Game Day Report
What an ugly game. The weather was cold and wet and the slick conditions made the ball hard to control. Keep in mind that the following is from my perspective at the game.
Bobby Boswell start.,Alecko Eskandarian started and Christian Gomez returned from serving his suspension. Clyde Simms, Freddy Adu and Brandon Prideaux all sacrified their spots. The first half of the game showed exactly what we are good at and exactly what other teams can exploit. First of all, a goal can come from anywhere as proven by lethal shots from Jaime Moreno, Alecko, and Lucio Filomeno. Ben Olson was just itching for a loose ball that he could get National Team type shot at. The weather was just bad enough to disrupt the shots and passes. Sometimes though it seems like they were trying to string together too many passes, which is a big flaw is teams that play beautiful soccer such as United.
The defense on the other hand seems like organized chaos. Just a lot of flailing, stabbing and sliding until we get the ball back. Erpen gambles just enough to win a majority of the balls but every once in a while will get beat and it's devastating, considering our keeper is losing his confidence by the minute. Boswell is too slow to get into the footraces that Erpen's gambling gets him into. Our worst defense came when the Chivas players decided to run straight at us. Our timing was off and they were able to put dangerous passes together. Ante Razov actually looks dangerous, which is much different than I'm used to seeing him. Paco Palencia is their main weapon and for very good reason. Our defense fought tooth and nail to contain them.
There were a couple of good moments in the game. For one, at the beginning of the game Josh Gros sat deeper in the mid-field. He was almost a right defender while Erpen and Boswell were in the middle. The two of them are very complimentary with Erpen's flamboyent style and Boswell's hard as a rock style. I wonder if we would be better served with four defenders, the only problem is that one of the central midfielders would be sacrificed. Has anyone else noticed Carroll's offensive mentality? He's still good at his position but every once in a while he'll push up and actually hold the ball and take players on trying to create offensive plays. I think that it's great and I want to see more of it.
Now for the goals. That first goal by Jaime was a little lucky. Due to the aforementioned slick conditions Brad Guzan couldn't hold on to the ball and it skid past him and trickled into the goal. It was a nice way to shut up the Chivas fans in the stands. As for the Chivas "goal", at no point did the entire ball cross the goalline. The ball hit the crossbar bounced straight down then right back up and hit the crossbar again only to bounce out. Now I understand the complaints of the Chivas community (read whining) since it looked like a goal to the naked eye. But the physics doesn't really seem to make sense. There would have to be insane amounts of top-spin (or bottom-spin I'm not sure) on the ball to make it so the ball went into the goal and bounced back in a way that when it hit the crossbar for the second time it would bounce out. But maybe I'm being apologetic. The second goal on the otherhand was too much for Guzan. Jaime's rifle of a shot was blocked by the Chivas keeper but the ball was wet enough to continue in the direction of the goal and it just fell in. Seriously in the stands it looked gorgeous. And the fact that Freddy and Jaime had other chances speaks to how the game could have ended in a rout.
All in all, DC dominated the first half, Chivas dominated most of the second half and DC dominated the last five minutes, including extra time (which if you remember was a weak spot last season). Our defense may be in trouble when we face the better teams such as Houston, KC, or NE, but our offense has the potential to always keep us in the game.
**CORRECTIONS**
1) Turns out Jaime's first goal was not on his strike but a ricochet off of Guzan. Still his courage to get in front of the clearance and redirect it into the goal is pretty impressive.
2) The non-goal by Chivas did not hit the crossbar a second time. It only hit the crossbar after the shot and as Jason S points out in the comments had so much spin that it bounced away from the goal. Watching it on video, I can't help but wonder why Troy didn't even jump for it. It seemed as though he thought it was go over the goal.
Bobby Boswell start.,Alecko Eskandarian started and Christian Gomez returned from serving his suspension. Clyde Simms, Freddy Adu and Brandon Prideaux all sacrified their spots. The first half of the game showed exactly what we are good at and exactly what other teams can exploit. First of all, a goal can come from anywhere as proven by lethal shots from Jaime Moreno, Alecko, and Lucio Filomeno. Ben Olson was just itching for a loose ball that he could get National Team type shot at. The weather was just bad enough to disrupt the shots and passes. Sometimes though it seems like they were trying to string together too many passes, which is a big flaw is teams that play beautiful soccer such as United.
