General observations of the season...

RSL, UT · 09-28-2005, 04:10 PM

In trying to figure out what went wrong this year, here are my observations:

The majority of the players have not shown as much passion (read running to the ball, desire to win) as they need to. When the team is down two goals and no one is playing hard, there is a huge problem. Little to no urgency was shown when we got down. If anything I think this is a problem of poor leadership. Veterans (other than Kreis) need to get fired up and encourage others to do the same.

Discipline has also been very poor. We received way too many stupid red cards (Mathis, Dunseth, Williams, Watson). I'm willing to give Watson a little more slack because he is young, but it is still inexcusable. The team needs you on the field. I would group excessive complaining into this also. I don't care how horribly the game is being called, players need to keep their heads in the game. Instead of *****ing to the ref about a foul you committed, get back and mark a man. I also saw too much complaining to teammates. Williams flailing his arms every time he doesn't get passed the ball, Mathis yelling if he doesn't have 60% of our teams touches on the ball, all that crap.

Early in the year we lacked confidence in our forward line to score goals. Jason was our lone threat, and that hurt us a lot. Opposing defenses were not worried about us scoring goals, and I think our own team began to doubt whether or not we could score goals with consistency. The FO did a good job in getting Tarley, but that was too little too late to make a real push for the playoffs. Now that Jason is out, I see the same lack of confidence in our front line.

Goalkeeping has been average. DJ seems to come up with one beautiful save a game, but by the same token gives up one goal a game he shouldn't. He still looks to be struggling with being aggressive off his line, especially on crosses into the box. A goalkeeper needs to be decisive. DJ gets caught "in between" way too much. Personally I would have liked to have seen Nolly get more action mid-season, shake things up a little, maybe it gives us a confidence builder. Then again, when you can't score goals, it doesn't matter who is in goal.

If I had to pick one thing that hurt us this year, I think it was our lack of defensive pressure on the ball, especially in the midfield. We seem to drop back into a 6 man shell on the back line and allow midfielders/attacking defenders to penetrate without pressure. Oposing mids are given way too much time on the ball. They pick out the right pass, and get easy goals. It is easy to blame the back line for such errors, but I tend to think it was our midfielders who were more to blame. One huge problem there is that we have two midfielders in Mathis and Williams who are so offensive minded they decide to play defense 25% of the time (if you are lucky). If you have played competitive soccer, you know what kind of players they are: when they are on defense they are all of a sudden extremely winded and cannot get back quickly to defend. Then magically, once they get the ball or they start an attack, they find this burst of energy to run all the way to the opposing goal. I honestly don't care which one we get rid of, but at least must go IMO, if not both.

I have a hard time knowing how much of this to pin on the coaching staff. Ellinger sure seems to say the right things to the media. He always claims after the game that the weaknesses we showed were emphasized before the game began, leading me to believe the guys have just not stepped up. I think Ellinger has done a decent job. I can't say I understand his timing of substitues, etc. but that is just me. If the problem is indeed the players, I hope we can make the necessary changes to our roster and bring guys in that will listen to the coaching staff. I think we will be better next year, but I am by no means expecting us to battle for the Cup. If guys play hard and show that they want to win on the field I will be happy.

Please chime in with your thoughts

rslfan · 09-28-2005, 05:26 PM

A lot of what you say is true in IMO with the exception of the red cards..You need to check your facts again. Mathis missed numerous games due to red or yellow cards and his week of who really know what happened suspension. Williams missed several games due to red and yellow card suspensions, and in fact is out this weeks game along with Dunseth iwho i s out again for red cards. Watson missed one game due to red card which was questionable for "checking the boards' which if I believe in a game after that another RSL player did the same and didn't carded for it. Watson is a rookie .H e has by far had more passion than anyone on the team and brings something to field each game. Be careful about putting players in the same catagory as other players. The veterans players should be better examples for the younger players.

RSL, UT · 09-28-2005, 06:04 PM

I'm unclear as to where you disagree with me. I'm saying that our veterans should be smarter and not get those cards because they hurt the team missing so many games.

neophyte · 09-28-2005, 06:16 PM

I agree on the lack of midfield defensive pressure. One other frustration that I've felt all season long is how slow our counterattack is, and our constant habit of passing the ball back and around to the other wing without people doing anything to find an open space or make a run. That strategy has been pretty easy to defend against. Even if the strikers are making runs, there is such a big gap between the defense and the forwards that all they can try is the long ball over the top, which doesn't work when our forwards are 5'8" and can't get over the back line (Columbus game a classic example-- those guys were huge). Which again points to the midfield, only this time on the offensive side of the game. I think Cabrera's and Scarlett's runs up the wing have helped out some in the past few games.

Dadof3 · 09-29-2005, 08:30 AM

Tactical issues aside, I think the results of this season were determined the moment RSL (Ellinger) chose to take a chance on Mathis. They hoped that, by reuniting Clint with a coach he liked, the old Mathis (you know...the good one) would re-emerge. It should come as no suprise that this team has gotten progressively worse emotionally as the season has gone on...because Mathis has gotten worse and worse as the season has rolled on.

No marking defensively in the midfield...Mathis...lack of leadership on the field and in the locker-room...Mathis...(with some blame going to the other vets who were unable to overcome Clint's negative influence)...lack of $$ to spend to get better talent...the $ went to Mathis.

