Well, I guess I might be in a bit of a minority here, but I disagree with some sentiments previously stated. First off, I certainly don't think that Joey is the greatest, but I still like him much better than Leonard, who I think it awful. I think I might be in a party of 1 in thinking that the penalty wasn't that bad. Yes the dive was laughably atrocious, but as Lalas said, it was just done as a result of Leonard, who IMO is unable to read the game whatsoever, pulling the guy from behind, after getting badly beaten, for neither the first nor the last time on the night. People may disagree, but I much prefer Franchino to Leonard at left back. (Yes Marshal, when it gets a little hairy after a corner kick, you definitely want to come off your post and stand behind your keeper, in case the ball goes through his body - good thinking.) Signing a decent left sided defender, and having John (who I’m not all that high on either), Franchino and Leonard playing left out would be preferable. When you think about his fellow defenders he’s been playing with, Parkhurst’s performance so far seems even more remarkable. (heh, although I guess a cynic could say it’d be hard not to shine when playing next to them ). I don't know if this was talked about in another thread, but are some people really annoyed that Arena called in our top players? I certainly don’t blame him for calling in players he wants to see, and I'm thankful he didn't call in Twellman. Can't blame him for the scheduling. I have to agree that Latham was worse than Riley on the night. And I simply could not believe that Nicol pulled Cancela, and left some others on. I like Nicol in general, but this Cancela thing is getting weird. One certainly couldn't blame Pepe for not being full of confidence and not playing his best right now.
Watching this game from the stands I looked like the young guys (even Riley) looked very uncomfortable. Snith look like his usual BFG kind of self, and Franchino look dazed and confused. This was just watching thier faces and it translated into poor play, but obviously we expected such from a depleted team. So while Dempsey Ralston and Noonan may be some of our players I think they also add a bit of motivation, with Dempsey sacrificing his body, Noonans footwork, and Ralston being a vet, I think they all add a bit a charactr to the team that we loose out on when they are not there. FCD is not going to be fun... RRREV IT UP
I felt mildly ill after the game but thankfully that has passed now. My few thoughts on the matter -as others have pointed out, the first half wasn't so bad for the Revs. On one of the team's first posessions they pinged the ball around with probably 5 1-touch passes and I thought to myself "Maybe the coaching staff's message of a team system and a roster of interchangeable players wasn't complete ****************." -Joey played pretty well in the first 20 or 30 minutes of the game. Winning balls, getting calls and passing well. By the midpoint of the second half he couldn't make the simplest pass connect. One stretch where he gave away the ball about 3 times in a row. Infuriating -my patience with Smith in waning. A few more moments to be optimistic about, but for as much as he saw the ball, more good stuff should have happened. He seems glacially slow most of the time. Seems to be constantly muscled off the ball. -Twellman got the ball at his feet how many times? Two? Both times with seemingly the whole defense around him and he was still dangerous both times. Just hung out to dry the whole game. How is this possible?!!? You'd think it would be the entire team's focus to get him the ball. -while losing games will perhaps force we fans to share some bragging rights with FCD and Chicago, the experience that Latham, Edozien and Vercollone are getting is great for them. -kind of getting back to the first point, I'm glad that the team goes into a game like that and plays to win. Granted they really never looked able to win, but I'd much prefer the approach we saw to one where Nicol plays a 4-5-1 and bunkers in all night.
I have to disagree with those that think subbing cancela was a bad move. as the middfiled play was all chicago's, tactically, cancela was effectivly netralized. He didn't have the effect that, say Mapp did for the fire. he is a role player, not a game changer, and that was it. need a goal, or a spark, and endozien did that for them. the shift to more direct play, bypassing the midfield was a smart one, given that franchino/cancela/dorman and the wings had NO capability to move the ball forward. it was thier only chance - to move to a pure longball, counter game. they (with cancela supposedly the big gun in there) failed to create any chances otherwise. cancela's got nice skills, and holds the ball nicely, he LOOKS good on the ball, but was completely ineffective, and tactically did not adjust or threaten at all. i'd say he played well, but was not what the team needed in that game. nichol's move to endozien and a direct style was in response to the situation and the tactical reality. if playing 'nice soccer' isn't getting you any shots on goal, or even into the middle third of the field, change. endozien scores the header off the bar, and nicol's a genius. for all the people who think that subbin cancela was the end of their chance to win, care to point out cancela's late game winners?
Sadly, I have to agree. Cancela DID play well, and was the ONLY one poised on the ball. But it wasn't making a difference. Without Shalrie to rely on, Heaps, Franchino and Leonard kept resorting to launching the ball up field, destroying the attempts to involve the midfield that they started with. The Revs actually held their own quite well for the first 30' - then the defenders started bailing out with long balls and conceded Chicago control over the midfield. Once that happened, Cancela wasn't utilized, so why not put in someone who offers different things? I may be the only one, but I thought Smith had a decent game (and I see subtle improvement from him in every game). People seem to give Twellman a pass because he's "isolated" - well, he's no more isolated than Smith is. At least Smith shot at the goal - who else did? How are you going to win the game if no one shoots at the goal. Sure Twellman was pissed - he always is when someone shoots instead of passing it to him. I thought Smith created some of the few decent chances the Revs had. And if we're going to pick on boneheaded moves, Edozien wasted the Revs best chance of the whole game when he tried to head on goal from the end line. Someone was standing wide-open 10 yards from goal if he could have only dropped it back. But for me, the worst performance of the game was Franchino's, by far. You'd think he had never played the position before, his passing was ATROCIOUS. He defended decently (working hard to get back in position when he was beaten), but he gave away SO MANY passes he was killing any hope of maintaining possession. Chicago's goal was kind of a freak play, IMO. The pass off the corner kick was just throwing it into the box. The chances of finding someone's foot with that kind of evelope around him was just dumb luck IMO. Surely, Chicago deserved to win the game based on maintaining good pressure on goal, but to disect that goal is not really productive. Sure the marking could have been better, but once Segares had the ball where he did, no one was going to stop him.
i think it was the best game he's had. i actually thought he was going to finish something there a few times. hopefully he'll keep getting more comfortable, keep pushing harder and get some results. we sure could use a few folks stepping it up this coming weekend.
