Well the USOC is done for a few weeks, back to MLS action. I don't see this one going very well for us. We're struggling in league right now, and hopefully last night gives the guys a boost. Still we are without Nick for this one, so we will see what happens. I just don't see this going well.
I am very interested to see if playing Stephenson at right back was just a one time, USOC thing or if Gansler is interested in moving him there, at least until Garcia is back from suspensions. I'm always a big fan of having fullbacks that can attack. Hopefully Arnaud's two goals against the Menace can help his confidence.
I was thinking the same thing about Arnaud. How did Stephenson play at right back? I would have thought Roberts would be the right back with Garcia out.
He did a decent job defensively, and he did well in the attack. Keep in mind this was against PDL competition.
Yeah that's true. After seeing him play do who would you start at right back against New England him or Roberts? I've personally been impressed with Roberts the games I've seen him play and would say him but I haven't seen Stephenson play right back. In fact I haven't seen much of Stephenson at all.
I think we'll see Stephenson back there against NE, I just don't see Bob putting him back there for the USOC unless he was gonna do something with it. One thing I noticed, was that many of Will's short throws went to Khari and started the attack. And we'll see Jose play against NE, especially with Nick suspended. His game was bad last night, stopping his runs when he didn't get the ball and standing when he needed to get back.
i think i've only seen two games with him playing, but he seemed pretty competent... so i'd have to agree with your sentiments.
OT but Oh well. I really wish Burciaga would at least, somehow get called into Nats camp and not make the roster a few times to maybe give him a taste of what it's going to take to be a true professional and see what the next level is. The guy could be very, very good but he's just got that young man's attitude about doing/wearing just the minimum amount of flair to keep starting and doesn't push the jalepeno poppers nearly enough when taking the customers drink order. It's like he knows he's good so he can still space off, or thinks he doesn't need to get back because his atheticism will bail him out everytime. Well for that approach I got two words: Chris Brown. On Topic: I think the Revs are going to ruin us. Twellman, Noonan and Dempsey are all known for scoring those a little unorthodox type goals that I don't think Bo handles well. Little dribblers to the far post, five hole chances and odd redirects and rebounds which Twellman is a one touch master of. Revs 3 - 1 Wizards
I think Bob tried Khari there as an experiment knowing Nick was gonna be out so I do see him playing and Roberts on the bench. Bo Stephenson - Shavar - Conrad - Burciaga Klein - DG - KZ - Sasha Arnaud - Wolff Sealy, Jewsbury, Preki come in off the bench as needed I too am pessimistic, Dempsey is the real deal, Twellman is always a handful for us. Whether its Khari, Burciaga or Roberts I see us getting beaten down the wings frequently and despite the solidity in the middle with Jimmy and Shavar, they are gonna take advantage of that eventually. It's gonna take a monster of performance for us to get 3 on the road in this one.
i will be at the watch party prior to going to a bachelor party. we need to win, so that im not all bummed out at the adult entertainment establishments... i therefore proudly predict a KC win. KC 2 - NE 1 Twellman scores in the first half and Wolff answers early in the second. We finish them off with a rocket from Klein that actually stays under the bar. (Im thinking about his goal that night against Colorado years ago when they gave away the Chris Klein posters. that was wicked.)
