Will the Revs resort to Bunker Ball in Game 3? (and pregame comments)

I think Twellman is out for tomorrow's match. However, when your biggest problem is scoring I'm not sure how excited I should be about that.

 

Yes, they will and we will not be able to break it down and lose 1-0.

 

Twellman has an MRI today, but it does look highly unlikely he'll play. The AP's saying Chacon will be his replacement, but who knows?

Also, heavy rain is predicted for all-day tomorrow so the field's likely to be a mess.

The Magpie

 

Well rain doesn't bode well for our boys to use their speed to get on by them.
I have this awful feeling that the Crew will win the game and then lose the "mini-game." For some reason I can't shake that. I really belive we will score at least 1 goal in the regular game. And if Twellman is definately out as well as Heaps I really don't know who will score for the Revs. This could get interesting.

 

1) You can't play a 1-9-1 unless you have 12 men on the field.

2) Quit stickying things. Especially like these meaningless polls.

3) Go Crew!

 

we need to essentially win twice on Saturday. We haven't won in New England since July.

Talk about trying to turn things around.

 

Hang, are you suggesting we take out our "pretty" boys like McBride and Cunningham, and stick in our bruisers like Buddle and Washington up top?

 

Well Buddle is done for the season, so he is not an option. I was just thinking that if the field is bad from the rain we won't be able to use a quick short passing game as well (so that limits Martino/Perez) and our burners like West and Cunny could be neutralized by a bad field. I have no answers really. I'd like to see McBride start up top with Dante and Bring it Cunny at the half for a change of pace against a tired defense. I doubt we'd see that though.

 

We're done. Flip us over Saturday so we'll be cooked on both sides.

Onward to the Open Cup...

 

if new england advances, this league is so goddamned fixed....

of course MLS didn't have Columbus go to last year's final because it would have been too obvious.

DC's dynasty, Chicago winning the league title their first year, now this, coupled with the letter about the officiating raises serious questions about what the hell don garber does in new york.

 

I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but please explain to me how New England advancing proves things are fixed. Did MLS officials approach Brian Dunseth - at least I think it was him - and get him to not mark Jay Heaps on a corner kick? Did MLS officials secretly install go-go-Gadget arms in Adin Brown that enables him to save shots no mortal should save? Did MLS officials substitute a trick ball - only when Columbus has possession, however - preventing us from scoring for two consecutive matches?

If New England advances it's not because the fix is in but rather because they stepped it up down the stretch and doing what's necessary to win.

 

Look at last year's San Jose team. They're a similar case. They both sucked complete ass for several years straight and come out of nowhere to do good things. These two teams did away with the phrase "rebuilding years".

Remember during the middle of this season when the talk was that DC and New England would miss the playoffs, and New England couldn't coach themselves out of the bathroom? MLS probably thought something like "we can't have new england miss the final when it's in their home town. Think about how attendance would suffer."

Of course, you could do something like take this list of players:

M Shaker Asad Last Club: Fusion F.C.
D Leo Cullen Last Club: Miami Fusion
D Jay Heaps Last Club: Miami Fusion
D Carlos Llamosa Last Club: Fusion F.C.
F Alex Pineda Chacon.... take a guess
M Jim Rooney... yup, another one
F Diego Serna...., another florida castaway


Now, wasn't last year's Fusion team pretty decent? And wasn't there some "weighted lottery draft"... And isn't single entity something about league assigning players to whatever team they want to assign them to?

I don't know, but they got 7 fusion players and 11 players makes a starting lineup. They're only 3 people away from a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2 with the above players.


Of course, you could say something like "well, look at what Greg and Jim did during the offseason." The question is, what could they have done since the league assigns players to teams. Perhaps the league "felt" we were on the threshold with last year's roster.

 

Shaker Asad - 6 GP, 140 min of action
Diego Serna - 5 GP, 248 min of action
Alex Pineda Chacon - 10 GS, 6 points (can't work his way into the starting eleven)
Carlos Llamosa - 14 GP (or, you know, half the regular season)

So, of the seven players you listed, it could be argued that really only three had a year-long impact (Heaps, Cullen and Rooney). I'll even give you Llamosa although he only appeared in half their matches. But if the fix were truly in, don't you think New England would have gotten some defenders that would have prevented them from leading the league in GAA? If the fix were truly in do you honestly think Jay Heaps, with ten points, would be the leading scorer of the seven players you listed?

