Sunday, July 18, 2004
Same Old Story
The Crew delivered another dose of Mochaberry Latte Soccer (trademarked to Scott Tann) in a depressing, walk-in-the-park 1-1 draw against New England. The frustration from this writer's perch just below that of telling your five-year-old over-and-over to pick up their toys and wash their hands and look both ways before crossing the street. Despite one great move, the Crew got whooped and reneged on a chance to move forward in the Eastern Conference race (thankfully, the rest of the East is playing crap football at the moment). The recap:
*Denton got pulled! Fozzie finally made a good decision by getting Eric Denton out of the game in favor of Chris Wingert once it became apparent that Baker and to a greater extent Ralston were kicking his backside all over the pitch in the first 25 minutes. Nevermind that it is after the substitution that those two hooked up on a play to set Dempsey free for the opening score (due primarily to Jeffro's lack of desire to forecheck Ralston once the ball got back to him), but this move has been long overdue. But Andrulis still has...
*NO CLUE! The subs at the end of the game were highly-questionable. Lagos for Cunningham followed by Ritch for Buddle might look OK on the surface if we had another player on the field who could be pushed up to the striker position, but together this was dumb. Either straight-up subbing if Jeffro/Edson were gassed (Scott or Testo instead of Lagos) or pull one of the central midfielders at the end and leave Buddle on the field. This requires the coach to have his team with...
*Attitude! And sadly, the Hunt Park side has none. Ties at home are an acceptable result?!?! As the illustrous Doctor Chuck stated, the value of 3 points over that of one is immense enough that a team in this league SHOULD be trying to win a lot more often than they do because the pay-off of 1-1-0 is better than that of 0-0-2 in the table.
*MEDIOCRE! At the end of the day, the Crew are just that, mediocre. At the halfway point, we stand on 5 wins, 5 losses, and 5 ties. Bland, unimaginative, head-above-water-but-not-swimming. But hey, at least Big Greg can say his team is in a playoff position with two games in hand on the rest of the conference and have results from 2/3 of their matches. And that is what we are left with, a team that desires nothing more than a playoff appearance. PLAIN SAD!
*Denton got pulled! Fozzie finally made a good decision by getting Eric Denton out of the game in favor of Chris Wingert once it became apparent that Baker and to a greater extent Ralston were kicking his backside all over the pitch in the first 25 minutes. Nevermind that it is after the substitution that those two hooked up on a play to set Dempsey free for the opening score (due primarily to Jeffro's lack of desire to forecheck Ralston once the ball got back to him), but this move has been long overdue. But Andrulis still has...
*NO CLUE! The subs at the end of the game were highly-questionable. Lagos for Cunningham followed by Ritch for Buddle might look OK on the surface if we had another player on the field who could be pushed up to the striker position, but together this was dumb. Either straight-up subbing if Jeffro/Edson were gassed (Scott or Testo instead of Lagos) or pull one of the central midfielders at the end and leave Buddle on the field. This requires the coach to have his team with...
*Attitude! And sadly, the Hunt Park side has none. Ties at home are an acceptable result?!?! As the illustrous Doctor Chuck stated, the value of 3 points over that of one is immense enough that a team in this league SHOULD be trying to win a lot more often than they do because the pay-off of 1-1-0 is better than that of 0-0-2 in the table.
*MEDIOCRE! At the end of the day, the Crew are just that, mediocre. At the halfway point, we stand on 5 wins, 5 losses, and 5 ties. Bland, unimaginative, head-above-water-but-not-swimming. But hey, at least Big Greg can say his team is in a playoff position with two games in hand on the rest of the conference and have results from 2/3 of their matches. And that is what we are left with, a team that desires nothing more than a playoff appearance. PLAIN SAD!
# posted by The Armchair Pundit @ 7:20 AM 
