"Seemed" is the operative word here. I can't stress this enough, but do not project your feelings about players onto them because of perceived behaviors. You have literally no idea what is going on in a player's mind unless they express it to you directly and they are telling the truth. You can criticize late tackles or failing to make timely runs or what have you. But attacking a players' willingness to work hard is a pretty gross thing to do, especially because in the US, it is largely rooted in racism. I don't think you have any intent in that, but when you say players look like they aren't trying very hard and they are POC, you're playing into very racist stereotypes. So unless you had a personal chat with Chofis about how he feels out there, I'd recommend not speculating on such things and instead focus on the actual actions that the players perform. And I'll own up to my own criticisms that fall into this category. I try really hard not to do it with players, but I did recently express that Almeyda's body language on the field suggested he was no longer interested in coaching the team. I really should not have said as much because I really have no way of making such claims based on what amounts to zero evidence.
And we've conceded the central midfield defensively. Have you seen Remedi shoot? His best play is recovering the ball, slowing down, and falling down when he feels pressure from behind. Not sure that's what we want from our CAM. Jackson at least has shown the capability in the past to play some nice attacking passes and hit some good shots. He also had a good game against LA in LA, in the CAM role. So we know he can do it. He just needs to get out of his slump.
I just wrote I'd put Chofis in the CAM spot, if forced into diamond (Judson as the Stopper). I wouldn't play a diamond on this team though.
Yeah, and I wrote that we'd lose the central midfield defensively if we played Chofis there, which has happened in a lot of games this year with Chofis in that spot. But yeah, as currently constructed, a diamond isn't a great fit for this team.
oh c’mon, that’s one exceptional game after 23 games where Chofis irritated the crap out of me. It only took me about 3 games to get on the Nathan bandwagon. And I don’t think I ever warmed up to Vako…
Man, tough crowd! Even before the 3 goals, he was the Quakes leading goalscorer, and had several early goals in games that have given the Quakes a good chance to win or at least tie. In the LA game, he was really good also, and scored the winning goal (though technically I think it was an own goal). The commonality between the LA game and the RSL game is that he played right forward. That's where he needs to stay - at forward. Then he won't be a defensive liability and we can keep him close to the goal where he is dangerous.
???? The whole point of sports and entertainment (such as theatre, movies, etc) is to invoke feelings in the viewer. The whole purpose of fandom is to evoke feelings. Historically, why do we root for USMNT teams? Because their perceived “character” and “heart” carried them to heights beyond their skills. That’s why we cheer for underdogs and why we say there is no i in team. Because we value teamwork and heart. I try not to use pejoratives. But if I say that a player has negative body language, or poor work rate on the field, how is that racist? I would say that about any player who does that whether black, white, green, red, yellow, orange, purple, or brown. in the last 8-10 years, I can’t recall any other Quakes player who’s looked so blasé during a game.
Chofis would be best suited as the wide forward in a 4-3-3. The problem is that we do not have the RB and CM to play alongside Judson and JY. You cannot play with Ramedi there as he is offensively lacking so a quality ACM is a must for that formation.
If I'm not mistaken we've done the 4-3-3 twice, once in the dominant win against LA, and then against RSL. We've scored 5 goals in those 2 games, Chofis has really 4 (although the LA goal was technically an own goal). I think if Nathan was playing against RSL we wouldn't have given up 4 goals, but OTOH I don't think Nathan played in the LA win either, which in my mind just makes the LA game that much more impressive. But in any case, I think Judson - Remedi - Yueill works very well in the 4-3-3. It's very solid defensively in the center, and the idea is that you win the ball in midfield and then counter from there. That's how we were so dominant against LA. Yueill needs to get used to that role, and I know it's all the rage here to trash him these days, he can do a decent job there. He was very good against LA. He would be more of an 8/10 rather than a full on 10. You trade a little bit of offense for defense.
His assists per minute decline was fairly miniscule between 2019 and 2020, but, if you add in his goals he assist/goal total was better per minute last year than 2019. This year he is down on assists, but, hasn't exactly had a consistent striker in the middle. I suspect his production would be better if he had someone like Jebo there the entire season. Still, Espinoza is not someone I would consider getting rid of. In a little bit of an offensive slump, but, has other qualities that are appreciated, like a great work rate and tracks back well defensively.
He's OK, but does not pull his weight as a $1.2 mil player. I would not be upset if we kept him (and I assume his contract goes for 1 or 2 more years, but we could trade him). I honestly don't know how you can take about 200 shots over 3 years and have only 7 goals. It takes 30 shots to score once? You'd almost have to be trying to miss. In the last 3 years, Espinoza has 7 goals on 189 shots. Shea Salinas has 8 goals on 47 shots. Class dismissed!!!
I am sure I can find a post from you somewhere on this forum where you point out (probably to Falvo) that Espinoza is more of a winger than a forward, and therefore providing assists is more his job. And he has 28 assists in the last three years, where Shea only has 7.
Shea has half the minutes that Espinoza has in the last 3 years, so he's really 1/2 as productive with assists as Espinoza. And he's 2x as productive with goals. And he makes 1/5 the $ as Espinoza, not to mention the record(?) (for us) transfer fee we paid for him ($2.5mil?). And my god, if your "job" is to get assists, stop trying to take so many shots! It's killing us. Class dismissed!! My historical position on Espinoza is that, yes, I would expect him to get assists, but as our $1.25 mil per year, / $2.5mil transfer guy, I would also expect him to get a decent amount of goals. I always liked the general "shape" of his shot - good hard bending shot, and after his first year I expected his goal rate to go up because he had many near misses his first year. Then I noticed that he'd even developed a decent shot with his left, so OK, he can cut in and hit it with his left. But the goals never happened, and it seems he only got worse in terms of his shooting and goal productivity. I've seen enough at this point. He has gotten steadily less effective since he started with the team - a disappointment. He's in the prime of his career - 24, 25, 26, he's supposed to be getting "used to the league" and getting better. Didn't happen.
This is an aside —- and apologies for it being in the Chofis thread —- but I just read a book on memory. A flash bulb memory is a shocking or significant event where you remember what you were doing when that event happened. I realized that these are my top 3 flash bulb memories: JFK assassination 9-11 The USMNT failed to qualify
I was not accusing you of being racist, I was saying that using language referring to players as lazy has a very racist history and you should be mindful of how you phrase your criticisms, especially since you have no way of knowing how much effort a player is putting in based on their body language alone. It's much more pointed to criticize a failure to get back on defense or some specific action rather than point to body language and speculate about whether or not the player wants to be on the field.
jesus this is ridiculous and out of the blue. Chofis was looking pretty lazy, as he does in this game, but overall his work rate has picked up more recently imo.