Jeez, do you honestly think the league is fixed? Or perhaps it's the inability of the Crew to actually score which, you know normally, makes winning a match a tad easier.

 

Who's ready for the boobie prize on the 24th! Yeehaaa!

Those bitches are going to pack more than Green Bay.

Tie game. 0-0.

 

thank god someone agrees with me!! i knew cunningham was being paid off for those 2 breakaways he shanked during the that last reg season nil:nil draw at your palace.

can you say shoeless jeffey cee?

oh, and btw....i believe asad was waived by the revs and picked up by miami last year. they then got him back during dispersal.

and, heaps was traded from miami for dunseth 1/2 way thru last season thus making him available to you all in dispersal. you should thank us, no?

a little south park movie song rip-off here...
what would brian dunseth do
if he were a rev today?
he'd give the series to the crew
tha'ts what brian dunseth'd do.

 

Quit getting so technical

 

Well said, FF. They are the VERY slightly better team so far (1 goal). We'll see Saturday, but that one goal and our inability to score for 70+ minutes a man up (2 games) is the telling tale.

Krypto forgot to mention the Twellman part of the tale. Nichols did a very nice job turning this team around.

 

I'm not sure if NE has the legs to resort to bunker ball. However if they were contemplating it....they probably will now due to the fact Twellman is out. Somehow I just can't see us being scoreless for 290 minutes. Bunker Ball or not...its still 11 v 11...and even though we couldnt cash in Wed...I still feel confident we'll score.

I Would like to see McBride as a withdrawn forward/attacking mid in front of Martino ...and West and Garcia wide..w/ Cunningham on top. We need to use McBride to set up goals rather than hoping to see him head one home. If NE retreats to Bunker ball I think BMB would be highly effective heading balls for Jeffro and anyone else to run onto. Also it would allow him to find some space towards the top of the box once the D crashes, and allow him cash in on the mayhem. We're a team w. absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain tomorrow.

 

We were in last place in August. The league hasn't "gifted" us with any players since then. We're really not getting huge help from the refs, at least none that's been alleged since then (remember, we've had to win almost every game, so we'd get ref advantage every game: something that would have been noticed by now). That leaves the league to convince the other teams to lose to us on purpose, including the Metros to miss the playoffs and the Fire and the Crew in the playoffs. Unless you have another way that the league helped us, this qualifiies as the most ridiculous conspiracy post that I've ever read.

Shaker Asad: If he's played at all since the turnaround, it's been both brief and forgettable
Leo Cullen: We traded for him late last season
Jay Heaps: We traded for him early last season
Carlos Llamosa: Started about half of our games
Alex Pineda Chacon: Rarely takes the pitch anymore
Jim Rooney: Hasn't played since the turnaround
Diego Serna: Out for the year since June

Of the players that you listed, only 4 of them were starters last year. If they started Heaps, Cullen, and Asad (who probably would have replaced Pablo, Preki, and Carlos) they would have finished just above Tampa Bay. I'd hazard a guess that Rimando, Preki, Bishop, Henderson, and Pablo had more to do with Miami's success than the people that you listed.

 

I forgot to add that out of all the posts about the league's conspiracy to get the Revs into the final in their own stadium, the most amusing part is the fact that all of the Crew fans that subscribe to this theory are equally sure that nothing like this could have happened last year...

 

UUUHHHHH, weeelllll ssseeeee, we were in the middle of a new head coach's first season. ;-)

 

Krypto, sometimes I think your life mission is to make Crew fans look like the dumbest lot out their. The conspiracy talk is tired as hell. The bottom line is our boys haven't got the ************ done. Simple. We haven't scored. And Unless you have evidence that Don Garber has a witch doctor on the New England sidelines making sure that Cunny keeps shooting from impossible angles and putting a goddamn forcefield around the goal I don't wanna hear anymore about a conspiracy.
As for our boys having nothing to lose today, maybe I am just being to black and white in my thoughts here, but....No matter how much of an underdog you are, or how much the odds are stacked against you, if you are in the semifinals of any tourney you have the chance of losing out on playing in the finals. Our boys know that, so regardless of the "nothing to lose talk I wouldn't be suprised to see them come out a bit tight. I just hope it doesn't last long.

 

I don't think that could ever happen as long as Chicago stays in the league.

 

Onward to the Open Cup. If we don't show better than game 3...Bring on the Dublin girls team to get a game.

Revs were tough. Congrats.