MLS Playoffs

Sorry to Fog, the champs blowing a 2 goal lead had to be inconceivable.

Congrats to Oms, good luck in the next round and give us a report from Rio Tinto.

 

Banned!!! You @%$%@#%$ Leftist #%$#@$$!@!!!!

:3d crying:

Well.. now you know.. you were right, to the end of the '3rd qtr'.

In fact, I actually WAS...
COULD have borrowed a computer but thought better of it.

.. AT HOME! It was said earlier the most dangerous score in soccer is a 2-goal lead at half.
Added: Imagine you are there and the Crew is your team.. At Half, self-satisfied euphoria, at 70 that awful sinking feeling of inevitability!

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So.., I blame 24.. I blame SoccerAmerica / SI for publishing a long piece on Coach Bobby. I blame Hejduk. I blame Tech Dir Brian Bliss for bringing in Renteria, whose most linked pic is his facebook one with nothing but briefs showing off his abs/package.

I blame me for going to key game.. total 4 first two wins, last two losses. AFTER Kevin decides to get season tickets again.

In all though, the stress did get to the team. GBS showed Bobby what for by getting those 2 goals. But Bobby really only made one other mistake, that was starting Ekpo rather than Rogers. Ekpo ALWAYS does better as sub.

It's the end of the Crew Superteam, they're mortal again, and the repercussions will continue.. NOW comes Crew/Bobby's real test, who they protect for the expansion draft. *
And can they get GBS to stay for his last season till retirement.

* Big surprise.. after lot's of bitchin swearing name-calling etc, the consensus on BS Crew MB is leave Hejduk exposed.
Reason: to keep Jed Zayner who would certainly be snapped up if Philly even had half a brain.

 

:lol: I'm sure even 24 had to laugh. The "jinx" lives.

If left exposed Frankie would probably be snapped up for his leadership qualities.

Lax or LOBO are either of you going to the HDC for the classico manana?

 

I did have a laugh. It was pretty funny.


Really though you can't blame me for hejduk's poor defending. The crew blew a lead and didn't deserve it.


Oh and Arsenal scoring 3 goals in the first half proves that I can't jinx teams. I called them the most exciting team in the league and have Van Persie in my fantasy team.

 

Today: LA 'hosts' Chivas.. I pick LA
Seattle at Houston 3 EST EsPN2

And the Fire knocked out NE 2-0. Fire better hope those two non-pk RSL goals were a fluke. I dont think so.. Frankie-foof or not.

interesting stat via Shawn Mitchell of the Dispatch:
9: Goals scored by Real Salt Lake in 1,350 regular-season minutes on the road

3: Goals scored by Real Salt Lake in 37 minutes on Thursday

Nothing like peaking at the right time.

 

Well Seattle payed the price for not being able to get a shot off at all despite creating the better of the extremely rare chances for the portion of the game I caught. The difference is Houston got a goal because they pulled the trigger when they had the chance.... Seattle did not. Call me pissed because I am.

 

Based on the possibilities with the initial 8, could not have asked for better semis match-ups.

GALAXY v. DYNAMO (Awesome)

RSL v. CHICAGO (Less than awesome, but better than the Glidden Bananas)

I'd take GALAXY or DYNAMO in the final, but mos def want Sweet Home CHICAGO on the other side.

 

I caught the second half of the Galaxy vs. Chivas game and I was pretty impressed by Beckham before he came off. A couple of those crosses were unbelievable. From time to time with all the drama that surrounds him, I forget that the dude can still play. I’m going to make an effort to catch the conference final on Friday.

 

I predict RSL wins their game, if only because a team from the West winning the "Eastern Conference Championship" is just desserts for the stupid system Garber has in place. And yeah, I know the reverse happened last year with NYRB.

I predict LA over RSL in the final.

 

Gals 2-0 Houston, naturally I fell asleep and awoke to a donovan post-match, then dozed off again...
.. so my prediction of Gals v Crew back in what, august?* is halfway there.

But the Crew obviously aint going.. so what happens in the realm of tournament 'would'a could'a should'a'?

You got it.

Sorry, Don.

* Hmmm maybe I should get paid for that crap.. but, you know what happens? Forced errors! Right, Ives?

 

It's RSL v Gals

In pk's.
Like I said.. if it aint gonna be the Crew, It's gonna be the one that beat 'em.