MLSNet Preview, for those that might be interested. MLSNet Preview REFEREE: Ben Jones. SAR (bench): George Vergara; JAR (opposite): C.J. Morgante; 4th: Nik Bratsis MLS Career: 4 games; FC/gm: 32.8; Y/gm: 4.0; R: 1; pens: 2 Games involving Revolution: P1 W0 L0 T1; FC/gm: 26.0; Y/gm: 3.0; R: 1; pens: 0 Games involving Wizards: first game INJURY REPORT: NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION - OUT: GK Kyle Singer (R shoulder sprain); PROBABLE: FW Pat Noonan (R ankle sprain) ... KANSAS CITY WIZARDS - PROBABLE: MF Diego Walsh (R athletic pubalgia surgery) INTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: None SUSPENDED: NE: Jay Heaps (21 CP; through Aug. 6) ... KC: Nick Garcia (through Aug. 10) WARNINGS: NE: Marshall Leonard (19 CP) HEAD-TO-HEAD ALL-TIME (23 meetings): Revolution 8 wins (1 shootout), 30 goals ... Wizards 12 wins (1 shootout), 37 goals ... 3 draws AT FOXBOROUGH (12 meetings): Revolution 4 wins (1 shootout), 17 goals ... Wizards 6 wins (0 shootout), 22 goals ... 2 draws This is the third of four meetings between the clubs this season, their second meeting this year at Gillette Stadium. They will conclude the season series on Oct. 8 at Arrowhead Stadium. Coaches record: Steve Nicol vs. KC: P9 W2 L4 D3... Bob Gansler v NE: P14 W7 L4 D3
For the record he has had more than one bad game this season. His last few games have been awful, and the last one was against PDL competition. However, he will start with Garcia suspended.
I wanted to come back to this point, because I actually think it's a pretty decent one. I mean look at Kerry earlier this season, his play was well below his level and many seemed to believe it was becausehe was not able to secrue himself a spot on an English roster in the off season. Then he gets called into the nats camp for some friendly, comes back and starts to build his play up again towards the level we're used to. I just think Jose getting called into a camp not actually playing with the team, would hopefully give him the kick and drive to work harder. Course he needs to show that he deserves that call up first.
if a callup was given to him, we'd definitely find out about his mental attributes and/or ambition. see, i would think the opposite in that getting a callup at this point would be a bad thing. it wouldn't make him try harder. he'd think that doing whatever squadoosh he's doing now is obviously good enough to get a callup, so why push that much harder in a regular season mls game? and andy, i don't know how you can say that he's only had one bad game. it's been a number of weeks since he hasn't had a bad game. well, some of those will depend on how you determine a good or bad game from a defender. a mistake from a defender is usually so much more costly than a mistake from a forward... and jose has shown his ability to make those timely mistakes. with his great left foot, and his obvious potential, i'm far from setting him aside in favor of someone else for permanence. sitting him for a game or two is something that i just think needs to be done. that said, i understand the need for him to play this week with garcia out. what a terrible game for garcia to miss. we could really use his marking prowess with twellman always lurking. maybe twellman will come up lame again and we won't have to worry about him. just for our game though as i don't like to wish injuries on a player.
Jeez, I leave for a week, and I can't even keep up with what's going on. Jose's only wearing 15 pieces of flair. Khari's at right back. Zotinca is actually the alien from Roswell. Finally, we won a game 6-1 that apparently we were horrible in, that somehow featured Ben tied up to another man, attended by 18,000+?!?. What did Jose do exactly in the USOC game that has everyone so down on him? 90 minutes of suck rather than just a couple lapses as in previous weeks?
LOL! That's about right though. Maybe I was just not paying attention or I was too excited to be winning 6-1, but I didn't notice Jose have a terrible game. He had a poor game, he didn't stand out, but I didn't think it was that bad. But, he has been below average for most of the year, which is getting on my nerves as well.
I think that the reason people are saying Jose had a bad game was because there were 2 or 3 long balls that he sent WAY out of bounds and a few passes that he kicked right to the other team. And the reason they were so glaring was because each time he was pretty much all alone with time. It seemed that his touches were much better when he had someone guarding him. Give him zero pressure and 20 yards of free space in front of him, and he's gonna kick it our of bounds. I also think that the majority of the team showed up to play the Menace, but Jose might have been "mailing it in."
no kidding. i leave for a week on vacation to come back and everybody hates jose and nobody has faith that we are going to win. i think we can do it. even with out nicky in the line up. we have jimmy and josh back if i'm not mistaken. we can pull it off. i'm hoping.