OK - we had to get this thread started....son of "The Long and Happy Homestand", grandson of "The Long and Frightening Road". The Quakes have 4 road games in 19 days (with only 2 days of rest before the first one), 5 games in July in 22 days. Will almost certainly not have Brad Davis for most (all if US gets to Gold Cup final), won't have DeRo for the first two, more if Canada advances in the Gold Cup. Saturday, July 2 @ FC Dallas Saturday, July 9 @ Columbus Crew Friday, July 15 @ D.C. United Wednesday, July 20 @ Colorado Rapids Saturday, July 23 MetroStars They get to visit Dallas, Columbus, DC, and Denver on this delightful trek, putting on a lot of frequent flyer miles. And they get to visit this delightfull cities right in the heat of the summer....other than Denver, these cities can be pretty hot and/or humid this time of year. And then come back and play Metrostars at home with only two days rest. After that......a break, all star game, only one long road trip left (New England late in the year), no more than one road game in a row. So, this is a key stretch of games, if they can come out of it in decent position, they have weathered two tough road stretches and will have a much easier travelling schedule the rest of the year. What do you expect from this 5 game stretch?
Re: The Hot and Humid Hike Cross Country I think we'd be doing well if we got 6 points from the four games, but I want 12.
Re: The Hot and Humid Hike Cross Country Unfortunately the Crew are likely to have solved their goalkeeper crisis by the time we face them. They should be announcing the signing of Johnny Walker from the Metros before the weekend. I still think we can get 3 points from this one. Ronnie O'Brien worries me the most though of all the players we'll be facing. Chung does not have the stamina to stay with him for 90 minutes so expect to see increased pressure on Barrett as the game goes on. A point from this game would be a success, even with the Dallas lineup depleted. DC had our number in midfield last time, and this time we won't have Dero. Hopefully on the bigger pitch they won't dominate us so much, maybe a 4-51 would be the way to go so that we can pressure them too (and who'd miss Moreno). We should be able to take 3 points from Colorado again. So if we came home from this trip with 8 more points it would be an great success IMO.
Re: The Hot and Humid Hike Cross Country I would expect us to get at least 5 points from the 4 road games, 8 points from all 5 (beat Columbus on the road, tie DC United, tie Colorado - they really bunker in at Denver and it's hard to score; beat Metrostars at home). This is sort of my "low water" mark for the stretch. More optimistically, we could definitely beat Colorado, and should be competitive with DC United, managing to squeak out a win. I'd be thrilled if we could get a tie in Dallas, and not totally disappointed with a loss if we play well and keep it close. But if we get more than 8 points from the stretch, I would call it a resounding success. Particularly given the depleted lineup, and the tough travel schedule that you point out. On a related note, I hope we start to see some of the rookies/reserves emerging, particularly offensively (Nash, Wondolowski, ??) so that we have more options and depth. And I hope to see our defense continue to shut down other teams; even if we aren't scoring, let's keep the defense tight and continue to improve.
Re: The Hot and Humid Hike Cross Country We have a reason to be pumped up for the Metros game so yes we can beat them. Maybe even have an Alexi lalas pinata and lots more booing and heckling.
Re: The Hot and Humid Hike Cross Country I have a vision of Lalas' head on the body of an ass, donkey, mule, whatever. Make it eight feet in length, and hang it in effigy in the Casbah. Setting up for ever corner, somebody takes a whack at it. After every shot on goal, somebody takes a whack at it. And after every goal. . . any ideas?
I just added [R] to the thread title because I don't want billward to be reporting posts in this thread when we talk about the results on our road trip.
