The Taylor Twellman Injury Watch

The much fouled Twellman

It should come as no suprise to anyone that this has happened. Game after game that poor kid has taken a beating from the opposition. Lots of cheap shots. They can't beat him playing clean so they take risky, season-ending shots on him.

Jerks.

 

Clearly the blame for this lies at the feet of the referee. You'd think that he gets fined for showing a card. To be fair, I figured out that this guy was going to let the game get out of hand when Hernandez didn't get called for a flagrant foul near our box early on. #22 on Colorado, whoever he was, was sliding into Twellman repeatedly. He should have gotten at least 3 or 4 yellows, but instead, probably because he already had one yellow, he got 3 or 4 "stern lectures" about his fouls. If Twellman is injured, then that ref needs to be out of the league.

 

Twellman was hobbling around with two bags of ice strapped to each ankle when I left the locker room. I asked how bad it was. He smiled and said he didn't know, but that he had panicked a little because his foot and ankle went completely numb right after that last tackle. Still, he seemed in reasonably good spirits, not as if he was in a ton of pain.

 

Personally, I thought the side-studding Twellman got from Titus appeared to be potentially worse.

Twellman had better get used to it, however. He's still nursing a broken wrist from his stinit at TSV 1860, hence the wrap around his left wrist.

To his credit, though, he's tough and he's not afraid to toss his body around. Unfortunately, that path is not condusive to a long playing career.

From the FWIW Department: You see the look on Jim Rooney look-alike "Cosmo" Kramer when Twellman came barrelling in on his second goal?

 

I'd like to see some numbers on second yellows given out by refs this year in MLS. Clearly, the players are not afraid of picking up a second yellow. It seems to me that once you get a yellow you can play like it's the third period of a Stanley Cup playoff game because the refs don't have the guts to hand out that second yellow and remove you from the game. Last night, number 3 elbows Rusty in the eye on what could/should have been a second card, and instead of Colorado playing with 10 men, it's the Revs who are penalized because Rusty needs considerable medical attention before re-entering the game. I think last night, Colorado should have had three players receive second yellows, numbers 3, 22, and 2 before he was subbed out. Clearly, the initial yellows and the "stern lectures" were not deterring these guys from making dangerous plays.

In a league that claims it needs stars to market, thinks Americans want to see goals, and has such small rosters, it needs to make it clear to the refs that their number one priority is the safety of its players. I am not a ref, but I have always thought that a refs first goal was to make sure all 22 players walk off the field healthy. Soccer is physical and players can get injured in legal ways, but refs can do a lot to stop the dangerous, illegal stuff that causes so much injury and which allows unskilled buffoons to destroy good offensive soccer.

 

Apparently the league hasn't added Taylor to the
list- you know the one Landon Donovan is on-
you can't even stand near Donovan without getting a card. pisses me off, no justice.
Sorry , I'm cranky today.
-Skip

 

Honestly what the Revolution organization needs to do is get someone (hell, it could be an intern) to gather the game tapes for every Revs game this year, borrow one of the Patriots editing decks (I'm sure there's no shortage of video equipment next door in sports valhalla) and put together a "montage" of all the late, low, and potentially crippling tackles made on Taylor Twellman this year.

Then take the tape, wrap it up with a bow, and send it to the league office. Because this shite has got to stop.

 

There is a solution for this. When Taylor gets wacked, some nice studs to Carrieri's calf should promptly follow. Respond in kind to the crap teams are dishing out.

RC

 

Where's Leo Alvarez when you need him?

 

Palacius's hipcheck on Twellman should definitely been his second yellow. About 13000 people in the stands would agree with that one. How the elbow to Pierce's head goes unnoticed is crazy. It was right where the ball was. He made all the other calls, but seemed afraid to pull the trigger on the more serious calls.

 

He certainly would've been protection for TnT this year, wouldn't he?!

I'm actually surprised that all the Hernandez-haters haven't been voicing their frustration at him NOT thugging it up in this match.

KF

 

Regarding the incident that resulted in Pierce being cut open, on the television replay, Kotschau's elbows were up, but it looked more like your common, every day, head-to-head collision.

I wasn't that upset about it after the replay - not like I was every time TNT got fouled.

 

I'm thinking we might be living in a glass house on this one, and Mssrs. Pierce, Franchino, et. al. get away with just about as much in wiley ways of thuggery as any other crew. Last night, Colorado simply gave it better than we did. The referee had a poor match, but then everyone has a poor match now and again.

 

With respects, I really don't think so.

The point is, whoever is playing, the officials need to maintain control. And especially where Taylor Twellman is concerned, they have simply not done this this year.

Defenders are a surprisingly compliant bunch who will play within whatever constraints are drawn up for them, but use up every inch allowed them.

