I’ll be watching tonight, curious to see how the refs do, and I won’t be surprised if they’re an improvement.
I wonder how many iPhones were alerted by the same notification I received about the Inter Miami game.
Salt Lake gave away a season's worth of chances last night. Miami was coughing the ball up in dangerous positions all through the second half. If RSL didn't have brain dead attackers, they get a result there. Miami looks old and slow and it's only the first game of a very long season.
My 14 yo Miami's defense looks more fragile than ours. I hope they're prepared to win a lot of 5-4 games because good teams are going to make a mockery of their backline. Its a couple aging superstars, a couple of upper middle class players and then a bunch of stiffs who should be playing for DCU. I saw some of their middle east tour high lights, their GK looks more like Drake than Drake Callener. I thought it was a decently called game, certainly not wore than the PRO standard, although 1 game does not make a season or a trend.
I thought the yellow called on Perez? for the "foul" on Messi was bogus. Twellman also thought it wasn't a foul, just picked Leo's pocket. Kryvstov? falling on Arango to prevent him scoring sure looked DOGSO to me. Those were two big misses.
I thought the early yellow was great and I wish more refs would do it. It was easy for the ref because it’s Messi getting fouled but I think it contributed to foul reduction and less whistles.
The big takeaway is that Busquets played 84', Suarez played 90', and Messi and Alba played 94'. Miami finished with an unused sub. There's your tactical genius Tata Martino, ladies and gentlemen.
You're ignoring the part where I said it was not worse than the PRO standard which is an entirely different thing from good. And does anyone not think Messi will enjoy heavy protection from any ref, scab or otherwise? No way MLS wants the meal ticket missing a minute because he got roughed up. At least not until the playoffs. This isn't Europe where its every team for themselves. We've seen quite clearly that MLS wants Messi here and didn't spend all that money, didn't facilitate a colossal sponsorship package so that Messi would be ground to dust by May. This isn't a Barca team with stars at every position and stars on the bench. This is single entity MLS.
Felipe Cardenas just dropped that Argentina will play in Philadelphia on 3/22 vs El Salvador and 3/26 in LA vs Nigeria.
Maybe they can figure out how to use VAR properly. I honestly think that will help this situation from spiraling. And, for better or worse, put pressure on PRO.
Pablo Maurer posted this on Twitter: The New York Red Bulls sent out a “fan survey” and this question & the available answers to it are just absolutely killing me for some reason. pic.twitter.com/YDl5sayZdV— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) February 26, 2024
My search skills can not find an answer for this. I recall under Benny, DC United started an all-American starting XI. I strongly suspect that was the last time an MLS team did such a thing. Additionally, I strongly suspect that will be the last time any MLS team ever does such a thing. Any thoughts on when that might have been?
Houston Dynamo beat the most recent MLS favorited team, St Louis City, last night in their Concacaf Champs League match up. Ben's team just plays hard and nothing super fancy. They just play it with pretty good players and no flake heads as their DPs.