The Dallass game this weekend is the only one that really concerns me on this trip. They are in good form and are going to be very hard to beat in their place. I think ROB will give us a run for our money and without the offensive contributions of Brad, DeRo and Chinger we may have trouble. To paraphrase what lgfan said somewhere else, my head says be happy with a tie but my heart says the Quakes will be victorious. As for Columbus, even though they got their keeper situation figured out by getting Walker today, they weren't doing all that well before Busch went down. I am a little wary of this game just because the Quakes have never come into CCS in the regular season and done anything but lose (they are 0-7-1, with the tie becoming a loss after a shoot-out), but the Crew is in such dissarray right now, I will be very disappointed with anything less than a win. D.C. will be a challenge, but I think we will be able to hold our own against them. One of the keys has to be keeping Jaime Moreno in check and I think if we can do that, we could win the game. If not, I am thinking tie. We already beat Colorado in Denver this year, so I am confident that we can do it again, especially since we could have DeRo and Brad back at that point (not that I want either of their teams to do poorly, but I am selfish and we need them here too) and if we don't have them back whatever changes were made for tomorrow's game will have had 3 1/2 weeks to gel. The MetroSuck should be a nice welcome home present for us though. No matter how the trip goes, this game should yield a big fat W for us. I think all in all, the next 5 games should get us at least 11 points, although my heart says 15.
Over the first hurdle and with a point. I think this is as good as anyone expected, only bad news is that we lost Califf and probably Robinson for the next game. It's gonna make it harder to get 3 points at the crew with a makeshift defense but dom has proved very resourceful so far with his juggling.
No guesswork with the first one, that point is in the bank now. Granted, it will be tough to face Cbus without a central defense of Eddie/Califf but the Crew will be without Martino (red card last game) and since Hejduk is away for Gold Cup, that leaves them with pretty little distribution from their midfield. I would be most concerned with Rodriguez. He's feisty. Wolyniec, if given a good ball, could be dangerous and Buddle has just been erratic since an early season scoring outburst. I've been watching them lately and all they seem to do is try to lob balls over the top to Buddle. They attempt to go wide and get balls in from the wing but their forwards don't seem to do too well getting on the end of them. I can see us getting 3 points if we just play a good team possession game. DCU will be tough. With some personnel question marks, I'd say this one is a good candidate to lose but I could see us getting a tie if we're careful and get a few breaks. Colorado will be tougher at home but we can take 'em. Again, this will be a matter of generating some good chances and hitting more net than posts. I believe we'll win that one. 7 points, maybe 8 with a decent showing in DC. That would be a pretty good trip, IMO.
Nice analysis sop......I watched some of the Cbus/DC game yesterday on the replay on FSC, and the Crew's offense looked really bad....they even missed a PK (they have now had 4 PKs and only convereted one of them on the yeat). Hopefully they play that badly against us; that's the only game of the Crew that I've watched any significant portion of. I agree that we should be able to generate some offense against, them, and our defense should be able to step in and fill in for Califf. Harder if Robinson is out, too, but still possible. This will be a good test of our team depth on defense, as well as the overall teamwork and desire. The Quakes SHOULD be able to beat Cbus by playing the team, possession ball they had been doing up until Dallas (they showed a lot of heart at Dallas, but not a lot of possession. They just packed it in after they were down a man and fortunately were able to score their second goal on one of the very few scoring chances they had).
Good start for the July stretch. As pointed out, the only downside is the loss of Califf and potential loss of Robinson for next game(s). I'm worried that we may lose Califf for 2 games; he has to sit out for the ejection, but then he may have to sit out for accumulated discipline points over 21, since he now has 5 yellow cards which normally adds up to more than 21 points. Hopefully that's not the case, and they don't penalize him twice for the same issue, but that's pretty much what happened to Dombrowski in the Reserve games - he got ejected with 2 yellow cards, had to sit out the next game for the ejection, and had to sit out the following game for accumulated cards. In any case, even if we have neither of them, we need to get 3 points in Columbus, or I'll be very disappointed. I'd love to see the Quakes come back on July 23 with 8 points from these 4 games, that would make me very happy. If they get more than that, it will make me very, VERY happy! And then, gotta beat up on the Metrostars, most definitely.
Columbus is a side devoid of confidence. We should beat them despite how depleted they are unless we have a let down post Dallas and don't play with intensity and within our system.
