Finally, some real news. From FDA at the Globe: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/084/sports/Games_in_peril_of_being_too_dangerous+.shtml JMM had an MRI on his ankle, and that both he and Llamosa were expected back for game 2. Also, Revs will be trying out 22yo midfielder Johannes Ngodzo of Zimbabwe on recommendation of Nicol's former Liverpool teammate Bruce Grobelaar, when they return to NE. FDA takes the Revs to task, rightly so IMO, for not even being smart enough to keep the score down, effectively eliminating virtually all hope before game 2 even starts.
Glad to hear we will have JMM and Carlos back for the second game. I hope both are near to full speed for the game. The experience and leadership both bring should help ensure we don't 'fold' under the pressure, which it seems we may have done at the end in game 1. We'll see what the impact is of JMM and CL are...
Frank's a little weird sometimes. What's up with: the French title and the English acronym? If he was impressing us with his worldy erudition, it backfired a little, at least for me. I mean, pour moi. But I was pleased to see the dearth of agent quotes. Perhaps we're making progress!
"Joe Franchino and Rusty Pierce were the top-rated Revolution players by the San Jose daily La Nacion." Oh really? We lost 4-0 and our fullbacks were the teams top rated players. Maybe we should play a South American Under 10 team, because we can't beat any post pubescent teams!
I think the 4-0 score is misleading since two goals were from the spot. The way the refing goes in CR for visitors is always problematic for the visitors. There also was a good Rev goal that was called back by a bad ref call. Lets not make too much out of the score.
Well, not really. Rusty was playing CD with Kante. Two of the goals were directly attributed to Heaps(or at least the refs getting on Heaps). One goal was a on a counter while we were down a man and was a breakdown in central defense, after Rusty had been moved out wide and a rookie put into CD. I didn't see the other goal, so I can't say what was the cause there. From watching the game JF looked like he might have been our best player. He was comfortable over the ball, was dangerous in the attack and on set plays, and I didn't see a single successful attack down his side. Our biggest problem was the way they shredded our central midfield. If you our going to play to defensive midfielders, you at least want them to break up some attacks. LD owned the center of the field. Lee
Perhaps, just another log for the fire... Somehow Toluca and W Connection are able to play their second leg on April 2. I know that's outside the scheduled round of 16 timeframe. But, any reason why Kraft Soccer couldn't have done the same by at least claiming a weather hardship? Sorry to BADH. In addition to Sunil Gulati's claim that Nickerson "wasn't available at the time they had to make their decision", this is just an FYI for those that want to have all the facts when further questioning the decision for 2 away CCC matches. An extra week certainly would have "helped" on the weather front for a local venue.
The Standard-Times' Don Cuddy's latest effort... http://www.s-t.com/daily/03-03/03-25-03/c05sp007.htm
Was FDA at Sunday's match? I found the wording in his article somewhat ambiguous. "Their opening match in international tournament play seems to have been another example of that tendency" "The Revolution apparently neither attacked nor defended" Given the lack of emphasis the Revs mgmt gave to these matches, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he wouldn't make the trip (or that the Globe wouldn't pony up the $$). Brian
No he wasn't. I heard from the Globe that they had already spent a lot of money sending him to Brazil and would not be sending him to CR.
I'm pretty sure UEFA's full name is not "Union des Associations Europeennes de Football" (Union of European Football Associations) but rather "Union Europeenne de Football Association" (European Union of Association Football) Maybe he couldn't remember the full name and just took a guess?
Well, 30 seconds on UEFA's web site turns up http://www.uefa.com/uefa/aboutuefa/overview/index.html which says pretty clearly "Union of European Football Associations".