Some agreement, some disagreement. First, I think the whole team had switched to long ball long before Endozien entered the game. And, of course, if we had tied or won, we wouldn't be moaning (as much anyway). Now for the dangerous part. Carlos Valderrama was neither great at defense, nor a huge scorer, nor even particularly fast. However, I thought that the early Tampa teams made a huge effort to get him the ball early and often because he could put those finishers in a good position to, well, FINISH! Now, if everyone can hold off for a minute from turning this into the "Cancela is not Valderrama and shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath" thread, I only brought that up because that is the role I think Cancella can fill on this team - creating chances for others. It may be a "role" but a very important one. I don't expect him to score game winners but I do expect that, given enough touches, he will make a number of passes that provide a great opportunity for someone else to score. I think the team is not getting him the ball enough. I guess that, since he only has three subs, Nicol has no choice but to sub Cancella since he can't sub everyone else. A couple more notes: 1. In addition to not being Valderamma's equal in talent, Cancela also doesn't receive the protection from officials that Valderamma got. 2. Included in my general discountent with ever using Joe Franchino at any position is the fact that even though he can't pass he always seems to ignore a wide open Cancela in favor of a longer pass that he rarely connects on.
Smith killed every attack with low percentage shots at bad angles instead of looking to hold the ball and play off of Twellman. Whoever said he’s a “park” style player is right, imo. Just terrible. Almost as bad as Franchino who killed every midfield possession with a pass to Chicago. Chump of the match. Not that Nichol had much choice in the starting line up, but these two just flat out sucked donkey nuts. others: Reis was obviously man of the match. Parkhurst, more great play with one lost man on a set piece. Damn rookie. Leonard worked hard, messed up on the goal however; still, better suited to left back than left mid, imo. Heaps … didn’t mess up. Latham looked like he didn't want to mess up and played scared. Not good. Riley looked like he didn't want to pull his hamstring and mostly sucked because of it. Pretty bad. Needs to be healthy and/or motivated. Cancella looked like he was trying too much not to loose possession... or maybe he just didn't have any good options up front? Lost too much possession by passing to Franchino. ;-) Dorman at least tried to make the dangerous final pass and worked hard. I like this kid. Twellman looked good the few times he saw some service. May be out of sorts as he’d usually bend that shot just right. subs .... well I think Vericoloneeoonneeoo and Edozian brought a good energy to the game and actually made the Revos look almost a little dangerous. Edozian should get the start over Smith and Vericoloneeoonneeoo over Riley. Then again I wanted Latham to start and look how that worked out. Anyway, Revs lost 1-0 off a goal from a set piece on the road against the 2cnd best team in the East missing the Triumvirate. Nothing to worry about (aside from Nichol's continually mystifying sub choices and continued belief in Franchino and Smith that is)
I agree that this is part of the problem. Another comparison to Valderrama speaks to the rest of the problem. The 96-97 Mutiny team had other players who couldn't be left alone, so teams couldn't risk focusing exclusively on Valderrama. Normally, the Revs have the same situation, but they didn't on Saturday. Every Chicago player knew that if he left his man to pressure Cancela, that man probably wasn't to cause any problems. Normally, Cancela can either pass the ball to someone in a more dangerous position, or he can force his marker to foul. Saturday, Twellman was the only other player the Fire needed to worry about, so they were free to hound Cancela all day.
Magpie, I was surprised by your first statement above so I re-watched the first 35 minutes of the game. I would still have to disagree. I only counted one time when we completed more than 4 passes (lucky bounces off of defenders doesn't count.) Someone mentioned our first touch resulting in 5 1-touch passes...look again, the first two touches resulting in one pass and then one pass and an offsides. There was one point where we had a free kick from our defensive half where we might have kicked it around a bit but they were showing Reis instead, but that was pretty late. We did show some quick passing for the passing that happened, but nowhere near the possession or 'strong passing' that we would want. Cancela was the only bright spot in terms of passing that I could see. His ball to Twellman was in fact dangerous and allowed Taylor to get into the box for a shot. His made some passes to Smith and Riley that allowed them to either get wide or get forward. I have to agree with those that were wondering why Cancela was taken out and Smith was left on the field. Smith was almost always a step or two late in getting to the play or recognizing the chance. On that I would agree with you Magpie. On the goal, I saw about five Chicago players totally unmarked on the far side of the area near the 18. There might have been 1 Rev within 5 yards of them. As a result, when the Fire player got the ball, Parkhurst had to make a lunging play just to delay a bit, didn't get the ball and no one else was near enough to help. Stop the play at 57:12 of the game and you'll see four Fire players all moving to their spots, with only one Rev amongst them. (Wiht a fifth Fire player hanging at about the 22). NONE of the other Revs can see them or have a hand on them to know where they are going. As a result, we never recover in time to handle the danger. Do we always 'zone defense' on corners?