Momentum is on our side presently, and I would expect it to continue (with the current string of injuries notwithstanding)... Already got that gut-check of a draw in Dallas, and here's my picks on the rest: Saturday, July 9 @ Columbus Crew -- win Friday, July 15 @ D.C. United -- draw Wednesday, July 20 @ Colorado Rapids -- win Seven points out of nine, that's what I'd expect, on the heels of a current form that has seen the Quakes take seven points from the last three games as well. Business as usual.
The loss of these key guys is likely to be felt more heavily in DC. The lack of consistency in Columbus' offense leads me to believe that we can overcome their absence. If Rico keeps playing with the heart he's shown, Chung gets his head in this game and steps up to help settle the youngsters, and Mullen doesn't get fouled off his game our midfield should dominate. 3 points in Columbus IMO... but DC that's going to depend on whether we have our power in the defense again.
Foolish - totally agree on going into DC without Califf and Robinson being a much bigger issue. Let's hope that Califf doesn't have to sit out 2 games....and the Eddie can come back quickly. On the good news front, the Galaxatives choke tonight and snatch a draw from the jaws of victory, letting the Revs score in stoppage time with basically no time left. We remain tied with LA for second place, and they've played one more home game than we have. They now have 2 road games and 2 home games this month, and they'll be without Marshall and Ramirez at least for the next game (they'll be off to their Gold Cup teams....they got a pass this weekend and were able to play, unlike DeRosario for us).
I love watching the galiscum choke, was almost as good as that other tie this week Chinchilla (I think it was) could have saved 2 points for the galiscum if he had only taken a couple of steps forward to play the two Revs offside.
Posted this on another thread, but thought I'd put it here since I first brought it up. Califf should NOT have to sit out 2 games, as the MLS regulations say that if a player gets 2 yellows in one game, then only 1 yellow counts in his accumulated points. So, he'll sit out against CBus for his ejection, but then be able to play at DC United. He'll be on "Discipline Watch" at that point, meaning that if he gets another yellow card in the next 3 games, then he'll have too many points accumulated and will have to sit out. But, at least we shouldn't be without the 2 of them for more than one game....and maybe Eddie will be ready to play this weekend.
OK, just like we made our move on LA during June, I actually think we have a chance to make up some ground on Dallas during July. Yes, we have a tough road trip. But Dallas now has 3 road games left this month, over a 2-1/2 week period, against the Revs, RSL, and the Metros. An interesting point about our records shows that we have played as well as Dallas, in fact a bit better than Dallas, against all of the teams except Chivas and RSL: Dallas against non expansion teams: 5-4-2, 15 GF, 12 GA San Jose against non expansion teams: 5-3-4, 15 GF, 11 GA The only real difference in the standings is that they have played RSL and Chivas 5 times, and won all 5; we have played them 4 times and won 1, tied 3. I could seriously see us come out of July within a few points of Dallas; if we take care of Columbus and Colorado, tie DC United, and beat the Metros at home that gives us 10 points for those 4 games. I could see Dallas only winning 1 of their 3 games and maybe tying 1, for 4 points. That would put us only 3 points behind them at the All Star break (we'd have one game in hand, but still, that would be a great position and would start to put some pressure on Dallas for the last 3 months). And then, if we can take care of RSL and Chivas the rest of the way, we might really put some pressure on Dallas.
Two outta four down and still on track for the 8 points that most thought would be an excellent road trip. So far everything has gona according to plan.
Absolutely - they find a way to get it done, and they do so in ways that keep emphasizing how much of a T-E-A-M they are. Now, onto DC for what I expect will be a very tough match. I guess the good news is that DC certainly doesn't seem to be firing on all cylinders right now....they haven't scored a goal in two games (Columbus scored it for them last week). We get Califf back, Robinson seems to be ok, and hopefully Mullan will be ok. Might have DeRo back, but don't know if he'd be available to play or not.....Canada's last game in the Gold Cup could be Tuesday in Massachusetts, so DeRo could just go and meet the team in DC (unless Canada pulls a rabbit out of their hat and learns to score a goal and beats Cuba....)