Seattle - Postmatch

NYCFC_Dan

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Mar 17, 2014
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Hurts to lose against this Seattle squad but we definitely didn’t put out a winning lineup.
Was able to watch the first half at work and we couldn’t get anything going. I’m sure the second half wasn’t much different. Get it to their box and everything breaks down.
A win today would of put us 5 points clear of 3rd. Still, to have won the last 4 matches with the personnel we had is huge. Hopefully with Villa?, Isi and Ring back we can make another run now.

Will have the next match thread up after work.
 
Painful to watch.....

Ofori, Maxi and Tinny looked gassed early.

If Awuah is good, he needs more minutes to get used to the speed of the match, because he’s not there yet. Not sure if he’ll ever get there if this is an indication, but I couldn’t tell him apart from ofori.

Mata is not good.

Medina misses more sitters than anybody we’ve ever had. That goal was harder to score than the earlier one he missed. Still not impressed with him and it’s time to sit him for a while.

Isi looked rusty and not comfortable on plastic.

The pairing of Ofori/Awuah had few ideas and never seemed that potent even in the first few minutes.

For those blaming Sweat on the first/third goals, the first was picked up by an unmarked guy that should have had either Ofori/Awuah on him. The third was scored when Medina flat out stopped marking Shipp.

The second goal was by a guy unmarked and the responsibility of the Ofori/Awuah twins- no idea which guy was playing right side/left side.

Really want to know why VAR didn’t give a Red for the head to head contact on Lewis outside of the field of play - the Seattle player was riding him out of bounds, hell he kinda threw him down, and then went and made contact. While not a violent display of contact, that’s a red every time.

Glad Berget finally got an assist, and Lewis sprung him.

Not sure why we weren’t starting guys more familiar with the playing surface like Lewis and Sands. It was obvious a lot of guys were constantly misjudging their passes. Sands was the real baffling one - he would have had fresh legs and some height - and what’s the point of having HG players if they never see the field???

Back to Lewis..... the kid needs to start. He makes stuff happen every match, but in 30min he can only get so many touches. Start him and triple that amount.

With Villa injured, Maxi looking tired and assuredly not 100% (or even 80%) from last games tackle, and Medina trying to beat two people with toe pokes (yes he scored but also missed he sitter and let his man score), we’re a team that played a match that looked like we had no DPs. That’s a recipe for a loss and after about 25-30min we never looked like we were gonna be dangerous. Bad cross-country trap game.
 
Hard to be mad or upset considering the circumstances. Yes we need the 3 points, or at least 1, for the Shield, but no Ring, no Villa, and a rusty ITS, on short rest, cross country trip was asking a lot.

And I didn’t think we played poorly. Didn’t play particularly great either, but was nice to be at 2-1 and expect that we could tie the game up.

Thought Awuah showed pretty well.

Medina has the talent, but he makes decisions too slowly, and therefore often gets into double teams l
 
Schedule loss.

Medina needs to improve his physicality and aggressiveness.

Sweat needs to find a new role as a backup or a new team. After two fairly strong games, he’s back to Sweat’ing everything up all the time. I can live with him as depth, but he’s not good enough to start for us.

Cut the check for a new lb now.

We suck without Ring. Our only chance was to go balls out. We tried to split the difference with Awuah and Ofori. Neither were bad, but they just aren’t disruptive. Our better option would have been to attack full bore. Seattle has no pace.
 
One more thing to add....

Wallace losing the throw in from Lewis and then telling him to settle down/slow down was laughable. Wallace is the worst forward on the team (I’m not counting TMac or Mata) and hasn’t scored in over a year despite tons of playing time, and he’s telling our spark plug what to do is pathetic and indicative that he can’t play at the same speed (which he can’t).

Once Valentin gets his visa, I’ll be surprised if Wallace sees the field. He shouldn’t.
 
A difficult win on Thursday, followed by the longest trip in MLS for another game 3 days later -- this was never going to end well. And with the amount of injuries we've had and our lack of depth right now, that just made the task that much tougher.

Don't think we can take much out of this game. Next five weeks are going to be huge. Some winnable road games and a bunch of home games in there. Take care of business and put some pressure on Atlanta.
 
Our better option would have been to attack full bore. Seattle has no pace.

Ref let them hold everyone of our runners, at least he was consistent but he established early on often he wasn't planning to call any holding. Really benefited Seattle and covered for all of their slow guys.

Everyone looks gassed. Berget played hard and caused a ton of turnovers in the press which Medina wasted just like he does one of our DP spots. My expectations for Awuah were super low but I thought he was more poised than expected, still has a considerable ways to go but he looked considerably better today than he has in the past. Ibeagha is fine in defense but we miss Chanot's passing and balls skills badly when going forward. Ibeagha and Awuah both play only the simple pass as soon as possible, I get it, but things are just too predictable when 2 of your guys still have the training wheels on and are going to pass sideways or back only. Mata is frustrating, he has the speed and ball skills to be amazing but he makes so many mental mistakes, terrible passes on offense and no focus at all on defense.
 
