RSL vs. The Dying FC of Dallas- 9/18 [R]

[utah_heretic]

I agree with some of what RSL1 said...and disagree with a fair portion as well.

Originally Posted by RSL1

Trembly is an awful hack that seems willing to kick the $hit out of everything in his way. Stupid fouls and dumb turnovers. Unfortunately for him, tough defense isn't necessarily good defense - it just results in a lot of poor tactical defensive play through the midfield. Ibid Cutler. Can either of these guys find a pass to feet? Further, the midfielders are there to link the defense with the attack. Well, the defense kept knocking the ball around the back because they had no place to play forward except over the top. So obviously a result of the central players not showing for the ball and getting open. Kamler is clearly a substitute roll at this point so I can't really give him a hard time.

This part of the synopsis I think we can agree on. Trembly and Kamler were both called upon here to do more than I think they have the talent to do. Cutler played much like he has for the better part of the season. He wasn't awful, though he certainly made some awful plays...but in the absence of a strong player in the middle to work with, his weaknesses were clearly exposed. Good God, Tarley even resorted to coming back into the midfield just to get a foot on the ball occasionally. Cutler did what Cutler does well, which is to mark people out of the midfield, Trembly did less well at what Kenny was doing, and even more poorly at providing a midfield outlet from the defense and pushing an attack forward. Kamler was a little better, but looked lost positionally through much of the game.

What this tells us is what we've known for some time...we can't play forever with Kenny as a stop-gap in the midfield, and we have to eventually find somebody more capable of contributing to the offense from that position; otherwise, we will continue to limit the ability of our other central midfielder(s) to run and create offense. The good news is that eventually, I believe Besagno will be the answer there...the bad news is that it's probably not next year...though I suspect we will see more of him next year.

Originally Posted by RSL1

Eddie Pope looked awfuly slow out there. At one point in the first half he dribbled out of the back and got completely stripped of the ball (cleanly) giving 1v1 to Dallas, but the referee fortunately called a foul. I imagine this foul was whistled out of respect for Eddie and his reputation - the referee likely can't imagine Eddie Pope making such a stupid decision let alone losing the ball there. He did. He also made some terrible decisions in the defensive third including standing like a tree and stepping out of the way on Mina's second goal.

While I think that the move to cut off a drop pass for Mina's second goal was certainly a questionable decision, the fact that Dunseth was marking a piece of grass 6 feet from Mina certainly didn't help matters any. We were defensively collapsed in the box and the one person unmarked is Mina standing 6 feet from the goal line? Of course, on the same play, DJ looked like he was stapled to the goal line, so I think there's enough blame to go around on that one. The one thing you didn't mention was how disorganized we looked in the back...especially in the second half. It's hardly the first time, and we had what is ostensibly our starting defense playing, I think it high time for Ellinger to address this problem...not from a personnel standpoint, but from a tactical standpoint. We gave up miles of space when we shouldn't have, and it led to a lot of confusion about who was and who wasn't marked. You mentioned Dunny's play elsewhere, his ability to contain Mina was non-existent. Dallas attacked obliquely a lot today, rather than posting through the center. I think this effectively nullified Dunny's main strength, which is his physical style of play and his lack of quickness was explosed.

Originally Posted by RSL1

Tarley looks like he could be a good strike partner for a more creative forward. He definitely needs to work on his receiving touch with his back to the goal. As a big forward, he has to learn this skill. Too many times he would check back to the ball and let his dead foot rebound it back towards the passer for three or four yards. I presume some of this is nerves and some not being used to the higher pressure MLS game. For that matter, he gets that one skill down and he'll be really helpful.

I actually thought Tarley made the most of it today...he looked dangerous on the ball when he had it. Unfortunately he had worse service than a homeless man at the Ritz Carleton today. I give him credit for hustling after some of the worst passes I've seen this year. I was impressed with his ability to get his head on the deflection which Jamie scored...he showed a great deal of agility for a 6'1" forward (is he really that tall? He doesn't look that tall in practice)

I really thought Scarlett was one of the silver linings in this match too. I really think his fast pushing style is something that our midfield needs to support, rather than decrease the frequency with which he does it. While he occasionally commits to a cross from the corner when we have too few people to cross to, he rarely pulls a Tiger, racing into the corner to face 2 and 3 defenders. His pace in midfield is something we need to utilize and find players to compliment.

I think we agree on cabrera as well, though I'll take issue with this one...

Originally Posted by RSL1

he should have shown much better discretion and timing on his challenges. The one that sticks out to me is when Mina entered the box and shook him one way to get a clean and uncontested shot off towardsthe far post. He needed to make a play on that and instead was waiting for Mina to make a move.

