Many thanks to my second-favourite team, Chicago, for *pasting* Kansas City 5-1 in Napierville last night. Special plaudits go to referee Erich Simmons for giving Meola two cautions for dissent (or "descent" as MLSnet has it) and red-carding Nick "hey, lemme rearrange your bones" Garcia, contestant for this year's Kle Kooiman Memorial Trophy. How sweet to hear that someone put 4 goals past Meola, then put another past his sub when he was thrown out on his ear. the performance apparently included a chip over Meola by Hristo "Bulgaria's Answer to Marco" Stoichkov, who then collected his own chip and slotted it home. Of course, it's tunning evidence of our ineptitude that a team only midtable (if you ignore the silly divisional-lead thing) can pour this gasoline over the Whiz and ignite it, and we can't even score a single goal on them (well, one that the Moron can't call back somehow), but cold comfort is better than none, and seeing that scoreline did my heart good. As GooseGirl says, Ray has gotten our defense running pretty smoothly; get the offese up to the same mark, and we'll be int he playoffs no problem, and maybe get "our" cup back. Oh, *and* the Post suggests that the Moron may be facing disciplinary proceedings as a result of last weekend's fiasco. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19330-2002Aug14.htmlCouldn't be better...
The Fire could have scored at will. KC was horrid in the back. I'm not a Fire fan, but they were fun as hell to watch last night.
No, but he was very slow to react at times. And once he started going down to try and stop Stoichkov's breakaway, he couldn't stop the momentum. That chip was sweet. The passing on the first four goals was nice.
I'll second this motion. I loved watching this game. Great to see "El Fatador" Tony get his due even though the ref was generally incompetent and unfair. This was a make up for the fact that Kansas got a point on Saturday. Beasley was MOM. Lovely touch on the first goal and had poise and control throughout the game. He'll be in Europe after the end of the season. As well at Hristo played he had some bad plays, like the "back through ball" to Fabbro that resulted in the opening goal.
This was my favorite part, Tony recognizing his weakness, overcompensates and gets scored on again. "We were able to posses the ball and I was able to make a diagonal run," Beasley said. "Kelly saw me and I was yelling at him and he played a great ball. I tried to cut Nick Garcia back inside and I saw Tony cheating to the near post, so I hit it to the far one." quoted from soccertimes article available here: http://www.soccertimes.com/mls/2002/games/aug14.htm
Now, now, if Tony were truly "fat" he would simply have to put his "fat" in the way of these shots and would have only let in 1 or 2.
As gradifying as it is to see Fat Tony riddled with goals, unfortunately, with the Chicago, and Columbus win, it makes it that much more likely that we will not make the playoffs. It would have been more beneficial to us if KC had won. So maybe Tony had the last laugh. TS.
What does it say that the MLS Player of the Week gets pasted and ejected in the very next game? Perhaps its the soccer gods throwing us a tiny bone.
Exactly. We're in "small glories time." Maybe the players want to worry about the playoff, but it's no concolation to finish 8th and then get pasted by the top team. I'll be happy if I get to see a DC win the rest of the season. Each game on it's own.
Chicago were deserved winners. Me, I thought the referee was crap. Utter and complete. The late pk call was harsh and he sent of Tony because he was on a card rush. I'm no Meola fan, but that whole last 3-4 minute sequence was bs.
I'm with you, 79. I thought it was a really entertaining game to watch, and I did thoroughly enjoy it, but combined with Columbus' win last night, I went to sleep with a rather sinking feeling. DC is at the point where we need some other results to go our way, and they didn't. I take no joy in the fact that Meola got pasted last night and we couldn't put jack past him 4 days earlier.
Hey, I'll continue to look at the glass half-full: I always thought it was a matter of time that Columbus and Chicago would play to their potential (especially Chicago). So those teams are now distancing themselves from us. Keep in mind that this could be the beginning of the end for KC. They have received most of their points thus far by tying games, rather than winning. They have played two more games than DC and only one point more than Chicago and Columbus. Maybe DC can get rid of the curse and start winning games, sneaking into the playoffs at the expense of Fat Tony et al.