There was a graphic at the start of the game that in the history of MLS of the 36 times a team played on the Atlantic/Pacific coast and then had to play on the opposite coast 3 days later only twice did a team take 6 points.

Make that 37.
 
Kwame didn't look out of place. Ofori's getting more confident in his passing. Berget is healthy and showed some versatility. Medina got better looks at goal than ever. Mata and Isi are back in the rotation and Lewis is earning regular minutes. Maxi is immune to age and fatigue. Sweat can apparently fill in at right back. Ring won't be suspended again for a while, and pretty soon we'll have Villa and the summer reinforcements.

The schedule is trash but we've got two weeks off in October to get healthy for the playoffs. We're in the thick of the Shield race. The next game is an easy one at home. And we've still got the best coach in the league.
 
There was a graphic at the start of the game that in the history of MLS of the 36 times a team played on the Atlantic/Pacific coast and then had to play on the opposite coast 3 days later only twice did a team take 6 points.

Make that 37.
I don’t understand the scheduling - I have no issue with a 3 day turn around if that is what the TV schedule dictates, but why do cross-country schedules rather than same-conference matches??? I find it impossible to believe Orlando and NYCFC couldn’t have played an eastern opponent today with a few flips of dates. Make the cross country matches be on single game weeks so travel isn’t a joke.
 
I don’t understand the scheduling - I have no issue with a 3 day turn around if that is what the TV schedule dictates, but why do cross-country schedules rather than same-conference matches??? I find it impossible to believe Orlando and NYCFC couldn’t have played an eastern opponent today with a few flips of dates. Make the cross country matches be on single game weeks so travel isn’t a joke.

Or keep us on the West coast with a Wednesday SJ or LA away match before the Seattle match. I sure as hell hope it wasn’t because they wanted the NYC-Orlando ‘rivalry’ on Thursday night.
 
Or keep us on the West coast with a Wednesday SJ or LA away match before the Seattle match. I sure as hell hope it wasn’t because they wanted the NYC-Orlando ‘rivalry’ on Thursday night.
The fact that the shitty scheduling has happened so infrequently in the 22 year history of MLS (think about all the rescheduling, etc. where it might have to happen and the fact that with fewer teams it was harder to avoid) tells me it was ESPN driven, but also because we give MLS the toughest scheduling challenge with our extensive Yankee blackout days. ESPN wants to show NYCFC on their MLS telecasts in stadiums with great atmospheres, not the Rapids.
 
Just sucks if this screws us in playoff positioning in the long run. Sadly the first match I was able to see in it's entirety in awhile. Felt like a waste of time.
 
The fact that the shitty scheduling has happened so infrequently in the 22 year history of MLS (think about all the rescheduling, etc. where it might have to happen and the fact that with fewer teams it was harder to avoid) tells me it was ESPN driven, but also because we give MLS the toughest scheduling challenge with our extensive Yankee blackout days. ESPN wants to show NYCFC on their MLS telecasts in stadiums with great atmospheres, not the Rapids.

Oh, I think ESPN wanted the MLS Cup finalists playing NYC in a packed Century Link for Sunday 5pm. But why @ Orlando for Thursday? I’m worried it wasn’t about stadium atmosphere as much as the manufactured rivalry some executives bought into. We have away matches at POR, SJ & LA this year. Even a Midwest match like CHI would have made more sense. My only hope is Orlando just sucks so bad over the next few years, no one wants to waste a prime time matchup vs NYC on them anymore and they schedule someone else.
 
Ugh, well, I flew from Orlando to Seattle to see both games. I didn’t play, but going from the southeast to the northwest makes one tired. It was a warm and sunny field on the turf in Seattle. There’s a tweet of the expected goals. We won 2.2 to 0.6,which means we didn’t finish our chances and Seattle scored some bangers and or got lucky. Getting lucky means you create your luck by doing well. Get to the ball and hustle to defender in the 18 yard box doesn’t lead to Roldan’s or Shipp’s goal.

I first blame the schedulers for this one. But it’s sports and everyone has to still with some crazy travel interary every season. Can’t really blame any individual on the rest, it was a team effort that was a letdown.

Had some great food in Seattle. Will try to forgot about this as soon as possible and try not to think about it. Getting a result here was needed to catch Atlanta for the Supporters Shield and the CCL spot.

Back to New York. Win the next game. Pretty pineapples grown again soon. Trust in Dome. Continue on.
 

I'm surprised MLS hasn't picked up travel partners, similar to what a lot of college athletic conferences have.

Mid-week games are obviously inevitable (and are quite fun for people who follow the league), but why not a Wednesday in Portland and a Sunday in Seattle? It'd make awesome road trips for fans, cut down significantly on travel costs, be better for players dealing with our cross country flights, squash some of the charter flight issues, etc.

Cross-country trips would be so much easier to swallow for everyone if you could knock out Philly and DC/Orlando and ATL/Dallas and Houston/etc in one trip instead of having to waste multiple days in aiports and on airplanes for multiple cross-country games.
 
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