...I had much more of a problem when Mina was juking him out of his skin the few times that he did. I agree that he needs to time them better, but in the situation you mentioned, I thought he actually did what he was supposed to do...mostly. From the camera angle, I couldn't see if his position was good, but it looked like he was trying to take away the far post and force Mina toward a shot with a bad angle, while he waited for somebody to support on the inside. It looked like Mina would have really had to bend the hell out of that one to hit far post...he missed it by a few feet. I think that when Pierce gets healthy again, it would be nice to see him play more cental, I think his speed and quickness would be better utilized there...and of course it's where plays with Guatamala, so it would be more natural for him.

Originally Posted by RSL1

Gregorio looked like he had concrete in his boots. He didn't get involved and came out after 45. Not sure if he went out partying last night but the jury is still out on this kid because he did nothing in the time that he had.

While I'll agree that he did not have a stellar game, I think he actually had some nice posession play for about 20 minutes in the first half. Unfortunately we did very little with it. I think he's a bit out of place on the outside, I'd like to see him play at D-mid with Brown playing on the outside.

I haven't seen what Cila adds for us playing up front with Tarley, and as long as Jamie can continue to play a little less selfishly, I think he and Tarley could make a good combination up front. But unless Gregorio works out radically better than Cutler in the middle, I just can't get over the loss of Mathis today. It's a touchy subject with people, but take it for what it is...Mathis was more effective in the middle than Trembly and Kamler combined. We've played Andy there, we've played Kreis there...both were dismal...not Trembly and Kamler dismal, but far from an improvement over Mathis. From the teams perspective, they will do what they will do, but from the conversations I've had, I for one don't think the relationship between Mathis and the team is as strained as the relationship between Mathis and some frustrated fans.

So my hope is that even if the relationship is on the rocks, that we continue to play Mathis if for no other reason than that he takes a lot of pressure off of people around him, and if we're going to make a transition at D-mid, we need to have a talented player at A-mid. Furthermore, even if they plan to get rid of Mathis, they need to replace him with some talent, there's nobody on this team right now who can fill his shoes...accordingly, my line-up hopes would be experimenting with the following:

-------------------DJ
------------------Pope
Pierce(Akwari)---Cabrera---Broome

Williams-----Gregorio-----Mathis----Scarlett

-----Watson(Washington)-------Tarley

In the off season, I expect that, depending on Kreis' ability to recover, Mathis may find himself on thin ice, but for the life of me, I can't think of who we replace Mathis with that helps unless we can simultaneously address our D-mid issues. My guess is we'll also be shopping for better depth at outside defense.

Thanks for your great post, remember, this too is only opinion
...and you thought your post was long...
:wine:

[RSL1]

Heretic, I think I do actually agree with what you said on all parts! I didn't intentionally cut Mathis out from spite. I like the guy's game. I thought it was a foregone conclusion that he was done for the season. If I'm wrong then, yes, we do have to still use him.

As for that second goal with Pope, you are also correct. It was poorly defended by everyone and Mina was left entirely too open for an opposing player in the box.

[oussan]

Originally Posted by RSL1

I'm starting with Watson. Fine, he makes mistakes. BUT, it should be undeniable at this point that he creates dangerous opportunities for RSL in a way that nobody else can do on that team. Further, he's willing to get stuck in on bigger, tougher guys. This kid will be good if Ellinger shows him some faith and gives him a chance to prove himself over a series of games rather than moonlighting performances in matches where they're behind. Player of RSL starting 11 next year.

Ditto about Watson. He's young, he makes mistakes, but he also makes things happen, and plays with more heart than just about anyone. Also, Tarley just looked overwhelmed alone up there today. I say let Jamie start out front with Tarley. Let them build some chemistry. Let Jamie bring out that energy that he's famous for at the beginning of the match and let's see if we can't start forcing everyone else to play catch up with us for a change.

And bring on the cRapids!

[praxis]

i like the idea of watson and tarley out front with williams and brown making things happen for them (or making things happen for themselves).

[Scholesy]

Wow, I must say I disagree with much of what has been said, particularly regarding Trembly. Granted he made a mistake by getting a yellow with a silly 2nd tackle at Dallas' end of the pitch, but he did exactly what he was supposed to do during the entire game. His job was to mark O'Brien, nothing else, just mark him, don't lose him and he did just that. He marked O'Brien out of the game for the most part. He was certainly tired towards the end of the game, hello, he was man marking Ronnie freakin' O'Brien, one of the fastest and certainly one of the best players in MLS. Ronnie was not ver productive today and he gave props to Seth afterwards for doing such a good job.

