Final: 5-2. How depressing. What does this mean? Where does this leave us? I'm too tired to think. I'll figure it out in a few hours What were we missing? Any of you see it? What was your overall opinion?
Washington 5-Blue Lions 2 I saw it. We looked really good in the first half and took a 2-1 lead into the locker room. I was a very happy guy at halftime. Hege and Birgit and Top were making monkeys out of the Freedom defenders. Final four, here we come! In the second half, the Freedom laid a whipping on us. It was UGLY. What was the difference? Same two teams, same field, same game conditions, same ref, same crowd in the stands, except that we had smiles on our faces in the first half and tears running down our cheeks in the second. But here's something that was different. Washington subbed in Mia Hamm at halftime. Could that have been the difference? Surely not. But now that you mention it, Mia was playing really well, one of her best games ever in the League, with two goals and an assist. Anybody else struck by this coincidence?
Re: Washington 5-Blue Lions 2 Even without seeing the game, I'm struck by the coincidence. And this isn't the first game this has happened. Washington is the best team in the league right now when Mia is playing.
Well, I guess I'm glad I had to work late and could not see this one. Sigh!!! We need to pull ourselves together! I guess Slaton being a lot less than 100% is a part of our problem. And the lack of TR! Last season we tied with the Freedom for last and now they are taking over our role as the comeback kid.
How did Birgit do? I missed this one and the last one so I don't know what to make of the comments about how frustrated she seemed against Atlanta. How did she seem against the Freedom?
I thought we looked pretty good in the offensive third--definitely better than the last 2 games! The score shows we got drubbed, but we had a lot of near misses with crossbars, and just wide shots. Mullinix tipped a few into the crossbar and over. What was bad was the defense in the 2nd half. All the second half goals came out of attacks/shots from the defending left side. I don't recall if that's been the pattern all season. We couldn't handle Wambach in the second half, probably because we had to be more balanced with Hamm on the opposite side.
Again, there were acres of space for Washington in our defensive half and there were a bunch of times when a weak-side defender was sucked into the middle of the field leaving a Washington mid-fielder or forward on the weak-side very much alone and available for a cross. I would very much like to see the Courage pressure quite a bit more in mid-field and not compact into our box quite so willingly and quickly. Offensively, every team in the league knows how we distribute 90% of our balls, Lucks punts and Fotop or Birgit flick on. We'll now other teams will get a body on the flicker until the balls in the air and then back off and wait to pick off the flick and get things going the other way. How 'bout we settle one of those and get some flank runners going and actually get some alternatives. Don't abandon the punt-n-flick offense but mix it up with other things so other teams can't park on it. And, it was wonderful to see Yanki back out there!! We've really missed her speed and tenacity on the flank.
She looked fine against DC. The reffing was a lot better than in Atlanta. There were still the missed calls and all but a pretty well reffed game for the WUSA. I still have no idea what either card was for last night. Baxter challanged for a 50/50 ball and she and Wambach collided. If he cautioned Erin he should've cautioned Wambach, too as they both went at that ball very hard. Thing she was frustrated about in Atlanta was get clobbered by the Atlanta defenders everytime she got near the ball and no call. Oh yeah, and getting hacked down, from behind by the last defender in the box after a wonderful 40 yard run and no red-card and PK. That was actually the ball game right there. Even if we don't convert that PK, we so dominated Atlanta until the very end when we were throwing everyone forward and not really defending looking for the equalizer that Atlanta playing a man down would've had no chance.
Hopefully we play well on PAX this weekend, we need a win!! ....Good to hear Yankowski (sp?) is back, but I've been gone for awhile, so whats up with Carla??
*SOB* Don't mention Carla...I'm so depressed about how things are going for her... She'll ALWAYS rock!
Birgit did play well tonight and clearly wasn't as frustrated as she was against Atlanta. And I agree with jvanark, she had to be more frustrated with getting clearly taken down in Atlanta. I think Birgit got contained well by Moore, DC's man marker. She was all over her the second half (I was on the opposite side of the field the first half). I'm assuming it was the same in the first half, but when you have a player like Prinz, she's going to score no matter how she's being defended and she proved that last night. Anyone else surprised to see Hege taking more of the corner kicks than usual? I'm assuming it was to counter DC's tall players in the box. Carolina definitely pushed our backs to the wall in the first half. We got lucky to get out of there only allowing 2 goals. With that said, I do think the difference in this game was Mia. Bie and Abby were working very hard in the first half but could only tally one goal. Once Mia got in there, she had to be guarded and Carolina's defense just had to open up more to cover the diversity of our attack.
There was still alot of very sloppy defending and what looked like improper defensive rotations when someone stepped out to mark someone frequently no one slid into fill the vacated area. DC players were allowed to run at the defense largely un-marked which resulted in 2 of the goals. When we marked the DC players tightly and cut down their options Carolina won the ball back and was able to counter attack. Looked dis-organized and gave DC way too much respect in the form of giving them time and space to work in.