Galaxy : 1 cRapids : 1 Well, getting a tie ain't so bad on the road. There were long stretches where we just could not possess the ball. Torres was terrible. Ngenya looks more promising and I hope Sigi decides to start him over Torres. Sasha couldn't score if his life depended on it. It would have helped to have Cobi off the bench in the last 20 minutes. Topper
Not a terrible result...but it does nothing to get that monkey off our back. Those white uni's have yet to see a victory. The G's looked decent in the second half, but I'm not convinced by their intensity level this year from opening whistle. After the flat play of 2003, these guys should come out booming. I don't think we can plan on Herzog always being the conduit for our attack due to fitness or lack thereof. I shudder to think what the hot months are going to do to him.
Here's how I saw it. Victorine looked bad, as did Torres, and in my opinion, Herzog. Ruiz was productive, what with his sitter goal, but he had many errant passes. Ngwenya was much better tonight than last week. Vagenas stepped it up in the second half. The back line was OK; but was that Marshall who missed that header in the beginning of the second half that that bald guy almost scored off of? And although it's a bit off topic, Freddy had a nice little goal this afternoon. Not bad for a 14 yr old.
i actually thought this was our best performance of the season, if you exclude the result. as usual we came out pretty flat in the opening 45 and were probably a tad lucky to be tied. the 2nd half though we thoroughly dominated colorado and just couldn't find that final pass/shot. i was really worried that was going to come back and bite us on the ass in the dying minutes when the altitude would start to play a factor, and let's face it the final 5-10 minutes we plain sucked and looked very, very tired. as luck goes i think last week we were lucky and this week we were unlucky. ruiz and kiro looked very dangerous all through the game, come mid-season and i think those two will be deadly. herzog looked good, but did make a few errant passes (as did all the guys) our back 4 looked solid most of the night, there were a few scares, but overall i thought they did well. sasha... after two good games, he let himself down today. pete, wow, pete actually looked good tonight! apart from one of his trademark wrestling moves (i only caught the one) he looked like the peter of old. i hope that wasn't just a brief cameo gwen looked awesome, fiesty, great speed, good vision, nice passes and he defended well (unlike torres who was a bit of a disappointment again). while i'd be happier at 2 wins and a tie, i'm cautiously happy about where we are. i see some real moments of inspiration from this team, that come midseason might become stretches of inspiration. if only we can get that first half lethargy out of the way.
Here are my worthless thoughts: Defense-I'm still nervous. Was Marshall for Bo a strategic switch or was Bo hurt? If Sigi benched Bo for Marshall and Lewis's speed- then hooray for him. But we need to settle on a back-line and give them time to get comfortable with each other. Overall, I thought they played well today all things considered... Vagenas-Would say bench him if I was confident we had someone else who could step up and play that role. But I'm not... Victorine-Falling.... Kirovsky-Rising.... Ngwenya-Earned a start... Herzog-Needs to spend twenty-five hours a day at the 24-Hour Fitness Center. Can he last a whole season...? Ruiz-Three games= three goals and one assist. 'Nuff said. Columbus is going to be desperate next week after two straight losses. We need to smack them early and not allow them any belief that they can hang with us for 90...I want Big Sig to show up at that game wearing a wolf's-skin cloak and carrying a broadsword, stand next to Ruiz and Kirovsky and growl out "Unleash hell" before sending them out onto the field. Hey, whatever it takes to get these guys playing from the first whistle...
I'd love to see Sigi in some sort of animal skin, but I don't think there's any of god's creatures that are big enough to provide such a skin.... Hartman still scares me on crosses, and when he has to clear the ball with his feet, he walks around like Frankenstiens monsters, like he can't bend his knees or something. Vagenas played his best half in the 2nd half of the game, but he still isn't very accurate, and isn't very strong at winning balls... Victorine needs to lose his starting job, not his place on the team as he is very versitile and even though he isn't the best player on the team you always notice his play and he always seem to be invovled at some level. Albright I thought played very well going forward, and made some very good passes/crosses, I can't see him losing his job at righ back any time soon. I think he still needs to learn some things as a defender as he got turned around and jumped in a few times (I'm hoping part of it is due to always playing further up the field in the past, and assuming he has some cover behind him). Herzog while more active this game didn't make as many good passes as we saw in the first game, hopefully he can turn it up a bit, even if he ends up only playing 45 minutes (ala Cienfuegoes near the end of his time..). Ruiz is playing a much less selfish role these days and a couple of times the last couple of games I think has actualy cost us. At one point he had the ball 1 on 1 with a defender in the box (2nd half) and he stood there attempting to fake and buy some time for others to get in the box, and then ended up not doing much of anything and laying it off, in the past he would have been head down toward the goal. I hope it's just part of his learning now that he has at least a competent strike partner in Kirovski. With Kirovski I get the idea that he still thinks he's above the game, he has obvious skill and made a wonderful move to get ruiz the ball on the goal, but some of the time he tries these moves and when it doesn't come off he has this look on his face that either it was his teammates faults, or that it doesn't matter because i'm so much better... maybe I'm just reading it wrong (hopefully).
I think he's been shortchanged so I'm SINGING HIS PRAISE... KIROVSKI was the best player on the field yesterday. He possessed and created chances. He got the ball in the midfield, got a return pass down the side, and set up Ruiz with his easiest goal this season after a great move on a helpless defender. My question...can Kiro play central midfield? Ngwenya (or however you spell his name) could play up with Ruiz. When we go down a goal, Herzog could come in, Sasha out, and let Kiro play an attacker midfield on the left-side. Our attack would be --> Jones, Kiro, Ngwen, aand Ruiz (pretty damn impressive). also...I saw a thread on who the fastest player in MLS is...and I haven't seen a player faster than Ngwenya. Kid's got wheels!