2nd The 4-5-1. RSL only played that for the first half, they played a 3-4-3 for the 2nd half. I am not a huge fan of the 4-5-1, I think over all you have to be an exceptionally talented and very good team to play that successfully. I think we play better with a 4-3-3 or a 3-4-3 at a push.

Watson is certianly a talented player and did exceptionally well, two goals in two seperate games is great, let's not start putting on undue pressure on the lad yet, he is still growing, still learning. Next year I am sure he may be ready to be a regular in the first team.

3rd DJ was ... well ... I think 'stapeled to his line' is accurate.

4th Tarley was brilliant, he certainly tired out but then so did everyone, it was over 100 degrees there today, even the Dallas players looked tired, I thought almost if not as tired as our lads.

5th Mathis will be playing on Wednesday, he was off for a week he didn't join a monistary in Mongolia. He'll be here playing the rest of the games this season and then hey who knows what happens with our squad next year, let's wait and see.

Overall I am dissapointed with the overall performance and with the scoreline, dnot really in the mood to think of positives tonight.

[RSL1]

Originally Posted by Scholesy

Wow, I must say I disagree with much of what has been said, particularly regarding Trembly. Granted he made a mistake by getting a yellow with a silly 2nd tackle at Dallas' end of the pitch, but he did exactly what he was supposed to do during the entire game. His job was to mark O'Brien, nothing else, just mark him, don't lose him and he did just that. He marked O'Brien out of the game for the most part. He was certainly tired towards the end of the game, hello, he was man marking Ronnie freakin' O'Brien, one of the fastest and certainly one of the best players in MLS. Ronnie was not ver productive today and he gave props to Seth afterwards for doing such a good job.

The problem inherent with this response is that as a first division level you can't simply be one dimensional and be considered a positive factor. Fine, he was responsible for marking Ronnie O'B, but he did absolutely nothing to aid in building the attack, in fact he was a negative influence in that regard. Further, he had dumb fouls.

As per Tarley, I see lots of potential, but it's hard to say anyone on that field played brilliantly (aside from Mina or Nunez and Alvarez).

[clarette]

Having had some time to think about it, what irks me the most about yesterday's game is that it looks like RSL just wanted to get through that game, rather than trying to compete.

Obviously, trying to put together a midfield without Cleeeeetus, Kreis, or Andy Williams wasn't going to be easy, but throwing three mediocre defensive midfielders in the center wasn't EVER going to get us a win.

Tactically, it looks like we were just laying down for Dallas from the kickoff, and I think it showed in the way we played. We had no real attacking threat in the center to keep Dallas' midfield honest, so all they had to do was mark Tarley and send the ball right back down our throats.

I mean, the playoffs are but a distant dream at this point... why not take some chances and try to take the game to Dallas? We've been tactically conservative all year, and it hasn't really so much worked. Making the change at halftime was great and all, but it came 45 minutes too late, in my opinion.

[utah_heretic]

ok...having had some time to cool off...I feel better about the game.

FC Dallas is just flat out better than we are. I didn't expect us to win, I expected us to fight valiantly and create some dangerous opportunities. Maybe we could have had more effective transitions, and I'd have liked to see a few more opportunities to score, but I really think we accomplished most of what we tried for. Yes, we looked foolish on the second goal, and it irks me to no end that Mina was that open. It also bummed me out to see Dunny get smoked like that on the first goal, but the shot was definitely unstoppable at least from the perspective of DJ not having anticipated the play.

Everybody gave everything they had, evidenced by how badly they were dragging at the end of the game. This does bring up a point though. We haven't looked like the best conditioned team on the pitch during very many of our games this year. I also wonder if this has something to do with the number of injuries we've suffered this year. I hope this is something which gets addressed next year.

We will live to fight another day. Obviously I hope Real wins all their games, but when logic takes over, I'm aware that there are many games we don't match up well in. We will not be building a championship caliber team in the offseason, but I think it's reasonable to expect that we should be looking to build a team capable of going 500 or better. This is the acquisition and training goal we need to keep in mind with respect to next year I think. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, we just want to address obvious weaknesses and find ways to improve within our framework.

[RSL1]

It's funny that yesterday was being trumped up in the Guatemalan press to be a "Chapin Classico" between the teams of Ruiz and Cabrera. All the papers were covering it. This website is the fansite for Municipal, the former club of Ruiz and Pando and the fierce rival to Comunicaciones, where Cabrera played. Check out the intro page: www.rojomania.com ! It's great to see that the rival team could still support their players abroad.

BTW, all the papers that I read have something about RSL from yesterday's match, so certainly enhanced visibility in one corner of the world for our kids.

[RSL1]

Here's another newspaper clipping from the Guatemalan newspaper, Nuestro Diario.