With Clark, Lisi, Guevarra & Vaca (Gaven & Flores also) for the Metrostars in the midfield, can you name a MLS team with a more skillfull midfield? Come on I dare you !
I was pushing New England as the best midfield a few days ago, but I gotta say we looked REALLY good last night. Great possesion game, great team movement off the ball, everyone getting involved.
Hey, I watched all the games yesterday. I've always liked Bradley's approach of gathering as much high-quality young talent as possible. And he's able to get them to play together with great shape and organization. Is there a cup in the Metros future? It sure looked like it yesterday.
I was thinking New England a had a good midfield, but Metros have got it, I wonder what happens between Lisi/Clark, I'd like to see both start, its just a shame that both of then can't unless someone else is going to sit.
Unless we go with Park, Pope, and Bonseau at the back and a five man midfield. but I have a feeling Bob prefers 442
We play better attacking football with Lisi on the field and we defend better when Clark is playing. Based on the game last night, I would take Lisi over Clark right now.
The thing is, is Vaca good enough to start, he did well out on Saturday, but he didnt get into the game as much as I thought he would, maybe bob should try Clark over Vaca.
If Vaca gets taken out of the equation then the entire scheme of the midfield becomes meaningless. Vaca helped out alot during the first half as he was able to service both Woly & Magee on the near side. True he didn't get alot of touches in the 2nd half because the ball was mostly on the near end of the field and Vaca was playing on the far side this time. It's just one game right now and I truly believe down the stretch this is going to be the most dangerous Midfield that the MLS will ever see as well as the best Midfield tandem that Metro have ever had. When Bob does go to a 3-5-2 We can see Rico helping out the defenders and he can add to the attack as we remember those three goals he scored last season. In Bob we trust and in Bob we shall win. Metro right now top of the table ahead of DC on Goal Differential in the Goals Scored department.
????? what? is not an issue if one is better than the other.... they play slightly different roles.... Vaca brings to Metro something we lacked in spades last year.... the issue is Clark/Lisi/Gaven.... take your pick. Hard choice.
The 3-5-2 is what Bradley wants and its what we will see when Pope comes back... Clark, Gaven, and Lisi are all too good to have one of them sit on the bench. We need all our best players on the field and that would mean sitting Ziadie and Leitch (I do think Leitch is much improved though).
Rico to right back? In those rare cases where all five of our midfielders are healthy, I think one possible solution might be to replace Craig Zaidie with Ricardo Clark. (In a 4-4-2 Clark would play fullback, and in a 3-5-2 he would pick up the right wing with most likely Eddie Gaven moving to left wing). Clark brings quality, athleticism, physicality and attacking skill that Zaidie simply doesn't have. He's not played so much there, but I think position specific experience is somewhat overated in MLS -- look at how successfully Pablo Mastroeni has been at a huge variety of positions, also Ryan Nelsen, Demo Kovalenko, Manny Lagos, Richard Mulrooney, etc. I loved Lisi's play last year, and on Saturday he picked up at his peak. I think the D-mid position masks his weaknesses (lack of beat-someone-off-the-dribble speed) and emphasizes his ability to read plays and to send accurate, insightful long passes -- both skills very rare in MLS. So if Clark is beaten out by Lisi there, and by Vaca on the right side of midfield, I think slotting him in at right fullback or wingback is a good use of our available talent. Thoughts?
Re: Rico to right back? I was very happy with the way we played, but let's not get too ridiculous after one game against a less than stellar opponent. It was a very good game for Metro. Let's not let it go to our heads. It's a long season. Enter your own cliche of temperance here. If people are just now coming around to the fact that Bradley is a good coach, I kind of question what you were thinking before. If people just realized that he was building a team based on young talent, did all of the guys under 20 slip past you in last year's draft? This team is as loaded as any Metro team has been, and it's got a good upside. Let's not kill it with expectations of running the table.