Ironic also.. exCrew Grabavoy {traded to Crew from La for the worthless Martino} got the capper, just hours after exCrew Devin Barclay kicked the winning FG for tOSU against Iowa.

"Want sump'n kicked.. go Crew."
- - -- - - - - - -- - - - -
BTW.. it was a great game, esp considering it was 0-0 after OT.

Lots of good play through midfield without long ball and cheap shots, though play was intense and resulted in mucho cards.

 

Galaxy, for both. I think it just will be too big a mountain to climb for RSL, plus the stars are alligning for MSL's FC Hollywood.

 

Well that was a disappointing result, but a great time! I was at the Chicago v Salt Lake game (I have hard time saying "Real" for an American team, just kind of wierd) and despite the result had a lot of fun.

I bought season tickets for the first time this year and ended up going to maybe 3 games. Even with McGod and Blanco and season tickets it's hard to get into an MLS team, although I have been watching a lot more MLS than in years past. ESPN does a great job at televising games, FSC has LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO {gasp*} OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go. They've ruined the Champions League for me. They really need to upgrade to HD telecast.

Anyway, everytime I go to a game it's a lot of fun and I wish I had gone to more, but it's just hard to get motivated enough to make the drive out to the stadium. Even though there were no goals the shootout made up for it. McBride's PK was perfect, then the rest of the team crapped their pants.

It was a good season overall, but just came up short again. Don't think I'll be getting season tickets next year, I'll just get tickets when I need them.

Sorry for the randomness of this post, but just a little insight and opinion.

{* ed by pf - dont do that!}

 

Cue Randy Newman...

The power outages in the LA v. Houston match added the quintessential California touch; and mix in the absurdly late east coast start time, you have to wonder if MLS cared that anybody east of the Rockies watched this match...which, all things considered, had some very good play and a level of chippiness that is usually lacking in MLS matches.

 

I have to say, staying up until 1:30 AM to watch that completed was complete bullshit.

One interesting side-effect to such a late match: College football bettors played the match to catch their only-just earlier losses. At least in these parts, you could hear rednecks hoopin' and hollerin' about soccer, that David guy, and Cakes into the wee hours of the A.M.

 

I don't know if Garber has either reached the point where he thinks his sh*t don't stink or what, but seriously... 11:30pm EST start time? On a Friday??!?!

By half everyone in GMT -5 and -6 -- roughly 2/3rds the population of the country?? -- is either a) sleeping or b) at a bar, drunk.

I know the match was on the west coast but even Bud Selig couldn't screw something like that up. And no East Coast Bias, but way to neglect everyone east of the Rockies, buddy.

While on the topic of bad commissioners, even Selig also couldn't find a way to get a team from one geographical region to represent the continental opposite, two years in a row.

 

I watched the Galaxy game until the end of the 90 minutes. I wasn't about to stay up for another 30 minutes + 20 minute power outage + probable penalty shootout I did watch the highlights the next morning (if 11am still counts as "morning"). [I'm in Baltimore]

I watched the Chicago-RSL game up until the end of extra time; my wife wanted to watch something and reading about PKs is almost as good/bad as watching them.

I will say that I really enjoyed watching RSL play - they move the ball nicely, good movement off the ball. The standard is going up.

One other random thought - is the higher attendance during the playoff run and playoffs just because of the higher importance of the game or because people don't want to spend their summers at sporting events? I don't think moving to a Fall-Spring schedule will impact attendance as much as people think (as long as you take an appropriate Winter break) - in fact, attendance might very well increase.

 

Monday, November 16, 2009

Paul Gardner's Soccer Talk is a benefit for Soccer America members.

Despair not - Kreis and Donovan Offer Hope

By Paul Gardner

I had to feel sympathy for MLS Commissioner Don Garber when the lights went out at the Home Depot. Not once, but twice -- and we got television shots of him in his luxury suite, talking into his cell phone, trying to show some mastery of a situation over which he had no control at all.

Embarrassing it must have been for him. To me it was merely irritating -- my concerns were rather different from Garber's. What worried me was not what was going on when the lights were out, but what was happening when they were on. When the Dynamo and the Galaxy, under full floodlights, were supposed to be giving us an exhibition of MLS soccer at its best.

