Another good piece by Scott Tann. http://www.cybersoccernews.com/mls/crew/030620Crew-sje.shtml Herewith, with due respect to Scott, some observations on some of Big Greg's comments: So that's your explanation for the team stinking out the joint? The old "any given Sunday" routine? Excuse me, but doesn't the "on any given Sunday" thing refer to when a bad team inexplicably plays over their heads and knocks off a good team they shouldn't have been able to beat? Is this really what he thinks happened? It was just BAD LUCK???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Only if "leave yourself exposed defensively" is another way of saying "we forgot how to mark people"? Starting lineup: Presthus, McCarty, Clark, Dunseth, Torres, Maissoneuve, Paule, Denton, McBride and West. I'm not gonna waste my time checking, but I think the youngest person there is 25 and not one of them has less than four years MLS experience. Young my ass, Greg. You wanna see "young" Greg? Sarachen is using three stone cold rookies and is, as Scott helpfully points out, leading the division. And finally, this piece of coaching brilliance, regarding having put Buddle in: So, just to be extra "careful" he put him out there on a field which is coming up, slipping and sliding all over the place, where even your healthy players are falling around. More: ...so I put him into the game and asked him to go score a goal. Good thinking. Scott rightly, and fairly I think, points out that other teams have much worse injury and/or callup problems than we do and are doing just fine, notable San Jose. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that, since Scott didn't report it that Greg didn't say what he really needs to suck it up and say: "We were lousy, and as the Head Coach I take full responsiblity for it. It's my job to see that we have it together better than that. Our performance was unacceptable, and we have to do a lot of things differently" That I could respect. Even admire. But this "we're a young team" crap when you start guys like McBride, BMais, Clark and Presthus is just insulting. Just more excuses. Grow some stones, Greg.
Thats the ************ that irritates me more than anything. It's just a flat out lie, we have players with experience who have played together before and just aren't getting the job done. Pathetic.
Ever since we were embarassed by San Jose in the playoffs, I have not been a fan of Andruloses. Greg was exactly what the team needed at the time: change and with that stunning overtime win versus DC it made people believe again. Everybody was happy the Fitz doghouse was gone and that Greg was letting the players on the field play the game. Near the end of the season however, is was plainly evident that the Crew really needed a coach. When Yallop's team came in and just dissected us, it was glaringly obvious that all the other teams had figured out how to beat our modified lineup - stop the Perez/Cunningham juggernaught, and plague our back three system. I know others at that time predicted that Greg would only last a little while before becoming Fitzgerald reincarnated. I guess what I would be interested in would be: Would Crew fans be willing to live with a couple seasons of potentially poor performance while we reallocate resources from paying players to getting a quality coach? Give the new coach the reins and let him build up a great team with talented new players? or... Are we doomed to promoting from within and the same cycle of near glory to dismay?
Christ Bill, you're beginning to make me think that I have bi-polar disorder! From your other thread that made me feel like we are the greatest team in the world to this thread, I've crossed multiple spectrums of emotions. As to the young team quote: I think everyone here has taken it out of context. Andrulis was talking about how if we were younger, we would score more. We just couldn't contain DC with their young team (i.e. Eskandarian). So, to win the soccer Gods' favor, we must get younger!