Wilson, Trusty, and Esteves combined to not defend either of the 2 Seattle players in the goal mouth and Roldan makes us pay.
Not to mention Acosta gets beaten on the outside allowing that ball to get across. Unfortunate defending all around
Also, would like to say that…. WE LOOKED BETTER IN THE 4-3-3 with a midfielder inverted into a left back (and then a right back), Shinyashiki in the midfield, and Badji as our starting center forward than ANY time we played in that hybrid back 3/5.
Disappointing. Seattle got exactly the result they were playing for. It was obvious. 4-3-3 caught them off guard out of the gate, so kudos to Fraser for the pivot. As I said before, plenty of dangerous service into the box, but continually found no one close on the receiving end. Acosta or Price were MOTM for me. Offense flowed through them the entire night. I prefer Acosta further up the field, but the ball continued to find his feet all night. Late goals after going up at continues to undo us. It’s become an ugly habit.
Good news is that Vancouver stormed back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to beat Portland 3-2. That means even a draw on Saturday makes it very hard for Portland to pass us (they'd be 6 back with 3 to play, though the tiebreaker would be in their favor). A win means we all but wrap up a top 3 finish.
So uh, why wasn’t this reviewed further? @PROreferees another stellar performance! Congratulations pic.twitter.com/DPAnR8LzEg— Andre Shinyashiki (@AShinyashiki9) October 21, 2021 That alone is worth a second look? Based on that angle, looks to be clearly offsides and it should be a 1-0 score line for the good guys
First, to be clear, VAR did look at this. They just didn’t send it down for the CR to look at. Presumably they didn’t see it as offside. (Side note, MLS is one of the few leagues where offside decisions are sent down to the CR for them to look at. Most leagues the CR just goes with what the VAR says since it’s not a subjective call) Secondly I agree that this frame looks offside, but I’ll need to look at the replay again to see if this is the most accurate frame for the call, and if there are other angles (and the VAR has angles the broadcast doesn’t).
That’s what I’m getting at though. I don’t believe VAR *truly* looked in depth at it. I rewatched the broadcast, and unfortunately they don’t have an angle in the broadcast or the match highlights that shows both Leo Chu and the ball being kicked. This is the only angle I’ve seen that has both - and it’s as clear as day as offsides or at least worth more of a look than a 5 second glance! And this is where I come up with the idea that VAR couldn’t have taken much of a serious look… if that angle is available to them, it would have taken at least some time to review. The goal was scored at exactly 80:30. The call came down to the center ref at 81:29 that the goal stands. That means VAR got all their crap in a pile, looked at all the angles - including the one screenshot by Rubio - and said no questions asked it’s a goal in less than one minute. That means that VAR checked everything in that play - no offsides, no fouls in all of those collisions in the box, etc, - and called down to the center ref to both hold up the restart and then later to allow the game to continue… in less than a minute? Cmon. Should the rapids have defended that play better? Heck yeah. But I don’t know how anyone can say VAR actually did a thorough check on all of that in LESS than 60 seconds.
Except that is exactly how VAR is supposed to work. Quick reviews and keep play moving. There are 2 VAR's in the booth. Generally the AVAR is assigned to check offside while the VAR is looking at anything else and/or watching live play. There was no live play after the goal so he would have been looking for fouls, but he's only going to be looking for "clear and obvious" missed fouls and there were clearly none of those. As to this "obviously" being offside, I disagree. The way Lalas (I think) is leaning over is causing his backside to thrust backwards which would appear to be the offside line. It does look like the attacker's shoulder is beyond that, but that's where the angle of view comes into play. If we were to move the view to directly down that line I'm not sure it would be as obvious that he's offside. And that assumes this screenshot is the right instance to grab. With VAR the rules are to look at the moment the passer makes contact with the ball, not the moment it appears to leave their foot. Its only a few frames difference but it could make a big difference. Again, I'd agree this appears to be offside from the info we have. But its a huge leap to go from that to "VAR didn't do a through check and got this wrong". Without more info/angles I just can't get there.
Just did a hack job drawing lines and I'd say, based on this one image, that the attacker's head and half his torso were offside. Even if I didn't account for the parallax completely correctly it would be hard to be off by enough to put him fully offside. But if this image is a few frames late then I could see how he could be onside.
