Game Recap
Everyone has to lose sometime. It's the way DC lost that bothers me. We were not beat by a better team. We were beat by our own careless mistakes.
How well did DC United stick to my "Keys for United"? In terms of patience, it looked to me that DC was rushing the ball around. I think there were too many long balls and players were trying to do too much with the ball. While they had good patches of play, for the game as a whole the team did not show it's willingness to let plays develop. The goal was one of those good patches and it started with Namoff and after four or five passes ended with Gomez sliding the ball into the back of the Colorado net.
This was also one of the few noticable moment that DC accomplished the second "key",controlling the midfield. For too much of the game they were letting Colorado kick the ball to the wings. While I don't think that Colorado controlled the midfield either, DC should have done better not letting themselves become disrupted.
My final "key" for the game was maintaining defensive positioning. You can obviously guess how well that one worked out. As a defender, you should never let the forward get behind you. On Colorado's second goal, not only was the forward behind the defender (Erpen?), the DC defender was maybe 10-15 feet away from the play and resorted to sprinting straight to the goal hoping for a deperation deflection. Also, Erpen came from across the goal box to defend the ball but instead fouled the Colorado player which lead to a successful penalty. I may be wrong but I didn't see the need for Erpen to: 1) come sprinting across the field, it looked like Bobby Bosell was about to handle it, and 2) leave his feet. I'm sure he'll get criticized for it and rightly so. He needs to understand that not every ball is a must win, especially when the risk was so high. I have no doubts that as soon as he left his feet, he knew that he had to chance to get the ball. Erpen needs to learn how to contain the man and body him off the ball in those types of situations.
Other observations?
I'm still confused as to why Jamil Walker started. Why tinker with a line-up that was working. The only explanation is that something happened during practice. Either way, DC began ok but not spectacular, which is a shame because Colorado was very sloppy to begin the game. I couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if Freddy Adu started on the wing with Alecko Eskandarian up top. Walker did not do anything particularly bad, in fact he had a couple chances, but my argument is for the sake of continuity. It broke up the flow that DC usually starts with. I like Walker in more of a super-sub role instead of starter. His speed works better when the defenders have already been running for an hour.
Also, something has to be said in terms of Jaime Moreno's form. Unfortunately, it seems that he's losing the ball much more often than usual. His touch is failing him and he can't quite make that one move that frees him from the defender. I wonder if there is a problem. Regardless, as a captain he should understand that the team comes first. If he finds himself dragging down the team, he should take himself out of the game and let fresh legs come in and pick up the slack. Jamil Walker would fit this role perfectly.
This loss means that United doesn't gain any ground towards catching Kansas City. Not only do we not gain ground, Kansas gains a point and Houston surpasses us with their win against Dallas. That means that there are four teams within two points of each other. Dallas and DC remain at 11 points, Houston has 12 and KC has 13. The bright spot is that after these four teams, the closest teams are still 4 points back.
Next week Dallas plays two games. One against stuggling Los Angeles and one against Houston. There's a good chance that they come out with 6 points total. I think they will get at least a point against LA. And the dagger is that no matter who wins the Dallas/Houston game someone will be ahead of us no matter what we do. If Dallas wins or ties midweek and they win next Saturday, then they will have either 17 or 15 points. If Dallas loses next Saturday that means Houston will have 15 points. This all makes next week's game against KC that much more important because we need 3 points to stay in the mix.
Have I said how glad I am that the league made the Supporter's Shield actually worth something?
How well did DC United stick to my "Keys for United"? In terms of patience, it looked to me that DC was rushing the ball around. I think there were too many long balls and players were trying to do too much with the ball. While they had good patches of play, for the game as a whole the team did not show it's willingness to let plays develop. The goal was one of those good patches and it started with Namoff and after four or five passes ended with Gomez sliding the ball into the back of the Colorado net.
This was also one of the few noticable moment that DC accomplished the second "key",controlling the midfield. For too much of the game they were letting Colorado kick the ball to the wings. While I don't think that Colorado controlled the midfield either, DC should have done better not letting themselves become disrupted.
My final "key" for the game was maintaining defensive positioning. You can obviously guess how well that one worked out. As a defender, you should never let the forward get behind you. On Colorado's second goal, not only was the forward behind the defender (Erpen?), the DC defender was maybe 10-15 feet away from the play and resorted to sprinting straight to the goal hoping for a deperation deflection. Also, Erpen came from across the goal box to defend the ball but instead fouled the Colorado player which lead to a successful penalty. I may be wrong but I didn't see the need for Erpen to: 1) come sprinting across the field, it looked like Bobby Bosell was about to handle it, and 2) leave his feet. I'm sure he'll get criticized for it and rightly so. He needs to understand that not every ball is a must win, especially when the risk was so high. I have no doubts that as soon as he left his feet, he knew that he had to chance to get the ball. Erpen needs to learn how to contain the man and body him off the ball in those types of situations.
Other observations?
I'm still confused as to why Jamil Walker started. Why tinker with a line-up that was working. The only explanation is that something happened during practice. Either way, DC began ok but not spectacular, which is a shame because Colorado was very sloppy to begin the game. I couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if Freddy Adu started on the wing with Alecko Eskandarian up top. Walker did not do anything particularly bad, in fact he had a couple chances, but my argument is for the sake of continuity. It broke up the flow that DC usually starts with. I like Walker in more of a super-sub role instead of starter. His speed works better when the defenders have already been running for an hour.
Also, something has to be said in terms of Jaime Moreno's form. Unfortunately, it seems that he's losing the ball much more often than usual. His touch is failing him and he can't quite make that one move that frees him from the defender. I wonder if there is a problem. Regardless, as a captain he should understand that the team comes first. If he finds himself dragging down the team, he should take himself out of the game and let fresh legs come in and pick up the slack. Jamil Walker would fit this role perfectly.
This loss means that United doesn't gain any ground towards catching Kansas City. Not only do we not gain ground, Kansas gains a point and Houston surpasses us with their win against Dallas. That means that there are four teams within two points of each other. Dallas and DC remain at 11 points, Houston has 12 and KC has 13. The bright spot is that after these four teams, the closest teams are still 4 points back.
Next week Dallas plays two games. One against stuggling Los Angeles and one against Houston. There's a good chance that they come out with 6 points total. I think they will get at least a point against LA. And the dagger is that no matter who wins the Dallas/Houston game someone will be ahead of us no matter what we do. If Dallas wins or ties midweek and they win next Saturday, then they will have either 17 or 15 points. If Dallas loses next Saturday that means Houston will have 15 points. This all makes next week's game against KC that much more important because we need 3 points to stay in the mix.
Have I said how glad I am that the league made the Supporter's Shield actually worth something?
posted by SccrPlaya at 12:04 AM
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