jon martin- sounds a little biased, assuming that you are good as your last game. as i recall franchino lifted his squad to a victory in his last game against colombus. now, you are ready to give up on him. i would hope this is not someone close to marshall or his teammates because that is no way to blast your capt. hell, if it is,he can come out our way and we would love to have him. I wish you a speedy recovery and we look forward to watching you play.
Welcome to the playoffs! As an MLS fan first (and a DC United fan second), I think the playoffs would have sucked without Ralston and Twellmann and company.
.....Once again, heppy that we won but quite concerned about the dwindling numbers.... The Magpie While this particular game was/is a one off (Clemens v.. Martinez/Yanks v. Sox in playoffs) the fact is that Magpie's concerns are genuine. Had there been no baseball game I should have thought that all 12,000 might have shown up and even another 3,000 or so to bring it to 15,000. Had the game been at 7:30 with no baseball game we might have had 18,000-20,000. Yet, of course, we didn't. Long term this is very, very worrying. We now have a genuinely exciting team, one that can play fast, slow, fancy, tough; whatever seems appropriate. They aren't San Jose or Chicago yet in terms of consistency but they are every bit as stylish, if not more so. The interchanges between Cancela, Ralston, Noonan, Kamler, Joseph, even Fabbro were mirror images of Real's Galacticos. Sure they didn't score but, frankly, so what. Another day they'll get five. But where are the fans? The litnany of answers lies on other threads but it boils down to this, from 1996-2000 we had a first class organization on the business side and a horrible soccer operation. Beginnning with FC and Co. in 2000 through now we have had an increasingly professional footballing brain trust and playing staff however, on the front office side, chaos. The paper bags should now be addressed towards Imbiano, et. al. Despite the excellent efforts by many Revs staffers (Craig Tornberg, Mike Dressler, Brad Feldman, etc.) the people who are their bosses need to be re-directed, re-trained, or released. There are obvious solutions that should be employed to get this really interesting team that is beginning to border on the wonderful the support they deserve. It would certainly be unrealistic to expect this to be addressed until offseason but as Stevie and his associates scour Central America, the colleges and further afield. for more depth and replacements the upstairs teams needs some fixing too. JIM DOW JIM DOW
Does anyone know why Etchavery was so upset at the end of the match? He can't believe that the takedown wasn't a PK. Could it be that he thought Bagley was off side or had been the player who did the fouling? If someone has the match on tape could you review the play and make comment.
I share Jim and Evan's concern (vz. my sig.) I don't think the SJ hard core are any less dedicated than our own. I also don't think the SF bay area is any less a soccer hotbed than our own. The Quakes sad experience bears out the idea that the front office can poison the atmosphere so severely that even a championship team doesn't pull them in. I can't believe even the coldest businessperson at Kraft Enterprises thinks their staff is succeeding. BFF, you misunderstand me. No player is perfect. Franchino has strengths: He's rugged, anticipates well, is very comfortable in tight space, and he passes well. Lastly, his free kicks are sometimes great, as you saw against Columbus. He is not remotely the thug that he is made out to be. However, he is only a fair man-marker, is not fast, is not a great crosser or a great shot in the run of play. In short, he deserves to start, but can improve in several areas, and is not the envy of the other nine teams.
I've watched the tape. No way Bagley was offside. I think Etch thought Bagley flopped. Bagley did a good job in falling over Prideaux's leg, which Prideaux stuck in front of him. I think Bagley went down rather easily, but he did a good job of it. How ironic is it that the master flopper-in-the-box, Etch, is the guy complaining?
Much in the same way network security companies hire hackers...or bunko squads hire convicted frauds...Marco knows he's the diving expert. Actually, he's a bit jealous with Ruiz in the league now. Did the Fort do its job and taunt "La Diabla" suficiently for this? Ted.
I believe I heard from someone who was in the locker room that the complaining from Etch (and others?) was about an alleged hand ball in the box prior to the foul.
Correct.. According to my sources (from the DC media side) United were complaining that Bagley handled the ball on the initial chest trap in the box and it went uncalled.. Not saying it happened, just saying that is what is being reported...
I've replayed the pass to Bagley about 10 times on TIVO, and it doesn't look like a chest trap, because Bagley's body was turned sideways to the flight of the ball. It looks like it might have hit his arm, but whether it hit his forearm or higher is difficult to tell. The ball did come come down from a height somewhere above his waist. Prideaux was not in a position to knock it down, it seems. The camera view is from behind Bagley's back, and you cannot see what the ball hit. On the other hand, I didn't see Etch anywhere around, so I wonder how he saw it. The two defenders who were sandwiching Bagley did not raise their hands or point to their arms, nor did the goalkeeper.