I hate to be that guy, but Lalas didn't play last night I know what you mean though with the defenders hips... That was Acosta who was dragged out to play right back - and unfortunately he didn't keep the offsides trap as even as Wilson and Trusty did. This of course speaks to him not exactly being a right back....and why the Rapids had Moor and Beitashour ready to come in to preserve the lead. Unfortunately, because of the offsides trap set nicely by Wilson and Trusty, Acosta is caught flat footed and is forced to (in his mind) cover the run of both Montero and Chu. He actually initially had his hips turned towards Montero in the play, which is why Chu has so much space. Acosta did an OK job of closing down that space at first, however, he hesitates on the initial tackle because Chu opens up like he's going to cross the ball. However, Chu then takes another step and Acosta is 5 yards away giving Chu a perfect passing lane to a near post run. The worst bit of defending here (and in my opinion, what truly caused the goal) is Wilson's tactical awareness / covering run at this point in play: If you look at this timestamp, Seattle has 4 guys pouring at the heart of our backline, and a 5th overlapping on the far side (Alex Roldan). Wilson had Montero inside of him (relative to where the ball was) when the long ball is hit to Chu. Kaye has stepped to cover Rowe, and Barrios is coming back to keep Nouhou honest. Trusty has Christian Roldan marked, Price is cutting down the angle of Bruins run, and Esteves has eyes on Bruin, but also has Alex Roldan overlapping behind him. Wilson recognizes that Acosta is behind the play a step so he full out sprints to help cover Chu and prevent a shooting angle. When he does this, Wilson leaves Montero and it completely opens up our defensive shape. This means Trusty now has to cover two guys inside of him - Montero and Roldan. And now Price has a 20-30 yard gap between himself and covering Trusty, so he has to completely leave Bruin to run free. Montero recognizes that space and slows his run down to keep acres of space in front of him and hold Trusty behind him. Christian Roldan recognizes that space, slows down to also keep Trusty behind the play. Once Trusty hesitates because he's covering two slowed runs of Montero and Roldan, Christian then full sprints behind the shoulder of Trusty and is now inside of Esteves' cover - but then curves his run again and finds himself inside of Trusty as well - because Trusty was asked to cover two guys. Esteves would normally try to cover Christian, but he's got to watch Bruin as well - because Price has to now cut inside to support Trusty. Bruin stays deep, but angles towards Esteves which forces Esteves to hesitate before charging at Christian Roldan. After Wilson closed down the space with Acosta (who's now shoulder to shoulder with Chu) Wilson raises his arm up to "pass off" his man - but there's no one to pass him off to. And this is where the defense broke down....Esteves was on the far side of the play watching Bruin and Alex Roldan, and now had to sprint to try and get to where Christian Roldan ran outside of Trusty's shoulder, Price is 30 yards away, and Trusty is trying to cover two guys. But because Christian curved his run perfectly, there's no way Esteves can catch him and get inside of his run. Trusty can't cut him off because he's trying to cover as much space as Wilson left open, AND stay semi close to Montero. Right there is where Wilson essentially took himself completely out of the play with his run and then "passing off" his man. His only viable options there were to either stay in the double team on Chu to force Chu to take it towards the corner because there's two guys cutting down any passing lane, or hustle back to the space he left and cover Montero. He did neither and ultimately stayed in no-mans land covering basically none of Seattle's overlapping runs. Its a complete breakdown because Roldan and Montero put themselves inside of Trusty and Esteves, and Wilson - who should've been in a position to cut that pass off - wasn't there. He planted himself and essentially covered the same angle as Acosta. There was no one to cover a ball across the 6 and Wilson has stopped his forward momentum to get there. And that my friends - is a perfect example of how you create an overflow breakdown of a defense. The defender leaves space, the attackers curve their runs to keep that space occupied. Only 3 guys were actually involved in the attack in the box (tactically beating our 5 guys and 'keeper) - leaving Bruin to be all alone at the top for any rebounds - and then Seattle has plenty of guys behind the ball to cover any counter attacks. It was a well worked goal - that should've been called back for offsides
Good analysis. Watching Wilson on this play is really frustrating. He's active without actually doing anything and then he's in the right general spot to end the threat...and doesn't. My bad on Lalas, should have remembered he didn't play.
The tie was a fair result, I think. They should have had al least one more in the first half, and we should have had at least one more in the second. I still can't figure out how Kaye did not score on his chance in the box! I thought the Acosta experiment was unsuccessful, and I lost count of how many times Shinyashiki gave the ball away in the midfield. I want to make a serious proposal to the FO but don't know how I might do it. I think we need a new yearly award: The Drew Moor Iron Man Award. It would be given to the individual who plays the most minutes during the season. This year, Drew can give the initial award personally to Keegan Rosenberry. He has been ever present, dependable, and a consummate professional all season long. I hope his injury last night is not serious.
Danny Wilson was just named to the mid-week MLS Team of the Week, because of course he was... https://www.coloradorapids.com/news...ny-wilson-named-to-mls-team-of-the-week-bench
Waited to post about the game. To be honest, the game could've gone either way and there wasn't much of a gap between the teams. This is funny because I believe the salary information shows that Seattle have the highest payroll and the Rapids have the lowest. I LOVED that Benezet got a lot of abuse and didn't do squat, which is how he always performs in Colorado. We now have a new heel in the league to replace Sideshow Bob and Beckerman.
I watched TV match this afternoon and a draw was a fair result, I think. The international breaks have killed us. It started during the gold cup. We just haven’t sustained a very good level of play. We’ve become draw specialists. Not poor enough to lose but not good enough to win. Teams limp into the playoffs but I have this icky feeling we’re not going to have a high level of play to really do any damage. I hate that feeling as I love the potential of this team.
Watching in person, Seattle was following Toronto's script in playing the Rapids at DSGP. Get numbers behind the ball and wait for a turnover or a mistake. Unlike Toronto, Seattle has some players that can do a lot of damage on the attack. The first half was a slow moving chess match with both side probing and occasionally appearing to be dangerous, but not able to really get a high quality chance. Obviously, Badji's goal opened the match up a bit. But the Rapids weren't able to get a second goal. I too like the 4-3-3, but not with Acosta as an outside back. Not that he's awful in that role, but it limits his ability to impact the match.
Agree. There is just something missing in terms of cohesion and confidence. It doesn't help that the Rapids have to deal with fixture congestion this month.