Houston - Postmatch

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NYCFC draws Houston 1-1 in front of 10,165 in East Hartford, CT. An early goal from Maxi Moralez off a header brought NYCFC in the lead early. Then Houston, on a controversial illegal restart as the ball never came to a complete stop, leveled it 1-1. From there, Houston had the better chances in the second half until NYCFC turned it on late. Johnson came up with some big saves and NYCFC couldn't put the ball into the back of the net.

Maxi's Goal...

Illegal restart goal, notice the ball never comes to a complete stop...
 
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Actual game footage of Khiry Shelton
 
Positives:
-Maxi finally got his header
-Struna looked pretty good. Had some use going forward, and played pretty well defensively.
-Sean Johnson looked great again
-Was impressed by Sweat on defense
-Welcome back Ring. Saved our butts a lot

Negatives:
-Chapman. I won't argue we deserved to win that game, but he screwed us on two goals. And even if he didn't call the early PK because of Villa's angle and distance from goal, how the hell is he okay with Houston taking that free kick when that ball never stops rolling.
-Minus the quick shot in the 1st half that Deric saved, Villa looked off. And maybe some of that was that he rarely got the ball facing the goal, but more poor touches then I am used to from him. Also hope he is okay, cause I saw him grab at his leg a couple of minutes before the sub. He was spiriting afterwards, but it made me nervous
-Pirlo didn't really do anything positive that I can remember. Other then that weird run on the wing. But even his passes over the top kept going long. Can't wait til Herrera is back
-What the hell was Wallace doing on that shot that he skied over? Did I see it wrong and he shot with his right foot? He usually acts like his right food doesn't exist, so why choose to shoot it from there when Jack was right next to him.
-Final pass was lacking again
 
Positives:
-Maxi finally got his header
-Struna looked pretty good. Had some use going forward, and played pretty well defensively.
-Sean Johnson looked great again
-Was impressed by Sweat on defense
-Welcome back Ring. Saved our butts a lot

Negatives:
-Chapman. I won't argue we deserved to win that game, but he screwed us on two goals. And even if he didn't call the early PK because of Villa's angle and distance from goal, how the hell is he okay with Houston taking that free kick when that ball never stops rolling.
-Minus the quick shot in the 1st half that Deric saved, Villa looked off. And maybe some of that was that he rarely got the ball facing the goal, but more poor touches then I am used to from him. Also hope he is okay, cause I saw him grab at his leg a couple of minutes before the sub. He was spiriting afterwards, but it made me nervous
-Pirlo didn't really do anything positive that I can remember. Other then that weird run on the wing. But even his passes over the top kept going long. Can't wait til Herrera is back
-What the hell was Wallace doing on that shot that he skied over? Did I see it wrong and he shot with his right foot? He usually acts like his right food doesn't exist, so why choose to shoot it from there when Jack was right next to him.
-Final pass was lacking again

I didn't see the first half -- shouldn't that free kick been VARable?
 
I didn't see the first half -- shouldn't that free kick been VARable?
I thought any goal was VAR-able. From where I was, it looked like it got taken ahead of the foul and / or never stopped. I honestly think Chapman was sleeping at the wheel and then didn't wanna disallow a goal when he didn't see what happened.

The performance today was really rusty. We're trying to integrate a lot of key pieces again and it's not quite working. A pass was one touch too late in every line of our team, so we didn't move the ball quickly enough to catch Houston out of position. That and we suck at point blank headers.

I honestly don't get why we sub Shelton on at this point.

I was psyched to see Moralez playing as an inverted winger, but we needed Sweat to be even more aggressive up there because he can't hold the ball as long as Wallace can. But the delivery on both sides was mostly woeful, apart from the goal.

Would have loved to see a bit more effort from the club to thank the fans for coming out. Have the players do a lap at least. The most entertaining thing I heard from the club rep on the bus was when he told us to limit ourselves to primary and avoid secondary bodily functions while using the restroom. I saw Jon Stemp working the merch stand and he is supposed to the Chief Infrastructure Officer I think. All in all, it was a strange vibe.
 
I didn't see the first half -- shouldn't that free kick been VARable?

All goals are checked by video review. Now everything in the run of play up to the goal is reviewable. I guess the only question is whether an illegal restart is actually part of what can be checked? If not, then there's a problem with the system. If yes, we got fucked royally.
 
Well I made quick time home for a change :D and that's with stopping on the way to grab a slice of pizza.

Amazing how packed a parking lot can look when there's only 10 K people there.

Sticking to parking lot observations (I normally take metro North to the matches) you do get to notice some interesting stickers, banners, magnets etc. when attending a match in the US besides NYC and US Nats stuff and the normal world popular big clubs I noticed a sporting Club Portugal pennant and a guy with 1860 Munich stuff on his car. If anyone was made it and down and saw a car with a Marseille pennant and sticker besides 3 NYC stickers that would have been mine lol.

Don't have too many useful or relevant observations on the match itself. Like everyone can't believe we sub out Villa for Shelton in a tie match. I had fun but couldn't watch with my normal amount of observational detail because A) It was fucking hot as hell with no shade B) I was in with the Third Rail and Los Templados hats off to both groups I thought they did a good job of bringing some atmosphere but for me the trade off is that when I'm singing, dancing, jumping up and down etc. I can't really follow the movement of the ball, the runs, the passes etc. to a great degree.

OH and Mumsi 11 is Jack's Mom, are the guy and girl with her also in Harrison 11 kits Jack's siblings ? Don't mean to out myself as a perv as she might be dangerously young but Jack's sister is pretty hot if that's who that was.
 
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Honestly forgot Shelton even subbed on by the time the game was over. Asked myself at one point if we'd use our last sub.
Maybe 5 minutes before Allen was taken off I saw Sweat with what looked like knee or leg pain and he was hobbling. Wasn't making rhns to overlap with Wallace after that point. Yet we still sub Allen on and not Mata. I thought if you're going to take off struna do it for Okoli and go to a back 3 but it looked like PV was happy with a point. Especially when he took Villa off. didnt mind the Wallace sub he actually brought something to the game.
This felt like a loss to me.
 
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OH and Mumsi 11 is Jack's Mom, are the guy and girl with her also in Harrison 11 kits Jack's siblings ? Don't mean to out myself as a perv as she might be dangerously young but Jack's sister is pretty hot if that's who that was.

That was Jack's cousin, and her boyfriend. Visiting from England