Taylor Twellman leads the league in goals, but because he's not exceptionally quick, is susceptable to low tackles. So as a defender, if nothing prevents me, I'm going to take him low when beaten. Until something (for example, the likelihood of an ejection) prevents me, I'm going to try to nuetralize the league's hottest forward in the whatever way I can. I've seen some very good and very seasoned defenders cheap shot Twellman this year - Bocanegra, Suarez, Lalas, etc. Defenders take what is given them - it's part of the job.

The point is, this type of behavior can/should be prevented and benefits no one - especially not the fans. And if Pierce/Franchino deserve it - they should get the hook as well.

 

Taylor

Taylor will almost definitely play this Saturday. He has two swollen ankles/achilles but he will tough it out. The first ankle was actually hurt on the turf in Chicago last week and made worse by the multiple kicks last night.

As for his wrist, its fine. He injured it in high school and has been wrapping like that ever since - more for good luck/force of habit than anything else.

 

Thanks for the update Dr Jay. Any news on LLamosa?

 

Carlos

No direct confirmation on Carlos, but the word is he had a little "tweak" last night. He could have stayed in but since Pierce was on the bench a ready to go, Nichols figured why risk it.

 

Hope I'm not trolling too bad on your board here, but as a DC fan I've had to watch Moreno go through exactly what Twellman is now facing.

For your teams sake (as well as the Nat's), I hope the league cracks down on this very soon. And when you send in that tape, make sure to include some footage of Moreno, he's a shell of his former self at the relatively young age of 29 and I think it has alot to do with him being the most fouled player over the last several years.

Twellman actually reminds me alot of Jamie, defenders just can't match his speed and when the ball skills are thrown in there as well, they resort to bone crunching tackles.

Good luck with the rest of the season, and since it looks like DC is probably done w/ the playoffs, I hope you guys sneek in there ahead of the Metros.

 

Thanks for the support RoHo, and good luck to Jaime, he's a class forward who I have always loved to watch.

It seems to me that TnT suffers from the lack of that one quarter step of acceleration that would take him past many of the challenges unscathed. He is such a gutsy player with the ball and puts himself in harms way constantly but seems to be unable to completely lose the varaiety of goons who come after him.

The refs should protect him but so should his team mates. TnT also needs to be a bit meaner, to gain space by making it clear that anyone who messes with him could get hurt. Not that he isn't brave and tough, he certainly is but I am reminded of a poll I read years ago on the "dirtiest" players in Latin America that was taken by consulting the players themselves. High among the usual suspects of Paraguyan choppers and Colombian D Mids (one of ours for awhile!) was Enzo Francescoli, a silky smooth Uruguayan forward who played in Spain, France, Italy and Argentina. The explanatory blurb described how the 5 ft. 7 inch "El Principe" used every means available to make certain that defenders didn't compact his work space. Steve Nicol could be a big help here.

JIM DOW

 

I'm also a big Moreno fan (his bizarre 2001 face-licking confrontation with Pierce notwithstanding). He provides a pretty apt example of who loses from unrestricted thuggish play (besides, obviously, the injured players themselves) - the fans. Very few players in the league have the repertoire of skills that Moreno does - but as a fan, I don't get to see him play. It really concerns me that Taylor Twellman may well be in the same boat if the current trends continue.

 

While these bad tackles are bad for Twellman (and Moreno, Wolff, Nowak, and a host of others) they're also bad for the league. Not only do the most exciting players hobble around for good portions of the seasons, but I'd hate to see the reaction of foreign players that the league is trying to recruit if they ever watch a game. Sure, fouls like that happen in every league in the world, but they are usually punished more.

I'd also like to see a few more fouls for persistant fouling. There are too many lead-footed defenders in the league who seem mainly concerned with staying close enough to opposing forwards to foul them when they are beaten.

 

This is an observation, not criticism, but one of the reasons Taylor finds himself in a position to get fouled a lot is that he stays involved. He comes back for balls, he pressures defenders, he chases deflections and errant passes, and he even tracks back to cover for midfielders (this was particularly noticeable several times late in the Rapids game, when the Rapids started a counter-attack with Ralston caught forward, and Taylor was right there in the wing position until Ralston could get back). So he spends a lot more time within opposing players' kicking range than he would if he were standing around waiting for plays to reach him...

 

Great point re. the amount of time TnT spends "at risk." With his level of committment it is no wonder he gets whacked and a small miracle he hasn't gotten cranked thus far. If you watch the top leagues in the world most players play with this kind of intensity so it is no wonder that big, 30 players, squads are required. Imagine if all the Revs put themselves about this way, we would be down to T III and maybe Steve Nicol himself in no short order.

JIM DOW