I'm sitting there in the rain in the 75th, 80th, and every minute after that wondering (and sometimes yelling): Why the hell are Ralston, and especially Twellman, still on the field when you are up 2-0 at home, the Ref does not have control of the game, and field is very wet? I know Taylor is young, in great condition, etc, but if he gets hurt, what are the Revs chances of making it to the finals? Look at that harsh take-out of Twellman in the 82nd minute or so that led to a Yellow card for the Fire. Hello, Steve, you basically have two offensive players, you're up 2 at home, do you want to really risk injuring them when you don't need them to score? You know the Fire were aiming for those two, especially because this series is not over. They have a big incentive to take out the Revs only two legitimate offensive threats. It was a great night, but Nicol has got to protect his players. He slipped a few notches in my book.
Evidently you haven't watched the Revs over the years, and are unaware of their propensity to give up important games by going into defensive shells late.
Dema needs anger mgmt classes A foul is a foul. BUt Dema cannot be taken for a ride, he gets mean. And when Kante got the yellow, he never touched Dema. He missed the ball and Kovalenko dove. I was also afraid that TnT would be leaving in a stretcher.
I think that was Razov and not Kovalenko that got Kante carded. And moacir is right - Daouda never touched him.
Funny, I never would have thought so from the way Daouda DIDN't get in the ref's face and bitch about it. Good game and good luck this weekend.
biased call exactly. good acting by razov when there wasn't even a contact and poor call by the ref on kante. and regarding nicol's decision to keep both ralston and twellman on the field the rest of the game ~ the way i see it is he's just trying to preserve the win....you know, it's not over 'til it's over. i'm just glad no one was seriously hurt during the game because it got a wee rough out there.
Hopefully the advice from Ramos was well-remembered by Taylor...and with the Fire's possession game and offensive capabilities...a 2-0 lead is not something you put in the bank until the match is over.
Did you notice that Hernandez is becoming our enforcer? As soon as one of our players gets mugged, he seems to put a nice hard foul on the offending player. While it's nice to see, he needs to be careful or the refs will start looking for that and start reaching for their cards before he makes contact.
Ralston has never been subbed out this year, and I don't think it happened much in his Tampa Bay days either, so that doesn't represent a change. As for Twellman, as others have mentioned, the game wasn't over yet, he was playing a lot of D, so I didn't mind. Besides, it's our defenders who are always getting hurt.
Most of Hernandez's hard fouls could have been prevented but competent refereeing. If he had consistantly called the first foul instead fo the third or fourth in a sequence these guys would not have been as frustrated and would not have started taking things into their own hands. I thought this guy called a horrible game.
disciplined team Of all the things the Revs did right last night, they showed great team self control. In a match where the fouling is very harsh and often the Revs used to be the team losing their cool, getting carded and not playing soccer. Now they are the team walking away from the arguments and playing some damn good soccer. GO REVS!!!
I don't really buy that. Protecting your stars by taking them out of the game late takes away more in team chemistry and attitude than it adds in protection from injuries. If you start playing or coaching as though you are afraid of injuries, particularly in the most important match of the season, you're in trouble.
What the hell where YOU thinking? I hope, the morning after, you're properly embarrassed about this thread. You wanted Nicol to take out Ralson and Twellman in the 75th minute of a 2-0 game, and you were so confident of your "intelligence" that you felt it merited an accusatory thread title? I know soccer history is long and daunting, but you only have to go back one day to find KC taking out a forward for a defender in the 73rd minute and going on to blow their lead in the 85th and the game in the 99th. You want to win games, you finish them.
Or how about that Manchester United / Bayern Munich Champions League Final Classico from a coupla years back? - It aint over till it's over. Keep them on the field.
That's a cliche, but it become one for a reason. One would expect that a 2 goal lead would be overturned only about half as often as a 1 goal lead, but it seems to me that it happens significantly more often than that.
Re: What the hell where YOU thinking? No, I'm not embarrassed about my thread. What about having faith in the Revs defense? Especially the way the defense has been playing. I have faith that whomever they would bring in, aside from APC, would have done just as well defensively as Ralston or Twellman. As stated above by others, it was getting rough out there. The reference above to the KC game is not a great example. KC only had a one goal lead on the road, not a two goal lead at home. Also, with regard to some of the examples stated above where leads were blown, two things: 1) those types of games always stand out in our minds. 2) What about the 90%-95% of games where the home team up 2-0 in the 80th minute goes on to win the game. I'd cite all of the world wide games here but it would take the rest of my life.
Bien sur, Zizou. N'importe de quoi. Whatever you say. By the way, I didn't catch all the playoff results. How did your team do in its opener? Oh, never mind, I forgot... Tom
,.., 2-0 lead, didn't mean it to be funny, my father in law, a scouser, says it all the time and I agree, the linesmen did a good job on the offside calls ;-)
I wouldn't be so quick to aquit the linesmen of any and all misjudgement. I sit in the south endzone so I can't comment on the offsides calls, but the players seemed to accept the calls reasonably well, so they were probably legit. However, my seats are right along the bench sideline and I can testify that the linesman on that side missed two out-of-bounds calls where the ball was a clear two lengths out. The center ref caught one of them, but the other was allowed. I have more patience (but not much) for errors made by the center ref. He has a lot to do, but the linesmen only have two things to worry about -- offsides and out-of-bounds -- and if they can't get just those two things right, they have no business doing what they are doing.