rapids form hasn't been awful. It's just that these other teams haven't been particularly good either, the exception being Dallas who had to dig out of a very, very deep hole.
I've been thinking about this statement. 19 of the 25 players on the roster were either acquired by Smith or given contract extensions after Smith was given the job. I'm assuming Smith had some say in those extensions. Out of the 13 players that played in last night's game, 9 of them were acquired or given contract extensions. The other 4 Ballouchy, Burpo, Casey, and Gibbs. (Also O'Brien and Dalby, who didn't play last night) I'm sure he's not talking about Casey and he chose to start Burpo over Pickens for the last couple of games. So is he calling out Gibbs and Ballouchy? Either that or he's saying his judgment at evaluating players sucks.
I don't know who he's calling out. I'm certain he's not questioning his own judgement as far as evaluating players. People just don't work like that. I can't read to deeply into it. What's interesting to me is that we were in the same position last year with regards to Burpo - he covered a few games and did well enough to not make a knee jerk change. This does seem like something that a finger can be put on. Smith's shown a tendency to wait until failure to pull the trigger. Play well and another start will come. At least in the goalie position, I'm not sure that's the best approach. Assuming, Pickens is 100%.
Sorry if this was already answered but who was captain last night? After it was mentioned in this thread I noticed that Pablo was not wearing an arm band but I could not pick anyone else out with it either. Did GS have it on under his GS track jacket? A separate comment in that same vein would relate to him thoroughly mucking things up and then blaming the players in his post match comments. I don't think much of him but I had thought he was above that -- apparently not when the pressure (as if) is on.
No one mentioned the stat that since 2006 the rapids were like 0-42-10 when giving up the first goal this roster lacks leadership and character
In a sport where teams often don't score and when they do, usually don't score more than a goal or two, what is the significance of talking about a team's record when scoring the first goal or when not?
One goal can and often does win a game. The fact that so few goals are scored makes when they are scored much more significant. Basketball would be a great example of a sport where who scores first is insignificant The fewer goals/points scored makes each one more significant. By extension, when they are scored becomes more significant.
I think that statistic is relevant and perhaps indicts the coaching? Good teams can win when they score first and have momentum, great teams can win even after they go down a goal by making good tactical adjustments (screams out coaching doesn't it).
Because teams that can't come back to win - and teams that can't win on the road - have a character flaw. You all want to look at coaching - which is fine. I say the primary issue with this team currently is it's leadership.
That's not particularly shocking though, given our youth. Our current players that were older than 25 coming into the season: Ballouchy - Um, yeah. Not looking for leadership there Burpo - Clearly had no ability to lead his back line, much less the team Casey - I would want to see more, but considering he can't even stop himself from getting stupid cards... Cummings - An odd case considering his late start to his college career. He's older than a player with his experience would normally be Gibbs - One of his many failings was his lack of leadership Mastroeni - Obviously should be the leader of this team, felt he did less of that than he has in past years Palguta - I didn't realize he was this old, but again with little MLS experience to draw leadership from Pickens - Yes, more leadership would be good So Casey, Pablo, and Pickens were the players I would expect to be leaders on this team (well and Gibbs but, you know). As the season went on we added some older players: Baudet - I think you saw some defensive leadership from him, but of course he was only here half a season Diz - Hard to lead when you only play 97 minutes in a season Noonan - See Diz, hard to lead as a sub Smith - See Diz Baudet is the obvious choice here, and was the most noticeable IMO. Next season I think the likes of Cummings and Smith could step up to add leadership, but its a part of Casey' and Pablo's game that they need to work on.
Interesting differentiation between coaching and leadership. One might think the two are more related. Can you give me some examples of what a better leader would do to improve winning on the road and coming back to win. That's an honest question.
Leadership may be a problem, but I say the primary issue with this team currently (aside for Retard #2) is the lack of depth and talent in key positions. We spent far too much of 2009 trying to compensate for missing players with the vastly inferior talent that fills the rest of our roster. First it was the lack of good center backs (which persisted throughout the year), then it was the forwards when Connor and Omar where playing for their countries, and finally it was the lack of wingers after Clark, Smith, and Peterson became casualties to injury. We were a pretty good team when we had all the pieces, but when a position needed to be filled...no one on our bench could step up and get things done. Thats what is known as "deadwood".
I kind of see a leadership issue as well. It might include coaching, but it's been the same through all recent coaches. Not all of these guys always win, but even when losing I'm usually impressed by the effort they put in and how they're willing to take on additional responsibility and exude a "whatever it takes" attitude... Some of them are deservedly hated, but that's part of the game. Ben Olsen, Shalrie Joseph, Jimmy Conrad, Dwayne DeRosario, Jesse Marsch, Cuahtemoc Blanco, Frankie Hejduk, Jason Hernandez (Cunningham got the glory he did a lot of the work), Kyle Beckerman.... I don't think the Rapids have that player. Or, if they do, he's deferring to someone else, in which case he's not that player. We have guys who can be mean, can yell at the ref, but can't step up to score, or step back and be a force in the box.
wasn't there a stat said on the last broadcast that the rapids were 0-44-12 when not scoring first? Does anyone else remember something like that? I could be off since I was hopped up on sudafed... But Rachael and I both scoffed, looked at each other and said "oh sh^t!" together.