I know AYSO kids who would've put the same shot away for a goal that Victorine shanked. It was frustrating to see periods of time where we could not string 2 passes together and passing for the most part was horrible. Beautiful move & cross by Kiro to Fish for the goal. I like that Whoopi takes on players & gets involved with the attack. Saragosa seem to do okay. Spencer seem to be the thorn in our side as he hit the woodwork once and got shots on target. Luckily for us that other Rapids players shanked their shot, otherwise we would've lost big. I think we should be fortunate we drew.
My brother and I were discussing the same thing during the game- Kiro as central mid, with Ngwenya and Ruiz up top and Cobi wide right and somebody other than Victorine out left. Now there's a hellavu attacking team... Also agree about Ngwenya's speed. There was a play at some point when we cleared the ball out of our penalty box and the ball landed just past the mid-point of the field on the right side. A Colorado midfielder was about ten yards from the ball and Ngwenya was back at the edge of our penalty box- and they arrived at the ball at the same time. We were so impressed that we backed up (gotta love that Tivo) and watched it again just to marvel at his closing speed... Like somebody else mentioned, like a young (and taller) Cobi Jones, but with a better first touch..
You never would know Victorine played up front at UCLA... but to his defense...aw, nevermind, no defense for his play these last 2 games.
not too much to add...just...wtf was Gato thinking when de la Torre came about 1 inch from DavidSeamanizing his ass...that was surreal
I often get this feeling about Kirk as well. With me it started when I was watching the team play the USA under 17's at the HDC during preseason and he passed the ball to Greave who, I'm guessing, was supposed to pass it back and mangled the play. Kirk let out this loud snarl of frustration and I never saw him pass the ball back Greave's way. Of course, I suspect we may be expecting him to act this way. After all, it's not unreasonable to assume that a player who spent most of his career playing in upper division Euro leagues might look down on MLS. In the scenario I mention above, it could be that Kirk is just an easy to piss off kind of guy rather than an elitist. So I think we ought to cut him some slack and give him time to adjust.
Not only AYSO kids. That's exactly the goal Ben Olson scored for DCU saturday. Sasha should be forced to watch the replay of Olson's goal a few hundred times in succession.
I have not seen a worse half than the first half put forth by Vagenas Saturday. Just awful. What ticks me off so far with this club? We've been saying it for two years now. Give Ruiz five-six good chances EVERY week and watch out. Instead, we languish trying to get the guy 2-3 decent looks and he saves our bacon. Why would anyone be surprised by our struggles though when Sigi loves to stick with his pets, Pete and Sasha. MLS has passed them by...
Why should Kirovski look down at MLS? He's a player that mostly FAILED in the EURO leagues. MLS is his chance for redemption, a chance for him to make the USMNT in time the World Cup 2006.
Off -the - topic of Kiro for a sec... I think Moreno should be on the field every game, even if as a sub. But how to work it????? For Jones?
Options should definitely be presented when calling for players to be benched or S-canned from the team. I do worry about Sigi's loyalty issues though; one of my biggest complaints against the Sigster is that he doesn't give enough of his bench sitters opportunities to make impressions in games, even when the vets are playing poorly. We had all last season to do that...c'mon Sigi...let's get a little competition brewing for those starting spots!
So far Sigi has used all but one of his possible substitutions. You can't say he isn't trying new people or positions - look at the back 4 last game. Joe Ngwenya has played in two of three matches. Also, remember, with the 3 sub rule (rather than 3+1) coaches are more limited on substitutions this year.
Right, but if Pete is indeed not up to pace, shouldn't we get Grabavoy or somebody a run out on the field? I'm not calling for this right away or even proposing that he start, but damnit, I don't want to see game after game of underperformers in the starting lineup ala 2003. Is it happening already...some would probably say "yes" but I think we need a few more games the all the pieces to come together. I just want to see some energy out of these guys from the opening whistle and I believe that threats to starting positions could be something of a motivator.
Ngwenya looked like he was playing at a different speed from all the other players. As a Colorado fan watching from row 9, I was worried everytime he touched the ball. It is exciting for the league to have added new young players like Ngwenya, Adu, FAbian Taylor, and our new striker, Peguero. I think you are very fortunate to have a player like Ngwenya, and along with Kirovski and Little Fish, you have the makings of a really dangerous offensive punch.
If Ngwenya can show to be fully fit, perhaps we could see a 3 man front in the near future? Thanks for the reminder Tree of the Seaman impersonation by Gato. What the heck was he doing off his line when De La Torre hit that shot? Except for that, Hartman did a good job.
Let's be straight here. Would Grabavoy really be much worse running around than Pete? If so, he doesn't belong in MLS and we might as well find that out. I certainly want to see more of Saragosa or Ngwenya, and much less of the statue-like Torres. Is Memo just never gonna play? Stick him on the left for Sasha and let's see the kid actually stink before we decide he's no good at age 18!!!! I know Sasha's many limitations. I'd like to witness some of these other player's before they're gone. Rumors have Pablo Mastroeni on the trade block. I'd like to see him running around as our d-mid. Maybe we package Pete and Sasha for Mastro. Their unwanted for ours
Are you sure? maybe you are right and maybe these people don't play in the same positions or bring the same type of game, but I don't remember seeing Grabavoy, Gonzales, or Gardner.