I'm thinking Lamar needs to stop by the KC Wizards office this week to remind all of the lads how nice it would be to have two of his teams in the playoffs this year. Should KC beat DC on Saturday, that would leave a lot of the burden on the Crew but also give Chicago a big decision to make as well. As the Fire, do you: A) Go out with the intent of getting the win or tie and having the pleasure of knocking a rival out of the playoffs. As a result, you have to face DC in the first round where the United has the advantage with 7-5-3 record over Chicago. or B) Put in a bunch of your second stringers so they can lose the game but hack the living h&ll out the Crew's key players. As a result, you are now fielding a rested group against the Crew in the first round, who you are 11-5-3 against all time, and Columbus would still be recovering from having had the cr@p hacked out of them the week before. Hopefully, the Crew will be in a situation where the Fire have to make that decision and they go with option B.
Chicago will probably sit some of their guys, this game has absolutely no playoff implications for them. As for the Crew, i'd love to see what worked for us today. we should play in an aggressive 3-4-3. Denton will be out, and Williams should not put on the Crew Yellow ever again, he was just completely embarrassed in there. i think we should do something like this: ______________McBride______________ __Buddle_______________Cunningham__ _______________APC________________ ____Paule_________________West____ ______________McCarty_____________ __Hejduk_______Akwari_____Oughton__ ______________Busch_______________ knowing what Greg has done so far this year, Mais will probably be in where i have McCarty and Clark will be where i have Akwari. But still, that lineup is better than what we've had.
we couldnt beat a bunch of DC 3rd stringers at home but you think we can beat shitcago 2nd stringers?
Chicago doesn't have to put in a bunch of second stringers to hack the hell out of our players, their first string is very capable of doing that themselves.
For the first time in 2 months I agree with Toon, why would you want to risk giving the Crew momentum going into 2 more playoff games. It just doesn't make sense.
I've got a better reason. If you're the F*re, who would you rather face in the playoffs - DC or the Crew? They would, I am certain, very much prefer to have to get past DC to get into the Championship game than take two out of three over us right now. I'm not suggesting that they're necessarily scared of us or anything - the way we've played this year shouldn't worry anybody. But DC is hurt, old, slow, calling up A League guys and is about 8 players away from their best lineup; Crew is healthy and pissed off and rather talented man for man. F*re will fight because F*re wants DC, not us. If KC wins on Saturday night, look for them to come at us with all their guns.
I'm not sure I agree. i think Chicago has to give some serious thought to who they want to play. They have a much better record against you, and have won more at Crew Stadium than RFK. Add traveling Chicago supporters, and you have a real problem if you're on the Fire coaching staff. DC does have many more injuries on it's roster, but a lot of thier callups have been pretty good (Warren's not terrible despite the game yesterday, and Martin looked dangerous).
I'll agree to disagree; for one thing, as the winners of the division, they've got home field all the way. And you can say that Martins looks "dangerous" all you want, but I'll bet you a steak dinner that Thornton would rather be looking at Stoichkov, Namoff and Martins than McBride, Buddle and Cunningham, whether the game is at RFK, CCS or the dark side of the moon. But the bigger issue for the moment is "What will KC do?" Are your guys gonna take the week off, throw your bench out there on Saturday and get ready for the playoffs? DC controls it's own fate, and they'll likely come out blazing. Will KC roll over? If so, all this speculation about the F*re is a waste of bytes.
I think KC comes out blasting on Sat. We've rested some of our key players (igor played 1/2, same with Wolff, Armstrong hasn't played in two weeks) and we're on our longest winning streak (4 games) since 2000. And we all know what happened in 2000. I would like to believe that KC wants to break it's DCU losing streak (haven't won at RFK since '96) and keep the streak alive. Also, if we win than no matter what Colorado does, we take 2nd. If any advantage exists for a hometeam, then I think it have to be the Wizards, because we don't want to risk playing an extra thirty minutes in Denver in November at a high elevation.