Thanks for report. I wonder how much all Marco's bitching during the run up to the PK and with the Ref after the game will cost him. His behavior after the yellow card should have earned him a second yellow. After the card he kicked the ball off the spot. Hopefully he will be suspended for their game with the Crew next weekend. His behavior was childish at best. Good thing Ernie went over to keep him from pushing the ref George
New players...Fabbro and Bags And now I can see why KC was so pleased to be rid of him! The man was a walking cone! He barely moved beyond a fast trot all evening. He reminded me of a big goofy kid cherry picking 6v6 soccer..."hey, guys...pass it to ME!" His offsides was by about 5 or 6 feet not showing the least bit of awareness of the location of the DC defense. Our new section nickname for him...Bullwinkle. Rocky the flying squirrel he ain't. Bagley, on the other hand, was lots of fun to watch. He showed a lot of hustle and grit out there...not a bad first touch, either. I don't see him starting any time soon, but think he's found a place as a solid contributing sub. 103FAN
Looks like a blatant trip to me. Has there ever been a game decided by a PK in overtime? You've got to think that the refs will almost never call PKs in sudden death.
From MLSnet: On only one other occasion had a match ended on a penalty kick in sudden death overtime. Los Angeles Galaxy forward Carlos Ruiz netted that goal on March 23, 2002 also against D.C. United.
Haven't been online in a while, but I gotta say two things: 1) Love Raltson being the captain 2) Noonan is the mack daddy 3) Franchino sucks, ditch him and keep Leonard at LB !!! It's been a struggle to make the playoffs ... I hope we can make another historic run !!! Beast_Ed
There has been one other time. Take a wild guess who did it.... Doesn't say whether or not a different player was fouled, but we all know the answer to that one....
Oh, crap. Got beaten to it. Well played, Mousey. I'm never the first one to reply to those open-ended musings. I need to increase my WPM somehow. Any suggestions?
Um, it was just a cut and paste...and I had to delete my first post and start over. I dunno, just good karma?
Read my post again. He's proven to be as much of a hack as Olsen has turned out to be. And that's a GOOD analogy - since BOTH Stewart and Olsen were known to be 'good guys' before they joined DC. Up until Stewart finally contributed to the team, he was getting more and more frustrated and did the very-foolish-thing by 'joining' the bitch-n-moan-n-hacking ways of his teammates. Petke plays cleaner than Stewart - and THAT is saying something (actually, Petke is consistently a good guy, while Stewart flip-flops relative to his 'level of success' and his peers). One REAL class act on DC that will NEVER flip-flop, and that's Cerritos. He'll ALWAYS be a good guy. I can tell you what's NOT laughable, and that's the fact that DC was THE classiest team in the league for mucho years... again, tragedy.
Whether we should discuss this here, or on the "Where have all the Rev fans gone?" or start a new thread, but it might be nice to address in a succinct "memo" to the Krafts, if they actually care, about what the issues are. In no specific order: 1) Should the Revs play in a smaller stadium in Boston? OK, I've lived in New England long enough to know the score on this issue, but with HDC, Frisco, Harrison, Rochester, OK, DC, etc. all talking about SSS, is this something that should be in the long term future for the Revs? Or does all of the sunk costs in Foxboro by the Krafties -- and their desire to keep the Revs in the building for 18-20 dates -- preclude a SSS as long as the Krafts are with MLS? 2) Starting times. 6 PM, 4 PM, 7:30. Why all the damn confusion? Pick a time and stick with it, but I think that our largest attendances came when we kicked off @ 7:30. 3) Front Office bozos. Not the hard working soccer people mentioned above in this thread, but "Lou" and his staff who have not exactly been pushing the Revs. 4) Advertising? See #3, but if Hunt can crank up attendance in KC, my God it ought to be possible here. What else...?
We'll find out where this is all headed by the way the Krafts handle things on the business side this off season. If the leadership is still coming from Imbriano & co. on the football side, then this organization will continue it's journey down the toilet. However, if they acknowledge that there is a problem and revamp the business side -- by bringing in someone with a track record who will likely cost them some money to hire -- then we'll know there is at least some sort of a commitment from the Krafts. Look at the way they handled the Pats. When it became obvious that the Bobby Grier/Pete Carroll situation was a disaster, they rectified it -- pretty quickly. It's equally obvious that the Revs current business managment structure ain't getting it done -- at least as far as fannies in the seats are concerned. That aside, I think it's pretty obvious that the key guys on this team right now are Cancela and Joseph. They are rock solid and Cancela is just a lot of fun to watch. He's Valderama with legs. They are the best AM/DM combo in MLS by far.