Well, I think that statement is justified -- this was the conference final, after all. But the soccer was not fit for the occasion. Dismal stuff, inchoate and incoherent for the most, a game of grinding teeth and unremitting effort. Not worth watching.

In such a game you can guarantee that Dema Kovalenko will set the tone, It took only 13 minutes before he launched himself, studs up, into Stuart Holden's legs. In midfield, no danger threatening -- merely a nasty challenge because Kovalenko couldn't control the ball, and Holden stole it. A yellow-card offense if ever I saw one -- but here we go again -- referee Terry Vaughn didn't even call a foul, never mind give the card. A significant omission, as Kovalenko, inevitably, did get a yellow in the 77th minute.

The game, if that's what it was, was liberally sprinkled with 41 assorted fouls. Five of those came from Beckham -- a total that ought to have earned him a yellow for persistent infringement. Referee Vaughn spared the star.

Totally fitting that the winning goal should come from a Galaxy defender, with Gregg Berhalter prodding the ball into the net for what would be a top candidate for Worst Goal of the Year, should MLS have such an award. The insurance goal arrived in the form of a penalty kick -- (an occurrence that had seemed likely all game long) -- and gave Landon Donovan, whose skills had been lost in the suffocating banality of the evening, a momentary chance to get some attention.

Beckham, the other highly paid star, looks increasingly like the 34-year-old that he is, trying to pretend that he's still a 24-year-old, which he assuredly is not. It's still all about those long right-foot passes and crosses, but the accuracy is beginning to look suspect. As that wonderful skill declines, we get the battling, fouling, David instead, and a guy who finds it necessary to complain to the referee all the time.

Maybe Bruce Arena has some magic that can turn this assembly of geriatrics and adolescents into a worthy team in time for MLS Cup. But it seems unlikely.

Which leaves me thinking that the appeal and the marketability, to say nothing of the honor, of MLS will be in the hands, or at the feet, of Real Salt Lake come November 22nd.

RSL and Chicago gave us a game - a goalless game, as it happens - that was full of good soccer and without the unpleasant atmosphere that marred the Galaxy vs. Dynamo meeting. There were fouls -- 31 in total, 23 of them by RSL (six from Chris Wingert, who did get a yellow, though not for persistent fouling).

RSL is hardly a team full of innocents -- not with Kyle Beckerman leading the league with 10 regular-season yellows, and Jamison Olave sharing top spot with three reds. But the soccer was lively, attack-oriented and it flowed nicely. It was open enough for one to sense, from both teams, a suggestion that there were players out there who were actually liking what they were doing. The days of expecting pro soccer with a smile have, alas, been put behind us. Things have gotten too serious for that, and probably the most we can hope for is soccer that is enjoyable both for players and spectators alike, rather than a drudge for both.

The only thing that marred RSL's win was, of course, that it wasn't really a victory at all because it came via a shootout. That's the best soccer's rulemakers can do, so no blame attaches to RSL. MLS has been relatively lucky so far -- despite five of its 13 finals going to overtime, only one has sunk to the shootout level.

We may be heading for another one. RSL did not show any great facility for finishing, despite plenty of exciting approach play. As for the Galaxy -- well, we have been in no doubt for some time now that, defense is the important thing, and the "grinding out" of 1-0 wins apparently represents the acme of their costive approach.

Off we go to Seattle for a final that does not, which ever way you look at it, promise to be a sparkling one. It has been born from two overtime conference finals, four hours of soccer that failed to produce even one halfway decent goal.

This is a final that desperately needs a referee who will, right from the start, be harsh in his punishment of gratuitous physical play and of tactical fouling. I wish I could think of one to nominate, but the recent permissive performances of top MLS referees have left me without a viable candidate. In any case, is that what MLS wants? A tough referee who may well send someone off -- how can that be good for the final? In fact, players do not get red-carded in MLS Cup finals. So far that fate has descended on only one player -- surprise, surprise, who else but the fearsome Kovalenko? The promos and highlights shown on TV strongly suggest that mayhem, broken bones and blood are what the TV companies are looking for.

But ... nil desperandum. RSL, under the admirable Jason Kreis, has shown itself to be an enterprising bunch, not given to the cautious approach. And I do have some hope of the Galaxy turning on the style, a hope that rests entirely on one man -- Landon Donovan. Where there's Donovan, there's hope.