well, it was bound to happen: we lost.
the rub of it is that it was all in our hands - and the hands of the rapids goalie. (who is that guy? at first i thought he was absolutely insane, and then he became spider-man.)
we looked not at all on the same page, and the absence of captain america showed this game. our midfield couldn't seem to get it together to get the ball forward consistently - notwithstanding the mutliple attempts at goal we had that somehow were denied from going in. i can think of two that absolutely should have been goals.
which, of course, gets back to the whole point: this was our game to win and we blew it. we didn't show an ounce of the passion or excitement that we had started the season with, and the debut of angel had him actually running back into the midfield to get some touches on the ball.
reminds me a bit of....the old red bulls/metrostars.
and what was up with the lone striker set-up? angel played much better when he was teaming up with other red bulls, so give him some company up there to work off of for god's sake, bruce. dane richards didn't get the ball enough, but when he did he looked good - especially when we played the ball wide. (except of course for the time he crossed it over a wide-open angel to a marked player.) and i have to give credit where credit is due: clint and dema were workhorses (dema got a bloody nose and came back on and continued hustling) - but the rest of the team just couldn't get it together.
from duNord today (and obviously Big Apple Soccer): "Clint Mathis of New York described his team's performance on Sunday v Colorado to Michael Lewis at Big Apple Soccer like this: "It was almost like we were brain dead out there."
we should have won this game (heck, at the very least tied the game), but we just didn't seem to want to work to make it happen. so credit also has to go to the rapids for working for the win.
we've played well against western teams, but now it's time to start thinking about our own conference foes. and what with twellman scoring goals seemingly at will and us falling to third place in the span of a week, we need to get our act together.
bruce obviously did something at halftime because we came out fired up and nearly scored twice in the first ten minutes. then we started clamming up again. i hope this week he drills home that this is soccer and it's only 90 minutes long. 90 minutes. that's less than a movie. let's finish.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
red bulls v. colorado rapids - 5.13.07
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2 comments:
One thing you neglected to mention was the painfully monotonous-- and overwhelmingly unsuccessful-- "chip and charge" tactic the Red Bulls employed over the last 20-25 minutes of the match. I could barely stomach the sight of various players repeatedly pummeling 30 yard lobs into a densely packed penalty area, hoping to find a double-marked Angel (or Altdore moving into completely occupied space). I remember playing like that in 5th grade, but it worked then because, well, kids are dumb. This type of play is completely unacceptable from such a veteran team. I also wonder if Arena was knocked out on Percodan that entire time, because not one single adjustment was made.
My apologies for the long comment. I'm not used to losing... this year.
--Hatch
you're absolutely right. the long ball approach yielded zero results, while the few attempts they did manage were because they built up the attack and came from the wings and crossed into numbers.
we're better than this - as we've shown.
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