Marshall is by no means a squeaky clean individual. While his off the field antics pale in comparisson to a Hejduk, there is dirt. fcuk it, I'm just going to focus on Rachel Bilson for the rest of the afternoon. Thinking about Crew is bad for your health.
I wondered the same thing. What did Marshall do to provoke it. I'm guessing he said something to the effect of Sanneh missing the PK. But either way, Sanneh shouldn't react that way. I doubt the positivity will increase. These players have accomplished far more than their coach ever has so nobody is going to respect him. And on top of that he doesn't seem to have much authority.
It happened before a NE corner kick, Chad yelled to Sanneh to pick a player up in the box and obviously he must have taken offense to Chad telling him to do something <being the all high and mighty Tony 'Fvcking' Sanneh> so he took a shot at Chad head, supposedly it was a push to the face or something of the sort. This happened in the game in New England, not the game in Columbus where Tony botched the PK. Chad a quiet kid on the field. He's not one to lead by his voice on the field. And he's not typically one to get in to a "scap" with a player on the opposing team so I doubt he'd go after his own player even if provoked. He's a quiet and very skilled defender...he let's his play do the talking, not his mouth.
I can't believe that I'm putting Rachel down to write this... I think we're missing the point here. Let's just say it did happen, I'm not convinced, but lets say it did. Is it not a huge indictment of Musab's ability to lead to squash the beef straight away? Does it not show a huge lack of respect by the players and and a huge lack of being able to impose authority? There is no reason why Musab, or any other pro coach shouldn't have the ability to sit a player down and tell them how it's going to be. Furthermore, if in fact this was a serious issue, if Sanneh takes a swipe at Marshall and cleans his clock, wouldn't people who aren't associated with any press, or any front office of reported it instantly? It seems to me that if Sanneh took a serious swing at Marshall during a game it'd of been front page news here at Bigsoccer. Especially when you consider it's easier to see it happening in front of you as opposed to having to go all deepthroat and get a "scoop" out of employees of Columbus Crew. Smells rotten, sorry. Same goes with Cunny, everyone knew he was a malcontent, heaping your failures on him, and now Sanneh seems just a bit to convenient. But what do the lemmings care. It doesn't matter.
So if it happened, it was off camera since none of us saw it and the commentators never picked it up. There must've been someone in that stadium who happened to be looking at our defense just prior to that cornerkick. Any New England fans that saw something suspicious should please report such actions to this thread immediately!
maybe it is the fact that i am way behind on my crew info. but i find it incredibly discouraging that people that i know and respect, people that have the same passion that i have for futbol and the crew have let, what i believe began as an excuse for poor performances, consume the love for the game to the point that people are just not going to go to matches. the preocupation that people have for excuses should not supercede the love of the game. i will not be able to make it to the the majority of the first half of the season and honestly the one thing that i will miss the most about columbus. i certainly hope and believe that there is integrity in journalism and especially in the management behind our team. i haven´t always felt this way but when you are away from something you love and feal passionatly about, albeit for only a month, you really start to think about the things that are important. and a few of the most important things to me are a cold beer, good weather, and crew match in the finest stadium with the finest fans, mls has to offer. for those of you interested supergringo IV is on the way.
Hey guess what? Yahoo still has that entire match available online. I don't have the time at the moment, but if someone wants to volunteer to see if they can pick something up - either a reaction shot or whatever - during a corner kick, here ya go: http://sports.yahoo.com/s/soccerpass?p=mls&dt=1096614000
I have seen tons of European players lay into each other on the field. Maybe not a push or slap but lots and lots of "************ **f" when yelled at by teammates. Not a big deal. Altough Americans are quite used to the "nice try" thing and don't react well to that.
That's the second thing I thought of when I read this (first was emailing Bob Hunter). I still remember reading, shortly after Sanneh's signing, that he thought of him self as a "world class center back." Ha, what a joke.
but i dont see cunningham as a cancer towards other players. obvioulsy he didnt mesh with the coach, but i dont think that jeff was going around pissing other players off, at least not causing altercations like that. denton, obviously a problem when he reacts to home fans the way that he did, and sanneh if what the article said is true, but again, id not lump cunningham into that group at all.
I think we're making too much of this My guess is that this whole thing wasn't as serious as some of us are trying to make it out to be. I mean, Sanneh had an attitude, he made a dreadful mistake (the PK) that cost us a playoff series, and almost all of us are glad he's gone. So we hear this story, and it's the natural, easy thing to just pile on and make it out like Sanneh knocked two of Chad's teeth out, or something. The truth is probably less interesting. My guess would be that Sanneh and Marshall had a very, very minor confrontation that was just one more nail in the coffin of a guy who was already not very popular in the locker room. The reason is wasn't treated like a major incident at the time is probably because it WASN'T a major incident. Players probably get pissed at each other every single match. It's not a big deal. But when you're already thought of as a egotistical, self-righteous jerk, and you're getting into it with a teammate in the middle of a playoff match, it just makes things worse for you. Sounds to me like the apology for the incident was worse than the incident itself. Disagreements on the field will happen. But "I was scoring goals while you were in diapers" is not an acceptable explanation. Especially when the guy you're mouthing off to is the most consistant player on the team, despite being an 19-year-old rookie with a broken bone in his foot, and you're an overpriced head case that joined the team mid-way through the season and underperformed. Oh, one more thing... what does "scoring goals while you were in diapers" have to do with marking up on a corner kick? Just wondering.
I got it wrong, then. Sorry. I wasn't following coverage of the Crew in the days immediately following that match - I was too p.o.ed. So it wasn't until it was mentioned in the Dispatch a few weeks ago that I knew about it. Anyway, as a fellow native Minnesotan, I wonder when Tony lost his inherent (genetic, actually) Minnesota Nice personality. DC, I suspect.
Yes and no. As a reporter there's sometimes nothing worse than someone leaking you information because then you have information you can't necessarily back up with fact. Although, it is true I love hearing juicy tidbits like this because I'm a reporter and I'm used to straight news. This is kind of like the forbidden dessert for me.
This was something I was thinking, but hadn't yet said. My first impression, aside from the drooling over the morsel of fun, led me to believe the front office is trying to divert our attention from something else altogether. What it is, I do not know.
Dear Tony, The fact that you were scoring goals when Chad Marshall was in diapers is precisely the problem.
Not on a well coached team it doesn't. It may happen, but it certainly doesn't 'happen all the time'. It probably happens with more regularity on crap teams, but even then it doesn't happen all the time. I don't think that it is insignificant, but I do believe it has been blown out of proportion. Anytime you have one player going after another on your team, you have chemistry problems...that isn't insignificant. I do think that some credit does have to be given to the players and/or GA (it hurt to write that last part) in keeping this out of print. Keeping stuff like this inhouse as much as you can, is much better that airing the laundry in public.
Well, I just finished watching and combing over the feed of the Columbus/NE game at Gillette. There is nothing conclusive that is shown on the yahoo feed (which is kinda what I expected). the closest thing that you can see is late in minute 36 (35:50 or so) of the first half, after Fraser had run Twellman into the boards and injured him, the Revs get a free kick. As the free kick is about to be taken, the camera does a fairly narrow shot panning the box to show Fraser. Behind him, you see Marshall apparently yapping to Sanneh about something, but you can't see Sanneh's face because it's outside of the camera range (I know it's Sanneh by the number on the jersey). It could have been the tail end of the incident, or it could have simply been two defensive players calmly talking about assignments. I guess we'll never know the truth.
Exactly...not a push or a slap. And it's not usually coming from someone who has been there a month or so. And it's not a comment that degrades their career. Sanneh is Sanneh...not Paul Ince.