In no way should Ellinger get a free pass on this choice either. He knew that Mathis and Williams play the same position the same way. Everyone knew of Mathis's past problems both emotionally and physically. Everyone saw, as the season went on, that Mathis and Williams cannot coexist on the field without leaving HUGE holes...yet Ellinger has never fixed the problem. He rolled the dice...and now has a team that is an emotional mess.

I also concur that the other vets should have stepped up a long time ago and nipped the lack of effort and locker room problems in the bud. Pope was away and injured...but what about Kreis. I know he is kind of quiet, but someone needed to take Mathis to task a lot earlier than 2 weeks ago.

In a way, it is extremely hard to evaluate some of these players because they are playing in a difficult team environment. I do basically agree with most of the opinions, and do believe that we can upgrade over Dunseth.

Last...anyone suprised that this team has appeared to lack bite ever since Pierce went out broken? He was probably our MVP for the first 2 months of the season. Somehow I think that, if he was playing, he may have been able to help the team overcome the negative influence.

SoccerPrime · 09-29-2005, 11:16 AM

One thing thats bothered me (well besides Mathis etc) is that the other two leaders on our team, Pope and Kreis are the quiet dignified types. Yes there is definately virtues to those type of personalities (those are the types you want to date your daughters) but they are not the right type of leadership for a MLS squad especially when you have to cover someone like Mathis.

I am sure many would disagree with me, but I think Franchino of the Revs and Barret of the Quakes are excellent captains for their squads. Perform their job, hussle all game and scream their heads off at other players to get them motivated.

RSL did not have that this year.

RSL, UT · 10-06-2005, 02:20 PM

I have to agree with you Prime, we have definitely lacked another outspoken leader out there, or at least a positive one. In the post game show last night they discussed at length Mathis and his treatment of Tarley after he made a mistake. Instead of encouraging him to do better he yells at Tarley and it seemed that he was never the same...he was tentative the rest of the half. I just think Mathis has too strong a personality for another team leader to override him. The more I think about it, the more I don't want Mathis back next year.

Scarecrow · 10-06-2005, 04:45 PM

i agree with what everyone has said, especially the comments about mathis. i think that he has to go. his attitude has been a huge factor in tearing this team apart. Not only has his attitude hurt us immensly but his salary has hurt us too. he has to go. i do not think he has come close to earning his salary and he has ridden everyone of his teamates so hard that i would be amazed if they have any confidence at all being on the field with him.

i aslo feel that ellinger has not done a good job. maybe it would have been a completely different story without mathis in the picture but that is ellinger had and he did not do a good job this year. in the game against DC i could not believe how much better DC looked than us (mostly in the second half). It just looked like they were much better coached. it was also amazing to me how much faster DC's counter-attack was than ours. I felt that we had many great chances for counter-attacks in the first half but our guys seemed like they didnt know what to do with the ball. Maybe they just didnt know what clint wanted them to do with the ball, so they didnt do anything.

Maybe ellinger's problem was that he was too buddy-buddy with all of his players. maybe ellinger needed better assistants. i personally dont think chris agnello (spelling) is really that great of a coach.

now that the season has ended (pretty much), i think that both clint and ellinger have to go.

prk166 · 10-07-2005, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSL, UT

I have to agree with you Prime, we have definitely lacked another outspoken leader out there, or at least a positive one. In the post game show last night they discussed at length Mathis and his treatment of Tarley after he made a mistake. Instead of encouraging him to do better he yells at Tarley and it seemed that he was never the same...he was tentative the rest of the half. I just think Mathis has too strong a personality for another team leader to override him. The more I think about it, the more I don't want Mathis back next year.

And it's not just Tarley. For me what killed off a lot of respect for Clint for me was sittingi nt eh stands at the USOC game against the Thunder and right in front of me hearing Clint going off on Kries and swearing up a storm in the process. I don't mind this hear and there but Clint put more into complaining during the match than he does the game itself.

neophyte · 10-07-2005, 06:37 PM

I haven't stooped to whining all season long, but about 50:00 in the DC game something snapped. I've been an annoyingly loyal and energetic RSL fan/missionary all season long, I've given them way too much of my money on tickets, merchandise, etc. And until Wed night, I didn't regret any of it. But I'm sick of watching a lame effort from players who've been doing this for years, who get paid to do it, and who know how to do it well if they would just try. I admit I don't know what it's like in their locker room, and I'm sure it is a real drag to lose week after week, but they are the ones that can do something about it! As much as we want to wish and hope and cheer and wave flags and buy bumper stickers, these games are lost on the field halfway through the games when our players go into to give up mode and stop running. I think that the players and coaching staff have squandered an enormous amount of fan and community excitement and goodwill and media coverage that would be the envy of any market in MLS, and I think the FO (who have also had a part in the squanderage by letting it continue) will have some hard questions to ask and answer in the off season.
Two scenes summed up my frustration Wednesday-- they aren't the worst examples, they're just highly typical of what we've seen most of the season:
1-- A winger passes up the wing then watches to see what will happen, instead of moving farther up the wing for a 1-2 or finding an open space
2-- with ten minutes to go and trailing by 2 goals (or was it still 3?), we have seven players essentially playing defense, and three attacking
I'm still pretty new to soccer (thus the name, neophyte) and maybe I'm way off base here-- those of you who actually know what you're talking about, feel free to set me straight, really. But I know that this isn't the soccer we saw early on (before the scoring drought) and it isn't what I bought season tickets to see. I'm giving it another year, but I'm not sure that we'll be seeing crowds of 18K anymore unless things change.