The defense on the other hand seems like organized chaos. Just a lot of flailing, stabbing and sliding until we get the ball back. Erpen gambles just enough to win a majority of the balls but every once in a while will get beat and it's devastating, considering our keeper is losing his confidence by the minute. Boswell is too slow to get into the footraces that Erpen's gambling gets him into. Our worst defense came when the Chivas players decided to run straight at us. Our timing was off and they were able to put dangerous passes together. Ante Razov actually looks dangerous, which is much different than I'm used to seeing him. Paco Palencia is their main weapon and for very good reason. Our defense fought tooth and nail to contain them.
There were a couple of good moments in the game. For one, at the beginning of the game Josh Gros sat deeper in the mid-field. He was almost a right defender while Erpen and Boswell were in the middle. The two of them are very complimentary with Erpen's flamboyent style and Boswell's hard as a rock style. I wonder if we would be better served with four defenders, the only problem is that one of the central midfielders would be sacrificed. Has anyone else noticed Carroll's offensive mentality? He's still good at his position but every once in a while he'll push up and actually hold the ball and take players on trying to create offensive plays. I think that it's great and I want to see more of it.
Now for the goals. That first goal by Jaime was a little lucky. Due to the aforementioned slick conditions Brad Guzan couldn't hold on to the ball and it skid past him and trickled into the goal. It was a nice way to shut up the Chivas fans in the stands. As for the Chivas "goal", at no point did the entire ball cross the goalline. The ball hit the crossbar bounced straight down then right back up and hit the crossbar again only to bounce out. Now I understand the complaints of the Chivas community (read whining) since it looked like a goal to the naked eye. But the physics doesn't really seem to make sense. There would have to be insane amounts of top-spin (or bottom-spin I'm not sure) on the ball to make it so the ball went into the goal and bounced back in a way that when it hit the crossbar for the second time it would bounce out. But maybe I'm being apologetic. The second goal on the otherhand was too much for Guzan. Jaime's rifle of a shot was blocked by the Chivas keeper but the ball was wet enough to continue in the direction of the goal and it just fell in. Seriously in the stands it looked gorgeous. And the fact that Freddy and Jaime had other chances speaks to how the game could have ended in a rout.
All in all, DC dominated the first half, Chivas dominated most of the second half and DC dominated the last five minutes, including extra time (which if you remember was a weak spot last season). Our defense may be in trouble when we face the better teams such as Houston, KC, or NE, but our offense has the potential to always keep us in the game.
**CORRECTIONS**
1) Turns out Jaime's first goal was not on his strike but a ricochet off of Guzan. Still his courage to get in front of the clearance and redirect it into the goal is pretty impressive.
2) The non-goal by Chivas did not hit the crossbar a second time. It only hit the crossbar after the shot and as Jason S points out in the comments had so much spin that it bounced away from the goal. Watching it on video, I can't help but wonder why Troy didn't even jump for it. It seemed as though he thought it was go over the goal.
posted by SccrPlaya at 6:59 PM
3 Comments:
The Chivas "goal" hit the crossbar and the left post coming in, and when it hit the ground... it was either a goal by like 1/32 of an inch or it was not by 1/32 of an inch.
I was watching the espn telecast and although Eric Wynalda (biased Forward) said it was a goal, Rob Stone (nor anyone else) could tell for sure. I think the Referees did an impressive job with it, there was communication between them, and they decided because neither had seen it cross entirely, that they would leave it as no goal.
As for as it came out... it was spinning to the right and back extremely quickly from our view.
yeah from where I was sitting the ball seemed to just stop dead center on the line.
No one had a better view than the ref's assistant but in all honesty the call could've gone either way. While Chivas fans may disagree I think the ref's assistant on that side of the field was consistent the entire game.
Troy didn't jump for the ball because he was cleanly beaten...and he's a real average keeper.
That shot was unsaveable...most all keepers would have that frozen...oh shit look on their faces.
20yds out...well struck..perfect upper 90..he was dead.
Good to see you are back...
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