Can you predict the excuse of Caleb Porter to be echoed by his apologists for the remainder of the week? The season? ETERNITY. PLAY ALONG!!!
Post game quotes, as posted to ColumbusCrewSC.com: Update on Gaston Sauro’s first-half injury Yeah, I haven’t talked to the trainer yet, seems like his quad. Those are a couple tough things I mean, we had two subs that we didn’t program with Gastón [Sauro] early in the game and then obviously David Guzman having to come out late as well. The last of which was definitely disappointing because we probably would’ve have made another attacking sub, and we burned an early sub as well. But when one door kind of closes, another opens and Bouba [Aboubacar Keita] I felt was excellent today. Here’s a 19-year-old kid, you want to talk about some positives and some encouraging things today, that’s a big one. 19-year-old kid goes in the game, and he didn’t look out of place. We’re real pleased with him. On whether it’s difficult to keep the morale among the players well following a loss I think when you play well, it’s a little bit easier to stomach the result. I have to tell the truth, and I try to always tell the truth to my guys, and you, and I thought we were the better team today. Even though it was the same result, for me it felt different. I thought the 4-3-3 was very good, that’s a good look for us. I thought the midfield three of Guzman, Artie [Artur], and Wil Trapp were excellent today in keeping the ball, and were extremely organized. They had four shots at home, and the second half really the only chance they had was that ball behind the line that’s in the back of the net. So, we have to clean that up, and then obviously in the final third I think we had 11 shots. We missed some really good chances, we hit the crossbar. Eventually those balls will bounce in, we have to believe that, we know Gyasi [Zardes] is going to score those in the future. So, I don’t want to change a lot today, but for me there’s still some learning to be done, and we’re learning a lot this year. On whether the second half of the season feels like a new season with the return of players who were away on international duty Yeah, I mean obviously we had two guys back, you know – obviously, in Gyasi and Wil – and I thought it was maybe one of Wil’s best games of the year, he was excellent. I thought he really helped us control the game in the second half. I thought we were the one on the front-foot, we were the one in control and it looked to be our game. I just think in that final third still we are missing some crosses, we need to from our wingers continue to get more production, some of the outside backs, their service needs to be on the money a bit more. We’ll keep working on that, of course. But there’s not a lot I want to change, and for me, it felt a little different today and we’re going to keep focusing on improving. You know, obviously we know we’ve not gotten results, but I told the guys before this game that the next 14 games, I want to see an upward trend in every regard, and I thought there were positives today.
How about the Tour de France? Maybe all the Crew players are focused on Peter Sagan and his quest for a record-breaking seventh green jersey?
Gonna be honest here. I was genuinely surprised and didn't see much to be offended about in Porter's post game comments this week. I especially like that he started out building up Keita. I'm gonna focus on that. I could nit pick and speak to the idea that we didn't have a shot on goal until the 88th minute against a team that played 120 minutes midweek, and was missing their two most dynamic players, and how maybe the solution to that probably requires a bit more creativity than more and better crosses. But whatever. Minutes after tying a record for MLS incompetence Caleb took the time to single out the good performance of one of the younger players who can possibly be a building block for us going forward. That's a welcome change of tone from Caleb's victimhood soliloquies of weeks past.
Do you know what -- I'll give that a pass for the first dozen or so losses. It's the getting shutout by Orlando twice that hurts (they were missing 1/5 of their top 11, played 120 a couple days earlier in a tournament we should be in, and never had a stalwart GK) and the very high likelihood of getting blanked by Bridgeview and yet again Montreal this week which is not cool.
A ********ing legend. Peter Sagan really tries his best to interact with his fans, how can you not love him ✍️📕 pic.twitter.com/VOOXSw5UZy— 𝑩𝒐𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒏 🐐 (@SwaganP) July 21, 2019
Was it just my phone, or was there an audio track of an abattoir overlayed on that video??? Creepy noises!